I always liked dance lessons, and I think that I was good at it, because I gradually worked my way up to part-time dance assistant. The photograph is from this time, 1948 or 1949. I'm standing in the top row, second from the right.
My task, besides the proper demonstration of various dances, was also to chase after those who didn't want to dance. Boys would for example hide in the bathroom so that they wouldn't have to accompany the girls, and despite their unwillingness I had to bring them back onto the dance floor. I was this idealist, because I always felt sorry for the less attractive girls, who the boys didn't ask to dance, and so I would ask them to dance myself, so that they wouldn't be sad. They then thought that I was courting them, and so I then had lots of work getting rid of them.
The dance classes took place in the noted Oplt dance school, which back then was located in the Metro building on Narodni Avenue, in a passage beside a modern building where today the Ceska Sporitelna [Czech Savings Bank] is located.
Jiri Munk as a dance assistant
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