Capering & Kickery

Round Two Step: A 1903 Dance Mixer

Mixer dances, where all the participants shift partners at intervals, are useful icebreakers at dance events.  In A Complete Practical Guide to Modern Society Dancing (1903), Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman offers a simple mixer for use with the then-fashionable two-step, asserting hopefully that

This dance is rapidly gaining popularity, as it is most enjoyable.

The dancers take partners and hold hands in a grand circle, with each gentleman standing to the left of his partner, and all circle to the left (clockwise).  The dance leader calls out a number (3, 7, 12, etc.), and all the dancers face their partners and begin a grand chain, giving right hands to their partners and pulling by, left to the next, right to the next, left to the next, etc.  As they move, they count people, starting with their partners as "one."  When they reach the number called out by the leader, each takes ballroom position with that person and two-step until the leader gives a signal (typically a whistle), at which point all the dancers open up into a grand circle and once again circle to the left. 

This sequence is repeated as many times as desired, with the leader calling a different number each time so that the dancers end up with new partners after each grand chain.

Newman suggests that the Round Two Step is not only a standalone mixer but also a suitable final figure for a German, or cotillion, a type of party involving a series of dance games.

This style of circle-and-chain mixer was later known as a Paul Jones, possibly after a piece of popular music.  Similar mixers remain current in some living tradition dance forms today.

The Star as a Cotillion (German) Figure

The star figure dates back at least to the Regency era (1810s), when Thomas Wilson either composed it himself or found it common enough to include in his 1815 quadrille manual, though I have never seen it used in a quadrille other than Wilson's own Royal Scotch Quadrilles (1824).  After a long absence, it reappeared in a late 1870s manual of cotillion figures (in the sense of party games or "Germans" rather than the 18th century French dance), intended to be used as part of a full evening of dance games.  I have previously discussed the challenges in reconstructing this figure; the following is a practical description of how to dance it and how to use it as a German.  See the end of this post for a video of dancers performing the Star.

The original source described the figure briefly:

VIII. STAR.
Four ladies, right hand across, swing opposite gentleman to center. Cross right hands, and half circling, swing their partners to center. This is continued until the gentlemen again reach their partners and dance.
    Anon., The German. How to give it. How to lead it. How to dance it. (Chicago, 1878)

In the 19th century, "swing" meant to turn your partner by the hand rather than the modern contra "buzz swing".

This is not the sort of figure that can be easily called "cold", but if dancers are taught the figure in advance, it makes a lovely addition to a ball or evening of cotillions.

Three Chairs: A Genre of Civil War Era Dance Games

• Era: America, 1840s into early 20th century

My friend Patricia asks in email:

Do you know of any documentation for a dance that is known to many as the "hat", "flower", "broom", "paddle", or "fan" dance?

It is described as having two lines of people (usually men in one line and ladies in the other). At the top of the set, one person holds one of the above items and two people of the opposite sex come and stand on either side of the person. He/she looks back & forth between them, hands the item to one of them and sashays or dances down the between the lines with the other person. Sometimes it's done with three chairs, sometimes with no chairs.

I know several dances with most of those names (all but paddle), none of them what Patricia had in mind.  The dance she's describing is a variation on several of the mid-19th century cotillion figures also known as "Germans".  These were not cotillions in the 18th-century sense of a chorus/verse-structured dance for couples in a square.  Instead they were party games with dancing, some of which were quite silly and seem to us today more like children's games than pastimes for a formal ballroom.  By the end of the 19th century, the role of these games had evolved from an amusing way to end a ball into the entire point of the evening, and hostesses vied to run the best "Favor-Germans", with elaborate trinkets as game props and party favors for their guests.