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Belle of the ball still teaches steps

Former dance champ doesn't miss a beat with teenage students

By Benjamin Thomas Cunningham
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 27th, 2008 issue

JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/The Prague Post

Helena Karasová still teaches dance steps to eager crops of new dancers, helping keep the grand tradition alive of the Czech RepublicČŘ?s yearly winter ball season. enlarge

The Karasová File

Co-owns: Dancing School of H and F Karas with husband František
Age: 70
Favorite dance: Waltz
Lucerna Marble Hall open: 1928
Started taking dance lessons: 1952
Awarded: Spartakiáda performance medal

COURTESY PHOTO

More than 50 percent of Czech teenagers attend dance lessons, many competing on the national circuit. enlarge

enlarge

Left kick, right kick — 1, 2, 3 (short shuffle step).

Left kick, right kick —1, 2, 3 (short shuffle step).

Helena Karasová jumps up from her chair to illustrate a move, vigorously kicking her feet.

Later, Karasová explains dance moves to a group of dressed-up teenagers paired off in the Marble Hall on the first floor of Lucerna Palace in Prague 1, walking around them, microphone in hand, while she or an assistant illustrates what they’re supposed to do. She co-owns the Dance School of H and F Karas with her husband, František, her poorly heated office filled with trophies and pictures of winning dance competitions.

In contrast with the simple office, housing a typewriter covered by a piece of cloth to keep dust off of the keys, the Marble Hall is filled with red marble columns, dazzling chandeliers, a parquet floor, chairs upholstered with red velvet and an oil painting of former President Václav Havel’s mother when she was a girl (the Havel family has been an owner of the building since it was built at the turn of the century).

Here, high-school students learn the steps for waltzes, polkas, rumbas and sambas, foxtrots and tangos. Adults come too, in smaller numbers.

This is a snapshot of the world of the still-popular ballroom dancing in the Czech Republic, complete with white gloves for the boys and long dresses and high heels for the girls.

“In the 1920s, a schoolgirl would go to dance class to meet her future husband,” Karasová says. “That tradition was interrupted by communism. But it has always been like this.”

During the Austro-Hungarian Empire era and after World War I, balls were held in capital cities from Vienna to Prague, Berlin to Budapest.

During World War II, Hitler banned all such gatherings. Later, “high society” was discouraged under the communist regime, but the dancing tradition flourished, including dance lessons for young people. It was an opportunity to socialize, Karasová says.

By most estimates, more than 50 percent of teenagers go to such classes these days to learn the same steps their parents learned. Dance associations such as Český svaz tanečního sportu (Czech Dance Sport Federation) keep track of the number of dancers competing on the busy club circuit but don’t have complete figures on how many people are involved in classes.

Popularity contest

But Dancing with the Stars-style TV shows, including StarDance in the Czech Republic, are generating interest again, says Šarka Turoňová, a well-known Czech dancer who won the ballroom dance championship here twice, as well as several other championships in other world capitals.

“It’s much more popular than it used to be, and it’s getting more popular all over the world,” Turoňová says. “People love it, and they’ll always love it.”

Just five or 10 years ago, most people didn’t really think much about ballroom dancing, but now everyone wants to learn the steps, Turoňová says, especially in the United Kingdom, where she recently moved to open her own dance company for students.

“It’s popular in the United States, too, and in England, it’s so well-known that 20 million people watched the Dancing with the Stars finals,” Turnová says.

Back in Prague, parents pay 3,300 Kč ($192) for three months’ worth of weekly classes at Lucerna for their girls. It’s 1,100 Kč for boys.

Karasová says the discrepancy serves as an incentive for boys to join, but she insists she has no problem attracting them, since they’re “looking for girls.” The classes are well-balanced gender-wise, she says.

Parents may accompany their daughters free of charge, but if mothers want to accompany their sons they have to pay an additional fee, a way to discourage eager moms from interfering, Karasová says, her eyes twinkling.

“Guys are already really nervous, so their parents shouldn’t be there,” she says.

Boys are required to wear gloves to avoid the “sweaty-hands syndrome,” and girls must have at least two formal dresses.

“It’s really exciting to see the students get more independent,” says Klára Tesárková, 28, an assistant at Karasová’s school who has been dancing for 14 years. “You can become someone else when you’re dancing.”

Not all dancing schools require formal attire, but Tesárková thinks it’s important to maintain the tradition.

“These people want to meet important people some day, so they need to behave in the right way and learn the steps,” she says.

Under communism, Prague had 23 operating ballrooms, Karasová says, including the grand ballroom at Slovanský d?Ým, the airy rooms of the neo-Renaissance ?řofin Palace and the halls of the Art Deco Obecní d?Ým.

In recent years, dance teachers and others have fought to keep the remaining halls open for their original purposes; many of them are in lower floors of buildings that developers want to destroy to make way for parking garages.

Romance and competition

Karasová’s story is filled with romance and the struggle to follow her life-long interest in dance. She first made jewelry after graduating from school, but her poor eyesight got worse from working with the small items.

She didn’t start attending the Prague Academy of Dance until 1952 at age 28. Her instructor took her under his wing as his dance partner after his wife died, mentoring his star pupil. In 1960, she won a choreography contest of the national festival Spartakiáda, which helped her advance to the national dance conservatory.

When Karasová’s dance teacher retired at 61, she was one of several who were involved in a formal competition to replace him. She won.

Karasová met her husband at a dance class and later convinced him to help her teach dancing, saying they would see each other more if they worked together.

In more recent years, Karasová and her husband have taught steps to ambassadors, bank directors and hundreds of students. When the “mock balls” and graduation balls are held for teenagers downstairs in Lucerna’s Velký sál, or Grand Hall, whole families turn out to celebrate, packing the hall’s 2,500-person capacity. A mock ball is an extended lesson where students first learn steps, then dance into the night.

The dance school is already getting advance queries for the next classes in September — as it does every year, Karasová says. All in all, dance schools in Prague handle probably 70 graduation balls of high-school students during the winter ball season, she estimates.

“We handle even more balls here than they do in Vienna,” Karasová says.

Benjamin Thomas Cunningham can be reached at bcunningham@praguepost.com

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