Kaminsky, David. “Waltzing: The Development and Social Politics of Progressive Rotation.“ Dance Chronicle 49, no. 1 (2026): 148–171.

URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/01472526.2026.2619802?needAccess=true (Open Access)


Abstract:
This article offers a hypothesis about the provenance of progressive rotation in social partner dancing and an argument about its sociohistorical significance. In seventeenth-century Europe, a widespread practice was attaching aristocratic processional “fore-dances” to energetic peasant-like “after-dances,” some of which involved couples turning in place around a shared center of gravity. In the eighteenth century, these two formats started merging, so that the couple’s turn was adapted to the processional’s circular track. This disciplining of peasant dance practices to aristocratic norms, and the associated increased male control over female bodies, helped establish waltzing as a symbol of the bourgeoisie’s ascendancy.