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The vital link to the past was the dancing masters that came to the
new land called America with the first settlers and brought with them the dances of their homeland.
One of the earliest records (and there are not many) of these dances is contained in the works of
John Playford, a musician and dance master. His book "The English Dancing Master - Plain and
Easy Rules for The Dancing of Country Dances, with Tunes of Each Dance" was published in
seventeen editions between 1650 and 1728 and contained 918 dances. Meanwhile, couple dancing was
keeping pace. The French had a round dance called the Branle, and there was the Gavotte and the
Minuet. It was that most daring of all dances, waltz, that created quite a stir when it was
introduced, for it permitted the gentleman to hold his partner in close embrace as they moved about
the floor. That position, which we now call closed dance position, was known for many years as the
waltz position.
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