You could have danced all night

Did you make it to the Ohingaiti Citizens' Annual Ball on Friday August 12, 1938?
The ball ? with top music-makers of the day, The Henry Rudolph Dance Band ? was advertised in the Wanganui Chronicle.
More than six decades on, the National Library Gallery wants to hear about Kiwi first dance experiences, including those of people in the greater Wanganui region.
What did you wear? Hair up or down? Did you expect a corsage? Did you arrive alone? Did anyone dance with you? Did you ask someone to dance? And what if they declined? Did you try out the moves you'd practised at home? Or did you hug the wall and look on at the confident couple close-dancing beside you? Were you kissed?
First Dance: Dancehall Stories from the Turnbull Library Collections is a new exhibition by curator Georgina White, opening at the National Library Gallery on April 8, 2005. Drawn from the vast collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library, First Dance will reveal intimate, sensitive, unusual stories from dancehalls across New Zealand's history.
The exhibition will feature colonial and modern era balls, country dances, dance clubs of the '20s and '30s, World War 2 dances with US servicemen, post-war balls, debutante presentations, youth club dances, and school balls of the present day.
First Dance will include text, photographs, audio interviews, music, film, printed ephemera, costumes and accessories.
Designed by Christchurch artist Julia Holderness, the exhibition will offer the viewer a dance-like experience. The apparent order of the dance hall, the great preparation and codes of behaviour/advised etiquette will hang with the loose threads of actual experience.
"There was dancing all the evening. Mrs Russell, who always gets into uproarious spirits on any festive occasion, assured me next morning that she danced 40 times and wore out the only tidy pair of thin boots she had (you cannot realise what a misfortune that means here) and did not get home till after 11 [am]. Mrs Fitzgerald, who left soon after five, left her there with a dilapidated dress and her hair all danced down."
So tells Charlotte Godley in a letter to her mother following one of New Zealand's earliest balls, held aboard the Travancore, in port at Lyttelton, circa May, 1851.
The National Library Gallery wants to hear about Chronicle readers' first dance experiences and will select the best stories and include them in the exhibition.
Submissions can be emailed to the exhibition curator at georgina_white@hotmail.com or posted to Georgina White, c/o National Library Gallery, PO Box 1467, Wellington.