In a harrowing scene of Titanic, the 1997 movie I’ve seen dozens of times, a string quartet of musicians begins to play the song, “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” on the deck of the sinking ship.
That vignette turns out to have some truth to it, according to one of the many informative signs hanging up inside Boston’s new "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition." Placed deep into the walk-through exhibit—once the lights in the galleries have dimmed and the piped-in soundtrack has turned from spirited music to ominous sounds of sloshing water and gusting wind—the sign says that Titanic’s head steward ordered the ship’s orchestra to play "in order to maintain calm" as people tried to board lifeboats. It concludes, "None of Titanic’s musicians will survive."
Of course, the Titanic famously sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. That’s why we’re here, unfortunately. "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," on display at the Saunders Castle at Park Plaza for the next several months, is a traveling showcase with a mission to keep the luxury ocean liner’s legacy alive by telling real-life stories from the ship. Produced by Atlanta-based Experiential Media Group and RMS Titanic, Inc., an affiliate that has exclusive rights to recover artifacts from the ship’s wreck site, the company has conducted several research and recovery expeditions since 1987 to create the installation. Thousands of real artifacts—from pieces of the vessel to belongings of passengers—have been shown in cities around the world, and this is its first time in Boston.
I was taking a self-guided tour of the exhibit on Wednesday, Nov. 6, feeling my own, very modern, kind of ship-sinking feeling of anxiety. While the results of the presidential election were still coming into focus, I was signed up for a ballroom dance lesson at "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition."
I had decided to give ballroom dancing a try, for my first time ever, a couple weeks earlier, for the story. By the time the night of the lesson rolled around, I had been doom-scrolling for about 12 hours, give or take, so I welcomed the reason to get up and move around.
Tickets for the hour-long ballroom dance lesson at "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition" are $60 and include entry to the exhibit, which alone costs $40 ($28–$35 for children, seniors and military). I made the most of it and wandered through the exhibit for nearly 90 minutes before meeting the dance instructor and my fellow students.
As someone who identifies as part of the peak James-Cameron’s-Titanic demographic, it was my second time through the exhibit since it opened in mid-October. The recreated guest rooms, hallway, Grand Staircase and—gulp—the boiler room look straight out of central casting. Or, I suppose, straight off the Titanic.
While many of the artifacts are rusty bolts, broken glass and—perhaps most alarming—a moldy-looking towel, the stories are truly compelling and bring items to life. Fans of tragedy, history and hospitality should definitely check out "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition" while it’s in Boston. My 10-year-old self might have liked it well enough—she loved Titanic the movie, after all—but I would not suggest the exhibit for families with little kids. It’s heavy subject matter, and it could take a couple hours to walk through.
Shortly after I read the sign about Titanic orchestra leader Wallace Hartley maybe playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” after the last lifeboat was lowered, I made my way back to the exhibit entryway to meet my dance instructor.
Kristen Belcher is the franchise owner of Arthur Murray Dance Centers of Boston and her studio is in Park Plaza. A chance meeting she had in the neighborhood with Joe Gold, principal at the entertainment agency that has partnered to bring "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition" to Boston, led to the dance company’s first-ever collaboration with the show. Arthur Murray Dance Centers of Boston will lead lessons at the exhibit on the first Wednesday of every month.
Arthur Murray Dance is headquartered in Florida and has more than 300 franchise-operated studios across 15 different countries, Belcher says. “Our company started the same year that Titanic set sail, so this is a fortuitous connection,” she adds.
For the first dance lesson at the Titanic exhibition, Belcher is wearing a shimmering, ankle-length fringe dress and is accompanied by Harrison Wright, a Boston instructor and manager at Arthur Murray Dance of Weymouth, who is donning a tuxedo. Having followed the ticketing website directive to "wear comfortable clothing and shoes," I’m wearing cropped leggings, a gray T-shirt and black sneakers.
I feel even more underdressed once a couple arrives in coordinated burgundy cocktail attire—next time, I’d dress up a bit, just for fun. More dancers arrive until we’re up to more than a dozen people there for a lesson.
I’m the only person who showed up solo. Tickets are sold per person, and nowhere does the website advise to arrive coupled. But ballroom dancing is certainly a fun date-night activity: among the benefits of dance lessons touted on Arthur Murray’s website is strengthened relationships. When it came time to pair up, I danced with Wright, the (very tall) instructor.
As a group, we started in one of the exhibit’s galleries, adjacent to the room housing the replica grand staircase. Belcher explained the three styles of dance we'd learn—waltz, foxtrot and Brazilian maxixe—all steps popular in the ragtime era. Circled around a glass case of Titanic artifacts, we learned the steps, then how to put them together with a partner. Then we moved into the Grand Staircase room to give it a whirl.
Despite never having waltzed properly before, I quickly picked up the rhythm and steps—and appreciated the instructors’ positive encouragement. There was a lot of clapping and high-fives. The guides explained the count of the songs and how to align it with our steps, and advised us to just get back on track with the music if we ever lost the moves.
“Slow, quick quick, slow…” Belcher said, demonstrating the classic box step. "Our goal is to turn our brains off for a while."
For one whole hour on the day after the election, nobody mentioned their fears nor anything at all. We counted together, stepped left and then right, spun and returned to our positions.
It was music to my ears.