Victorian Era Couple Dances

When I invited friends over for what they thought was going to be a movie and pizza night, but was in actuality--tee-hee-hee--a guinea pig test for the latest effort from Dancetime Publications, the results, I must say, were worse than a drunken game of Twister (but I think that had more to do with my small living room than the quality of the video). Host Carol Téten draws on her 40 years of experience as a teacher, choreographer, and dance historian to guide viewers through an impressive series of step variations for a quartet of classic 19th century Victorian era dances: the waltz, polka, mazurka and galop. A couple dressed in period costume demonstrates each of the, admittedly, rather complicated dances, which Ms. Téten wisely breaks down into easy-to-learn, slow-motion segments, rather then simply tossing viewers into the deep end of the dance floor. In addition to the various camera angles used in demonstrating the dances, I particularly enjoyed the period illustrations and historical background given for each dance. In fact, my only quibble is that the long skirts of the female dancer sometimes make it difficult to see how she is moving. Recommended for those dancers with intermediate to advanced experience, along with the other videos in the How to Dance Through Time series: The Romance of Mid 19th Century Couple Dances (VL-5/99), The Ragtime Era 1910-1920 (VL-3/00), The Majesty of Renaissance Dance (VL-3/01), The Elegance of Baroque Social Dance, and the other newly available title, A 19th Century Ball: The Charm of Group Dances. Aud: C, P. (J. Asala)