Social dance nights
The tea dance
An afternoon of ballroom dancing with tea and cakes, once high fashion and still a weekly fixture for many older dancers.
Presented by ClearTrust Free for dancers, travellers and the curious.
A tea dance is a dance held in the afternoon, with tea served at tables around the floor. In French it is a thé dansant. It was the fashionable way to dance in the early twentieth century, when hotels hired small orchestras for the hours between lunch and dinner. It survives in ballrooms, seaside towers and community halls, and in a second life as a Sunday afternoon party.
What it is
The traditional tea dance is gentle ballroom: waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, a tango, perhaps some Latin numbers. In Britain many also include sequence dances, in which every couple performs the same sixteen bars of set steps and repeats them around the room. Music may come from a band, a record player or an organist. Couples sit at their own tables, dance two or three numbers, and return to the teapot. The pace is unhurried and the lights stay on.
Where it comes from
Afternoon tea with dancing became popular in Britain and France in the late nineteenth century. Its great moment came just before the First World War, when the tango arrived from Argentina by way of Paris, and hotels in London held tango teas for people keen to learn it. Dance halls kept the afternoon session going for decades. In the United States, gay men's Sunday tea dances on Fire Island and in New York from the 1960s gave the name a new meaning.
How it works
A typical session runs for two or three hours in the early afternoon. Entry is a small fee that covers tea and something sweet. The band leader or host announces each dance by name so couples know what is coming. Dancers travel anticlockwise around the room, with faster couples on the outside. Many who come are in their seventies and eighties and have danced together for half a century. Visitors and single dancers are usually made welcome.
If you go
- Find one at a ballroom, a town hall or a seaside pavilion. Blackpool Tower Ballroom holds them most days.
- Take a table, order tea, and watch a few dances.
- Join a waltz or a slow foxtrot if you know the basic step.
- For sequence dances, stand behind a confident couple and copy.
Good manners
- Move with the line of dance, anticlockwise around the floor.
- Do not cross the floor with cups or plates while people are dancing.
- Dress neatly. Many regulars treat it as an occasion.
What is danced
WaltzA turning couple dance in triple time, first popular in 18th-century Europe
FoxtrotA smooth ballroom partner dance that travels around the floor to big band music
QuickstepA lively ballroom dance with fast steps and syncopated rhythmsBallroom tangoA stylized partner dance developed in Europe and the US from Argentine roots.
Sequence danceA group dance style following preset movement patterns to specific musical sequences.Sources and further reading
Original text by the Ghungroo desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Customs vary from place to place. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Ballroom dance: Johnston, Frances Benjamin, 1864-1952, photographer., Public domain, source
- Waltz: unknown engraver, Public domain, source
- Quickstep: Hyacinth at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Sequence dance: Johnscotaus, CC BY-SA 4.0, source