Dance, Space and the City in Nineteenth-Century Britain

The rapid pace of spatial and architectural changes in Victorian cities impacted upon customary spaces for dancing. Once communally respected spaces such as streets and greens where annual dance festivities took place became subject to new pressures from commerce and the property owning classes. This antagonism against public dancing often resulted in legal restrictions and, in many cases, the eventual decline of the dancing practice. Morris dancers in the Manchester hinterland, for example, were frequently subject to this battle for ownership of the space and literally lost their passage through the city, as new buildings were erected on their traditional route for dancing. On the other hand, some dance practices flourished in urban conditions as entrepreneurs opened up their premises for dancing and, indeed, built new venues to accommodate the rising population's interest in social dancing. new interest in health and safety measures often continued to exercise constraints on how city spaces were used for the people's recreational dancing. 

This paper explores how transformations of space usage in expanding cities such as London, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol impacted upon the dancing habits of the working people during Victoria's reign. Source materials include newspapers, diaries, paintings, fiction and music sheets.