Edward Burra (1905-1976)

‘We went to the Savoy dance hall the other night my dear you would go mad Ive never in my life seen such a display…Ive never seen such wonderful dancing they also had an initiation ceremony in which all the men had to crawl under a row of men’s legs and be beaten with a stick going through, and the women had to be twirled round ten times it was most extraordinary’

(Edward Burra quoted in an undated letter (late 1933) to Barbara Ker-Seymer, cited in exhibition catalogue, Edward Burra, London, Hayward Gallery, 1985, p. 109).