Capering & Kickery

Corte Mad

• Era: 1910s
• Dance: tango

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

The Overlooked Eight Step

• Era: 1910s
• Dances: one-step, tango, half & half, hesitation waltz

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.