The Waltz in the late 18th - early 19th century: styles, use and techniques
(Maria Derkach and Dmitry Filimonov)

The study of a German turning dance (which appeared as Deutscher, Dreher, Länderer, Waltzer and under many other names) in the first half of the 18th century is not that easy to fulfil because in Germany it was considered not that appropriate for a ballroom in comparison with French dances. Dancing masters became more tolerant towards this dance in the second half of the 18th century and even started to include it into other dance forms. Still there are no clear German descriptions of the techniques of this dance. The situation changes right on the turn of the century. After 1800 lots of German sources appear, which are quite unanimous in describing three types of turning dances: slow turning, quick turning and jumping turning, though their names may differ from source to source. The latter type seems to mix with the second one and evolves in 1820s into a huge variety of "hops" waltzes. As to the first one, the descriptions remain the same.

Knowing the situation in the first third of the 19th century we can try to find descriptions of the 18th century turning techniques. No wonder that German authors didn’t describe their own national dance, as everybody at that time knew how to dance it. Luckily for us there was a French choreographer Brives, who described 4 techniques of «Valx»: one French and three German ones.

The relationship between waltz techniques in 1800s and in 1820s gives food for thought and casts doubts on the modern reconstruction of the French slow waltz based on the description by Thomas Wilson. We can also find the source for Wilson’s arm positions by comparing this English treatise to German dance books of the early 19th century.

Maria Derkach, Moskau, Russland:

Graduated from Kaluga Dance College in 1998, Maria Derkach began to study historical dances in 2005. Now Maria is one of the leaders of the "Golden Forests" early dance school and teaches classes of different levels on various topics from Baroque to XIX century social dancing. She gave classes all over Russia as well as in Ukraine and Belarus. Currently Maria's main interest is German and Russian dancing culture in the first third of the XIX century.

Dmitry Filimonov, Moskau, Russland:

Dmitry Filimonov started his dancing career in 1993 as a competitive dancer and came to early dances in 2002. He teaches historical dance in the “Golden Forests” dance studio (a co-leader of the studio). He is head of the historical dance research seminar in Moscow. Dmitry gave lectures at many international conferences and has published several articles on early dance topics from 16th to 19th century.