Genteel Ritual Revived : Sunday Tea Dance a Hit in Germany

WEST BERLIN —  In the rooftop ballroom of a popular West Berlin hotel, a white-haired American approached an attractive woman of a certain age and asked if she would like to dance.

He was not quick enough. He lost out to a man with an iron-gray mane who looked like one of the last surviving panzer division commanders, and the couple danced expertly away into the sunset--or at least to the strains of “Red Sails in the Sunset.”

Undaunted, the American turned to a silver-chignoned woman nearby, and had better luck.

Still Life After 40

The occasion for all this was a Sunday afternoon tea dance, an institution that is being revived in leading West German hotels. Its renaissance seems to indicate that there is still life after 40 here for dance-minded singles--be they widowers, divorcees or spinsters--without having to resort to the dubious services of taxi-dancers or having to look foolish in the young people’s discos.

One is more likely to hear “La Paloma” than “My Toot Toot,” but nobody on the dance floor seems to mind.

“The tea dance has really caught on here,” Michael von Tettau, a hotel executive, said with enthusiasm the other day. “There is a strong trend toward nostalgia. The good old things are coming back. The musical repertoire runs to the golden oldies--fox trots, rhumbas, waltzes, polkas--music with melody that couples can dance to.”

Indeed, on a recent Sunday at Munich’s Bayerischer Hof, anyone at the reception desk would have been overwhelmed by the sound of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.” A tea dance had taken over the main lobby and a l0-piece band was playing the late American bandleader’s arrangements. The lounge was packed, as were the two bars.

‘Really Been Booming’

“Tea dancing is very, very popular here,” Georg Ernsting, a Bayerischer Hof executive, said. “It has really been booming in the past two years. In Germany, shops and other facilities are closed on Sunday. So afternoon dancing gives people something to do.

“We get the older group here, people in their 40s up to the 70s. For years, there was no place for them to go to dance. This kind of dancing is catching on with whole families, and with young people, too.”

Tea dance hours usually run from 3 or 4 p.m. to 6 or 7 p.m., generally from fall through spring, and the price seems to be right. For about $4, one gets a pot of tea or coffee, a couple of large slices of cake, and a table through the dancing hours. Alcoholic drinks are served, but there is an additional charge for them.

“It’s quite reasonable and quite lively,” a woman in the Bayerischer Hof lounge said. “You don’t feel awkward coming to a tea dance with a woman friend, and if you meet a nice man, so much the better.”

Hotel managers report that many people have become tea dance regulars, and book their tables in advance.

In Mainz, Hilton Hotel official Siggi Muller said: “We have had steady customers for the past couple of years. They like to book the same tables week after week. We get people coming from as far away as Darmstadt. We have nice, sophisticated music, and we mix up the tunes. We even play the cha-cha-cha.”

Custom Has Taken Hold

The Hilton has had Sunday tea dances for more than 10 years, in a room overlooking the Rhine River, Muller said. But only in the past couple of years, he said, has the custom really taken hold.

In northern Germany, too, the tea dance has caught on. The swanky Atlantic-Kempinski, in the port city of Hamburg, started scheduling Sunday tea dances three years ago.

“The place is always full during the season,” an official of the hotel, Cornelia Kitzing, said. “We get the same customers coming back, but also tourists from other cities in Germany. Most of our clientele are from 30 to 60, and they certainly seem to enjoy themselves. It’s pretty much classical music, fox trot and swing, but no disco.”

Actually, old-fashioned dancing has always been popular in Germany, and the tanzsportverband, or dance club, is the largest such amateur organization in the world. It has about 120,000 members in 1,040 groups, and 90% of the members take part at least once a week.

But now, those who are in the mood can seek out more public places, in first-class hotels, to practice their steps and search for new partners.

The granddaddy of the German tea dance, so to speak, is the Hotel Dreesen in Bad Godesberg, the old resort town just south of Bonn, the national capital. The Dreesen has Sunday afternoon tea dances inside in fall, winter and spring, and outside on a patio overlooking the Rhine in summer.

3,000 Bands Before War

“Tea dancing goes back 100 years in the Rhineland,” Dreesen executive Heinz Obluda said. “You should have seen this place between the wars. We had the biggest dance bands in Europe playing here. We had Dutch bands, Italian bands, an English band with 34 pieces. There were 3,000 bands in the country then. But it all ended with World War II.”

The Dreesen, with its superb view of the Rhine and the Seven Hills across the river, is said to have been one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite hotels. He chose it as the setting for his meeting with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in September, 1938.

In 1945, the hotel was the headquarters of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower--for one day, until the war moved on eastward.

“We have a band throughout the year, usually four to six pieces,” Obluda said. “They know how to play music--Cole Porter, Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Glenn Miller. Melody is very important for our clientele. We like nostalgia, too. This is really a very old custom, people coming to see, to meet, to eat, to drink, to dance.

“It’s boy meets girl, and that is very nice.”