''Dancing Times'' is a dancing magazine based in the UK, the oldest dance magazine to be still published. The magazine helped found the
Royal Academy of Dance, the
Camargo Society The Camargo Society was a London society which created and produced ballet between 1930 and 1933, giving opportunity to British musicians, choreographers, designers and dancers. Janet Leeper (1945). ''English Ballet'', King Penguin Its influence ...
, and the
British Dance Council. ''
Dance Today
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...
'', a ballroom magazine, is a spin-off of ''Dancing Times''.
History
''Dancing Times'', first published in 1894 as the house magazine of the Cavendish Rooms, London, a ballroom dancing establishment, is the oldest monthly devoted to dancing. It was bought in 1910 by
Phillip J. S. Richardson
Phillip J. S. Richardson (full name: Phillip John Sampey Richardson; 1875–1963) was a British writer on dancing."Philip J. S. Richardson" ''Oxford Dictionary of Dance'', 2000, p. 394
He was born in Winthorpe, Nottinghamshire, UK, on 17 March 187 ...
and T. M. Middleton and transformed into a national periodical, covering all forms of dancing, and reporting worldwide.
Largely through the initiative of Richardson, and his contacts throughout the dance teaching and performing profession, it played an instrumental part in the founding of the Royal Academy of Dancing (now Dance), the Camargo Society for the encouragement and presentation of British ballet, (1930–33), and the British Board of Ballroom Dancing (now the British Dance Council), which codified the technique and controls the standards of the “English Style” of ballroom dancing.
Richardson continued as editor until 1958 when he was succeeded by A. H. Franks, journalist and author of books on ballet and social dancing, but remained president until his death in 1963. Franks split off the ballroom section of the magazine into a second periodical, ''Ballroom Dancing Times'', and in 1962 doubled the format of ''Dancing Times'' to its present size of A4. Franks died suddenly in 1963 and
Mary Clarke, then assistant editor, became editor. In 2001 the ballroom magazine was redesigned and relaunched as ''Dance Today'', still in the smaller format but devoted to a far wider range of social dance. The magazine is now edited by Nicola Rayner.
''Dancing Times'' has been edited by Jonathan Gray since Clarke's retirement from the editorship in 2008.
In August 2022, the magazine announced that it will cease publication following the September 2022 issue.
References
External links
Dancing Times
1894 establishments in the United Kingdom
Music magazines published in the United Kingdom
Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom
Dance magazines
English-language magazines
Magazines established in 1894
2022 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Magazines disestablished in 2022
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