On this date in 1914, the Fox Trot dance was born in Philadelphia.
Jeanette Warner and Billy Kent invented the dance and performed it
at the Forest Theatre in a caberet called 'Jardin de Danse'.
Will Vodery wrote a piece of music particularly for them called
"Carolina Fox Trot" which was the first piece of music written for
the dance. Written in 2/4 notation and played at 80 crotchets per minute,
it was termed a 'Slow Drag' by its African American author. Jos W Stern
bought the rights to the sheet music and it was simultaneously published
in the USA and Europe in on July 25, 2014, weeks before the outbreak of
the Great War in Europe.
It was a frenetic and chaotic time in Europe, and the originators of the
dance eventually slipped into obscurity, having initiated a craze that
hallmarked the Foxtrot as the favourite ballroom dance of the 20th Century!
