"There may be one hundred and sixty different Tango steps, but I doubt it. I have never seen so many, and Mrs. Castle and I do not dance anything like that number." -- Vernon Castle, in Modern Dancing, 1914
I certainly don't dance anything like that number myself, but it's always interesting to look at the myriad variations that one finds in different manuals of the 1910s, and today I'll spotlight some of the more unusual ones found in Bert Milton's How to Behave in a Ballroom, published in Boston in 1914. Along with a fascinating history of the tango and many useful etiquette tips, Milton includes twelve genuinely unique moves which truly reflect the joyful spirit of pre-World War I American culture.
Fans of animal dances will be pleased to note their intrusion into the tango via moves such as the Shrimp Wiggle and the Kitten Kuddle, while those familiar with the Lame Duck will find a fascinating new version herein. Enjoy!
In the interest of not losing my mind, I’m going to be writing more
short posts interspersed with the longer articles that cover entire
dances. Today, a lovely little move for your 1910s tango.
Many teachers labor under the impression that the “Argentine” consists
of one dance only, which is not true, it is a dance of great variety of
movements…The Argentine of today embraces about as many varieties as
there are dancers, owing perhaps, to the natural desire of our American
dancers to be “inventors.” F. Leslie Clendenen, Dance Mad, or the dances of the day, St. Louis, Missouri, 1914
Why, in fifteen-plus years of dancing ragtime socially, had I never done the eight step? It's not an obscure step; it's the first variation world-famous dance couple Vernon and Irene Castle give for the one-step and is also mentioned by them in their descriptions of the tango, half and half, and hesitation waltz. And yet somehow I'd neither danced it nor reconstructed it until late 2007 when I was looking for interesting one-step moves for some new dance students.
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