“Liquid courage” takes on a particularly tame form in German dance folios dating to the Weimar Republic. Tea steeps in the titles of social dance serials such as Zum 5 Uhr Tee (To Five O’Clock Tea), Zu Tee und Tanz (To Tea and Dance), Zum Tanz-Tee (To the Dancing Tea), and Tanztee und Tonfilm (Tea Dance and Sound Film). Though they whistle for attention in the Ward Collection as titular tropes, Tanztees initially brewed as genteel German social events in 1920’s and 1930’s.
Tanztees tended to occur in the early afternoon, sustained by light refreshments and light-on-the-feet foxtrots. These folios take inspiration from and cater to the attendees. Nevertheless, their gorgeous covers reveal the restraint of the Tanztee, even as they pay it homage. Tanztees dance into the domestic sphere, yet illustrators challenge its boundaries with repeated references of the exotic and explicitly non-domestic spaces.
A monkey and a funky fashionista share an exotic treat on the cover of Zum 5 Uhr Tee’s third issue (1924?). Here’s hoping it doesn’t drip on the oriental rug or jungle plant!
Palm fronds appear again in the background of volume 21 (1933?), hovering behind the dancers’ heads to signal their far-off thoughts.
If the exotic isn’t behind your head, maybe it’s on top of it. Ask the Fraulein in volume 4 (1924?).
Like the Oriental fan in volume 11 (1928?), you really have the give the exotic a hand; it incorporates well into dance and domesticity.
It also transports dancers—to the sea. Whether in Tanztee und Tonfilm’s volume 5 (1934?) on boat—
Or dancing in Zum 5 Uhr Tee’s volume 12 (1929?)—
Or posing in volume 6 (1926?).
And sometimes the exotic is embodied. Take Zum Tanz-Tee, (1927?) for example, in which a racialized male leads a domestic female—
To a jazz band represented as minstrel music on the back cover.
German dance folios from the Weimar Republic thus offer social dancers a small sip of the exotic in a teacup decorated as both desirable and accessible. It’s ultimately a soothing drink. The exotic—never threatening but always alluring—easily integrates into a domestic dance. As their attendees step in time, Tanztees transcend their boundaries to encompass the transnationalism to which these covers aspire.
[Thanks to Nora Garry, Harvard ‘14, for contributing this post.]