This is one of a large collection of films from Doncaster Movie Makers.  Originally they were called the Doncaster Ciné Guild, or Club, becoming the Doncaster Movie Makers in 1990, and today known as the Doncaster Movie Makers Camcorder Club.   The Club was founded in 1953, but most of the films that have been donated to the YFA are from the 1960s and 1970s. Initially they met at the Doncaster YMCA, but by the early 1970s they were meeting in Warmsworth, above a private house garage, and then...

This is one of a large collection of films from Doncaster Movie Makers.  Originally they were called the Doncaster Ciné Guild, or Club, becoming the Doncaster Movie Makers in 1990, and today known as the Doncaster Movie Makers Camcorder Club.   The Club was founded in 1953, but most of the films that have been donated to the YFA are from the 1960s and 1970s. Initially they met at the Doncaster YMCA, but by the early 1970s they were meeting in Warmsworth, above a private house garage, and then later meeting in local authority buildings in Balby and in Ellers Road, Intake. The Club is still going, meeting at Flintwood Methodist Church, Intake, and still enters competitions with other local cine clubs.

The Club has always put on film shows at its meeting places. At the time of this film the Chairman was Gordon Kirton, although it isn’t known exactly who it was behind the camera for Take Your Partners. Nor is it known what the occasion was; possibly the annual dinner and dance of the Club itself which would have had about 40 members.   The John Fowler Olde Tyme Dance band seems also to have disappeared into the mists of time.

Bentley Pavilion itself is an interesting building, although, unfortunately, the film does not show the outside. The money for the Pavilion was raised by the Miners' Welfare committee, deducting one penny from the wages of each miner.   It was opened in 1931 as the primary civic building in the community.   What makes it of special interest is that it was made from reinforced concrete construction, a material popular with the modernist movement in architecture of the first half of the twentieth century. According to the Friends of Bentley Pavilion (and Doncaster Council website) the only other known early example of this type of material build is the Pavilion Suisse, of the University of Paris. This was built the following year, designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. However, it does not seem to have many other characteristics of Le Corbusier. The connection claimed is through the French contractor Francois Hennebique, who had set up an engineering company in Yorkshire and who pioneered the use of reinforced concrete going back to 1879.

Judging from this film dancing was still a popular pastime in the 1960s. Ballroom dance clubs, with their sprung dance floors, sprang up all over the country before the war. In the immediate post-war period these attracted many thousands of ordinary working class people into the world of dance, and it was at its height in the 1950s. It was through the dance halls that big bands like those of Ted Heath, Jack Parnell and Joe Loss made their names.   These were inspired by the swing bands of the US, such as Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and of course the great Duke Ellington; having their roots in the hot jazz of the 1920s, led by Louis Armstrong. 

David Kynaston cites the claim of Economist that dancing was the second most popular form of entertainment in 1953, with annual admissions to dance halls of around 200 million (some way behind going to the cinema). These dancers were mostly young, falling away dramatically as people got married. Even so, it remained popular with the older generation, as this film testifies. One of the great things about dance is that it knows no age limits.

The commentary, happily, informs us what the various dances are. Frank Short’s 1956 Mayfair Quick Step is a typical sequence dance, where all couples make their steps in unison.  Sequence dance encompasses most traditional dances, like courtly and country dances, but took on many new forms with the expansion of ballroom dancing in the early part of the 20th century, with couples beginning to move independently and embracing many of the new dance fads of the 1920s and 1930s originating in the black rhythms of ragtime and jazz – such as the foxtrot.  The British Sequence Dance Championships have been held annually at the Empress Ballroom, Winter Gardens, Blackpool since 1949. It was given a boost by the TV programme Come Dancing, which was broadcast by the BBC, beginning in 1949, from amateur dances around the country. In 1953 it concentrated on the competition for the Come Dancing trophy. But well before this the BBC was broadcasting dancing lessons and dance music on the radio in a show called the 'BBC Dancing Club', with lessons by Victor Silvester, and music provided by his Dance Orchestra. 

Important in the crossover with freer styles were the pioneers Vernon and Irene Castle who broke many taboos. There has been a huge proliferation of dance styles and names ever since; which explains the mystery of some of the dances in this film – the Solway Saunter, whispering waltz, moonlight waltz, the friendly waltz progressive, the silhouette quick step and the Nigella Blues progressive. As the title suggests, the ‘Ladies Excuse-me’ dance allows another lady to come up and butt in – somewhat dated now! It also inspired a women’s jazz orchestra calling themselves ‘Ladies Excuse-me’, with Andrea Vicari on piano.

The main dance on show in the film is a variation on the waltz; a dance that originated in German folk dance before being taken over, like so many dances, by fashionable society. It was perhaps the first dance in high society to allow for any real close contact between the dancers; taking some time before it become respectable – even Lord Byron regarded it as ‘lewd’.   In this regard it may be taken as the first step towards the eventual breakdown of fixed forms. However, it was in dancing the waltz that Victor Silvester won the first World Ballroom Dancing Championship in 1922. From there he went on to become founding member of the Ballroom Committee of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing which codified the theory and practice of Ballroom Dance – now known as the International Style – and published the first book embodying the new standards in 1928, Modern Ballroom Dancing. No doubt where Len Goodman and Craig Revel Horwood get their technical know-how from!

Dance of one kind or other remains hugely popular, and much music almost forces one to get up and dance to it. But unfortunately many of the old dance halls have gone or no longer function as such. As Ray Davis laments in Come Dancing: ‘The day they knocked down the Palais, Part of her childhood died, just died’. But this film is a demonstration of his final refrain: ‘Don't be afraid to come dancing, It's only natural’.

(With thanks to Marc Seccombe of Doncaster Movie Makers Camcorder Club.)

References

Peter Buckman, Let’s Dance: social, ballroom and folk dancing, Paddington Press, London, 1979.

David Kynaston, Family Britain: 1951-57, Bloomsbury, London, 2009.

Friends of Bentley Pavilion, Facebook

Victor Silvester