Kagetsuen

Japanese: 花月園 - かげつえん

...Several couples danced quadrilles, minuets, Viennese waltzes, etc. in groups, and the upper classes enjoyed them. In 1918, a Western-style ballroom dance hall was established at Kagetsuen in Tsurumi, Yokohama, but it was a place where women could only attend if they were accompanied by others, as there were no professional dancers. After the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923), dance halls with exclusive dancers were established one after another in Osaka, and this spread to Tokyo as well.

From [Dance Hall]

...Ballroom dancing itself was already attempted at the Enryokan in Hama-rikyu, Tokyo, in the early Meiji period, the first private ball at Meiji Kaidō in Kyobashi, Tokyo in 1883, and the Rokumeikan, which was completed in the same year, but all of these were social gatherings for the privileged classes, such as politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats. However, it was much later, in 1918, when Kagetsuen in Tsurumi, Yokohama, opened Japan's first dance hall, that ballroom dancing became popular as a form of mass entertainment. After the Great Kanto Earthquake, a system was established in which dancers would dance with customers in exchange for tickets purchased by the customers, and the hall became even more popular, but in 1925, due to public morals, students were banned from entering and it was not open after 10 p.m.

*Some of the terminology that refers to "Kagetsuen" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

Japanese:

…カドリーユ，メヌエット，ウィンナ･ワルツ等を数組の男女が一団となって踊り，上流階級の人たちが楽しんだ。1918年，横浜市鶴見の花月園に欧米流の社交ダンス場が誕生したが，職業ダンサーをおかない女性同伴で通うものだった。関東大震災(1923)後，大阪に専属のダンサーをおいたダンスホールが続々と生まれ，東京にも波及した。…

【ダンスホール】より

…社交ダンスそのものは，すでに明治初年の東京浜離宮の延遼館をはじめ，1883年の東京京橋の明治会堂における民間最初の舞踏会や，同年に落成した鹿鳴館などで試みられたが，それらはいずれも政治家や高級官僚など特権階級の社交場であった。　それに対して，社交ダンスが大衆娯楽として普及するようになったのは，ずっとおくれて1918年に，横浜鶴見の花月園が日本最初のダンスホール営業を開始してからである。関東大震災後，客が購入した切符とひきかえにダンサーが踊りの相手をするシステムが定着し，いっそうの人気を集めるようになったが，25年には風紀上の問題から，学生の入場や午後10時以後の営業が禁止されるようになった。…

※「花月園」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について | 情報

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