Most of our modern-era dances are derived from dance cultures of the past.
Although plenty of the old dance routines are rarely observed nowadays, it’s still interesting to learn about them and how the whole dance culture slowly evolved over time.
One of the dances we should revisit is The Stroll.
We know the stroll dance as a form of line dance done with a large group.
Most of us have probably heard about the Jitterbug, the Rockabilly Stroll, the Electric Slide and even the Charleston dance. As derived from the original stroll dance, these dances follow completely different sets of steps.
The Stroll was one of the biggest dance craze in the late 1950s.
Popularized by American Bandstand, The Stroll is a social dance accompanied by a slow-tempo accompaniment—and sometimes it works with a faster one.
Like most of the ’50s dances, the Stroll comprises of simple dance routines that anyone could do as the 1950s focused more on enjoying social interaction whilst on the dance floor.
It was commonly thought that The Stroll dance started after the Canadian vocal quartet, The Diamonds, composed a slow rock dance called “The Stroll” in 1958.
However, an article from LoveToKnow claimed that this form of dance started back further that we could not exactly tell when this dance was created. You could see some elements on the Stroll from several dance forms across the world like “jive.”
This black and white clip shows how The Stroll was done.
A bunch of young teenagers from Idaho participated in a local dance show in February 1958, in which they performed the popular dance.
This dance was performed by forming two separate lines with boys on one side, and girls on the other.
At the front of each line, each boy and girl walks towards each other in the middle, holds hands and then struts their way to the end of the aisle.
After they make their way to the end, a new couple emerges in the middle. The rest of the dancers follow the same routine done by the walkers only it gets performed side-by-side as they wait for their turn.
As this video shows, strolling is as easy as it gets!
As mentioned beforehand, this type of dance focuses on the most basic foot-related dance steps.
There aren’t many hands or arm movements included in the process. If you want to know how to dance the Stroll, then luckily, LoveToKnow broke down the routine into four basic steps.
The steps are as follows:
First, performers have to step their right foot across the left and touch the floor with just their toes. The second step is to bring back the right foot to a close, then repeat the sequence. The third is to bring the right foot to the left and while putting weight into the right, the dancer should then step the left foot slightly to the left side. Lastly, the right foot is to be brought behind the left foot and while shifting weight to the right, the dancer then moves the left foot slightly again to the left. The sequence is reversible for both the left and right feet and should be done until the dance ends. Give it a shot for yourself!
Check out the full performance in the link below:
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