The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1912-02-24
NEW WORKERS
STUDY THE
TURKEY TRO7

NEW YORK, January 3O.-When
Mrs. Charles Henry Israels Commit
tee on Amusement and Vacation Re
sources for Working Girls found in
the course of its watch on the dance
halls of New York that II was neces-
sary to strike out all the potter forms
of turkey trot" and grizzly bear
dancing, it urged that there be estab-
lished some standard Of decency in
social dancing.
What is good and what is bad?
What was the answer for the working
girl when she protested that every
one was dancing the turkey trot?'
Was it all a confusion in terms?
To the end that these questions
might be answered, and that the
standard should begin to take form,
the committee at its annual meeting
today held a conference in the ball
room at Delmonico's, where those in
vited might see and learn and, per
haps, set their own Standards
To this conference there was in
vited a most varied audience of 500
men and women, folk prominent in
the social life of New York-settle-
ment workers and city officials, cler-
gymen, magazine writer's, artists, Lii
cense Bureau inspectors. and city of
ficials. This variety was sought in
the hope that the ideas gained in the
conference might radiate to many cen
tiers of influence.
The point brought out seemed to be
that while the dance variants might
be very prettily and properly per
formed, they were distinguished only
by a series of imperceptible grada-
/ tions from their, indecent origins, and
that for the dances to develop toward
/ their uglier extremes was so easy as
to be inevitable. That was the evolu.
ton, according to Professor Duryea, a
teacher of dancing. Right here on
Fifth avenue | have seen it change In
the course of the evening" he said.
Then he and Mrs Duryea showed
the development of one evening in the
turkey trot," with its Objectionable
possibilities. When Mrs. Israels asked
how many had seen that very thing
done in the dance halls, 100 hands
went up. Professor Duryea seemed t.
believe that there was no safety il
? anything that departed from the cor
, rect position" as in the impessabl,
waltz.
As a final contribution to the con
d ferences, Professor Duryea signaled t
the pianist, and away they went il
q the Gaby glide" with the dance a
= its worst. A faintly-suppresse rip
q pie of laughter could be heard as tn,
movements were intensified.
AL Jolson and Florence Gable, of tn,
Winter Garden, explained in the vel
nacular, and exhibited the variation
of current dances as emphasized be
hind the footlights and indicating
their origin.
Jolson said he picked up the art a
he saw it on the infamous "Barbar,
Coast" of San Francisco, where h.
used to sell papers as a boy.
IT'S all the same dance" he said
call it turkey trot, or bunny hug
as you will. Stripped of the variation
all the new variants drop into the on
thing. There, in those fifteen o
twenty dance halls, thriving as the
did on the patronage of the hall
drunken sailors of that port, the dane
was born.
Dr. Henry Moskowitz concluded tn
conference by insisting that the con
mittee was no society for the SUI
preston of vice, but one dedicated t
the big task of finding places wher
the buoyant spirits of those VIII
work to exist and live in their play
may find expression.