Society Dancing in England, 1870-1920

The primary aim of this project is to complete a book manuscript for publication on the changing roles and contexts for recreational dancing within English upper and middle class society at the turn of the nineteeth and twentieth centuries. Three international presentations will also be produced as part of the process of re-drafting chapters.Bringing together original source material such as dance manuals, newspaper reports, personal reminiscences and visual illustrations, the book will address issues of social distinction through body styles and movement during a classic period of modernity. Controversies of gender, class and race in dance will be examined in reponses to the decline of the English aristocracy, increasing American cultural influence, and processes of professionalisation and feminisation in dance. Implications for the later practice of dance historiography will also be considered in relation to the tightening demarcation between social and theatrical dance practices.