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It is the natural instinct for people to dance to the music they enjoy, and people tend to enjoy the music they grew up with. The youth of today go to raves, in the 70's and 80's it was discos, and in the post-war years the youth scene was dancing at the local hall to the dance bands of the day.
To start with it was just a way of boys and girls getting to be in close contact in public, gently pushing at the boundaries of moral acceptability for the time, and shuffling around the floor in step with the rhythm and tempo of the music. Some did it better than others and got copied, and gradually a series of steps and moves evolved that suited each type of music. Dancing teachers picked it up, standardised it, and taught it. Competitions developed and drove the evolution of more sophisticated technique, but the art of judging remains the same: which couple moves the best to the music that is playing (within the rules of the competition of course).
If you want an authoritative history of the development of ballroom dancing, there are many web sites that will give you their version. Try Google.
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