In the edgy age of cell phones, video game consoles and hip-hop,ballroom dancing and etiquette lessons are still part of life for Czechteens who flock to learn these gentler rites of a bygone era.
Thoughit may get less press than Vienna and its annual Opera Ball, Prague isa city of balls in a nation of dancers who cling to this courtly ritualborn under the Austro-Hungarian empire that even communism could notkill.
“I registered because it’s a tradition here. My parents andmy grandparents also went to dancing courses when they were my age,”said 16-year-old Eliska shyly.
She is one of 200 youths kittedout in fancy dress and twirling under huge crystal chandeliers at amunicipal palace in the capital’s elegant residential district ofVinohrady.
“Waltz? Remember that’s one-two-three, one-two-three,” their teacher cried out.
Eliska is wearing high heels and a dove-grey strapless cocktaildress, bought for the occasion. Her young partner, like all the otherboys, has donned a suit, bow tie and white gloves for the occasion.
Theprogramme includes fox trot, two-step, polka, mazurka, cha-cha andViennese and English waltzes, but also a brief course in good manners– how to hold a glass at a cocktail party, how to dress for a banquet,how to blend in with the society, what flowers to buy for your dancingpartner.
“In the Czech Republic, dancing lessons are perceived aselementary social education,” said Ruzena Chladova, who has been incharge of the prestigious Vinohrady school for 25 years.
Thecourse comprising 10, two-hour lessons once a week, costs up to 5,300Czech korunas (about 215 euros, 278 dollars), roughly a quarter of theaverage monthly wage.
For such a sacrifice, parents can chaperontheir offspring to the picturesque neo-Baroque ballrooms and, sippingfrom a glass, assess their progress.
Only once have waltz-crazyPrague residents been banned from dancing during the traditional “ballseason” — which runs through the winter and generally winds up inApril — when the Nazis imposed a curfew in 1942 after Czechs killedReinhard Heydrich, a “Reich protector” and one of the SS elite underHitler, according to 63-year-old Karel Oplt, a dance teacher andhistory buff.
The lessons are not limited to the posher parts of the capital. All towns and cities across the country offer such courses.
“Theprogramme is mostly the same and they always end with a grand ball forthe debutantes,” says Viktor Sanc, who heads one of the six ballroomdancing schools in the southern Czech city of Brno.
The routinehas not budged since the Hapsburg era — boys and girls stand in twolines facing each other, cross the floor to find a partner, then strollaround the ballroom in pairs, which is known as a “promenade”.
Atthe instructor’s behest, they repeat the basic steps, copying theteacher’s movements while trying hard not to step on their partner’sfeet. During the break, the students have a drink and chat.
“It’s a bit tough, but it’s fun,” said Mariana, a 16-year-old enrolled at the Broucek dancing school in central Prague.
Thoughstill strong, some say the tradition is slowly fading among teens asCzech society changes. One of these is Oplt, who runs a dance schoolfounded by his father after World War II.
“We used to have moreteenagers during the communist period, when ballroom dancing courseswere one of the few leisure activities permitted by the regime,” hesaid.
But ballroom dancing has become increasingly trendy among adults.
TwoTV channels posted record ratings after broadcasting dance contestsfeaturing celebrities, and private companies are now buying dancecourses for employees as a perk or team-building exercise.
Onesuch firm is the Czech branch of British group Tyco Healthcare, ahealthcare product company that offered ballroom dancing for its mostlyforeign employees here.
“The idea was to show our employees what is common in the Czech Republic,” said Tyco chief executive Helena Labaiova.
Charmedby the experience, many signed up for more lessons to “impress”colleagues at the grand balls in the Czech capital, she said.
TheVinohrady palace alone hosts about 50 balls each season, both for itsown school and for private clients, including travel agencies and firmslike Tyco.
“In recent years, it has become fashionable forforeign companies to organise a ball in a prestigious hall every year,”said the palace’s director for commercial services Ivan Horak.
Thiscontinues to feed the dance schools with customers, though teacherRuzena Chladova said while staff employees sign up for group courses,the top managers worried about faux pas prefer private lessons.
In contrast, Czech teenagers at ease with the tradition care little about dance-floor flaws and laugh each time they stumble.