PHOTOGRAPHED about 1928, the Imperial Dance Orchestra was one of the many Keighley and district bands catering for a most popular social pastime of the period.
A scan through the Keighley News for the first three months of that year reveals Charles Briggs' and Allan Northrop's Orchestras, Howard Winston's Revellers, the Royal Syncopators, Machell's Melody Makers, and dance bands with names like the Rhythmic, the Modern, the Excelsior, the Gresham, the Olympic, the Devonshire, the Virginians and the Carlton Symphonic.
All aimed to play 'an up-to-date dance programme' or 'the latest dance music.'
Dancing was regarded as a serious accomplishment. Bygrave's Dancing Academy, run in the Temperance Hall on Saturday's and Tuesday evenings, taught the 'new waltz,' slow fox-trot and something called the Yale Blues.
At Sherwood House, Mrs and the Misses Everett gave 'strictly private lessons' in the 'latest ballroom dances,' while the curriculum of the Savoy School of Dance in North Street included 'special stage training for children.'
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