It’s a bit humorous in today’s fast paced world to think that the waltz was ever considered “scandalous”.
The waltz was first introduced in Vienna in the late 1700’s as one of the first dances where couples faced, and held, each other in a “closed” position. Until this point, most of the dances were orchestrated group affairs; the “closed position” had been reserved for married couples.
The waltz started to gain momentum and popularity in the 1810-20’s. Many where shocked by the “closed position” of the couples and often referred to it as being “riotous and indecent” well into 1825. At that point, it started to become widely accepted, blazing the trail for the creation of many other ballroom dances.
Many times when we’re faced with change; our first thoughts may not be ‘riotous’, ‘indecent’, or ‘scandalous’, but instead might be, ‘it’s not broken’, ‘the process works just fine’, ‘we don’t need change’. But so often we find, that when we take it all in and open ourselves to the benefits of the change … we realize, it was much needed and makes for a nice new ‘dance’ step in our day.
