Capering & Kickery

Mr. Scott's Two-Step

The two-step of the 1890s and early 1900s was so simple to dance, and so aggressively condemned by many dancing masters, that it's actually fairly unusual to find a good description of it in a dance manual, though minor variations and sequences of dubious originality and debatable utility abound.  English dancing master Edward Scott, in How to dance and guide to the ball-room (London, c1902), provides a rare overview of the basic dance as performed in Edwardian England.

Steps and timing
Scott specifies that the music for the two-step should be in 6/8, and explains that it is "practically our old friend the galop performed with figures, in regulated sequences, and to a different rhythm," though Americans, he claims, apply the name two-step to "any dance founded on the chassé movement, or that in which one foot appears to be chasing the other."

The basic movement of the two-step is a simple slide-close-slide done in 6/8 time.  Scott describes it in detail:

The gentleman slides his left foot forward, his weight thrown thereon, and rests for two counts.  At the third count he brings his right toe lightly up to the heel of the left, and at the fourth count immediately slides his left foot again forward, stopping on it for the second three counts of the bar.  For the next bar he slides his right foot forward, sustaining his balance, while the left toe is brought lightly to the right heel, and the right again slid forward to rest and carry the weight for the next half bar.

The rhythm will be somewhat as if you said “right and right, left and left, etc., the and corresponding to the quick chasing step made with the toe of the opposite foot.

Scott calls this the chassé à trois pas or simply the "chassé movement".  The rhythm is typical of jig-time dances and can be charted thus:

        *     *  *          *     *  *                   
        1-&-a-2-&-a  1-&-a-2-&-a

It's generally unnecessary to break down the exact timing of each step in detail; dancers with any ear for rhythm will pick it up instinctively from the accenting of the music.

Late 19th Century Jig-Time Dances: The Pasadena

The Pasadena, a would-be replacement for the two-step, appears in the 1900 reprint of New York dancing master Allen Dodworth's 1885 tome, Dancing and its relations to education and social life, but can be dated back to at least 1898.  It appears to have been created as a dancing school dance, as Dodworth's nephew, T. George Dodworth, discussed in his introduction to the new edition of his uncle's manual:

In order to bring the work up to date, I have been requested to write an introduction which will include a list of dances that have come into fashion since my uncle's book was originally published.

As a matter of fact, however, society dances have decreased, rather than increased, during this interval. When this work first appeared most of the round dances described in its pages were fashionable. But Dame Fashion is fickle, and, owing to some unaccountable change in taste, we now have only the Two Step, the Waltz, occasionally a Saratoga Lancers, and the Cotillion. In the dancing-schools the old dances are still taught, but with numerous new combinations, which are composed to improve the pupil and keep alive the interest. From these combinations we have the Tuxedo Lancers, the Amsterdam, Gavotte der Kaiserin, Minuet de la Cour (for four persons), and the Pasedena.

Le Klondike Two Step

Reading this morning's headlines about events in Alaska, it seems the moment to post this little French sequence dance, which can also be used to vary an early twentieth-century two-step.  I've found this sequence in only one source: La Danse, by [George] Washington Lopp, published in Paris in 1903 as part of a two-book compendium.  The smaller part (forty-five pages to the two hundred-plus of La Danse) of the compendium is a brief manual of etiquette and costume written by J. Chéron. 

Mr. Lopp seems to have been an interesting character, an American expatriate and former Chicago dancing master whose partnership in a Parisian musical conservatory went extremely sour, resulting in lawsuits, lockouts, and a "very tempestuous scene" with one of the patronesses of the conservatory, who insisted on performing a concerto she had composed.  Apparently the piece was so dreadful that the audience

was unable...to endure the entire infliction, and most of those present incontinently left after the first movement had been half finished.

While La Danse is dated 1903, I think it most likely that this dance dates to 1897 or 1898, the height of the Klondike Gold Rush.  Lopp attributes the dance to H.-N. Grant, whom Giraudet mentions in his list of dancing professors as being active in Buffalo, New York, in 1898.

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.

Lamb's Waltz Two Step

Here's an easy waltz variation from English dance teacher William Lamb's Everybody's Guide to Ball-Room Dancing (London c1898-1900).  The Waltz Two Step is a short sequence of two-step done in waltz time which can be used as a variation in a late 19th-century waltz or as a short standalone sequence dance.  Because the movements are quite slow-paced, it is best suited to extremely fast music. 

This sequence represents the an early form of "hesitation waltz" from before that term came into use in the 1910s.  In this case the normal two-step movement (briefly described in a previous post here) rather than being counted "1&2" in 2/4 rhythm, as is more typical in this era, is danced in 3/4 rhythm with each two-step stretched over two full bars of music, so that the slide-close-slide happens on the first, third, and fourth of the six beats.

Tantivy: The New Hunt Dance

• Era: late 1890s-1900 England/France

"Tantivy: The New Hunt Dance," was invented by English dancing master R. M. Crompton, later to become the first president of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing and a part of the early 20th-century movement to keep ballroom dance out of the hands of the "wrong" people, which primarily meant American, and especially African-American, influences.  That was all in the future in the 1890s, however, when this dance first appeared.  It may have first been published in Crompton's own book, Theory and Practice of Modern Dancing (London, c1891).  Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of Crompton's work.  The dance, however, can be found in at least three other works of the late 19th century, attributed in each case to Crompton.

I first noticed Tantivy in T. Leggett Byrne's Terpsichore: Her Votaries and Fashions, published in London in 1899 (but with a preface dated to Dublin in 1898) and made available online by Chris Brady here.  A second source is Saxon's Everybody's Guide to Ball-Room Dancing, written by Crompton's contemporary William Lamb and published in London circa 1898-1900 (it is listed in The English Catalogue of Books for those years, which was published in 1901).  The description of the dance in these two sources is word-for-word identical.  Finally, Tantivy was included in the massive French tome Traité de la Danse,  published in Paris in 1900 as volume II of an immense work on dance by Eugène Giraudet that went through dozens of editions in the late 19th century.  Giraudet dates the dance to October, 1896.  While Crompton was certainly known to American dance teachers (Philadelphia dance teacher and writer Albert Newman claimed in the early 1910s to have received dances directly from him), I have not so far found this particular dance in any American source.

The word tantivy is associated with hunting in England, with an implication of going full-speed or headlong, as discussed by Michael Quinion at World Wide Words, and the dance does require a certain enthusiastic commitment to perform successfully!

The Très-Chic

• Era: late 1890s-early 1900s

"The Très-Chic is a dance for couples in six-eight time, and is of very animated and lively character."

With these words, William Lamb introduces "A new Round Dance for the Ball-Room."  Lamb was a noted English dance teacher and writer who served as president of the British Association of Teachers of Dancing.  The Très-Chic appeared in his book Saxon's Everybody's Guide to Ball-Room Dancing (London, c1898-1900; it is listed in the 1901 English Catalogue of Books for those years), from which it was blatantly plagiarized by two dance writers publishing in the American Midwest in the first few years of the twentieth century, including A.C. Wirth in his Complete Quadrille Call Book (Chicago, 1902) and D.F. Jay in his ABC Guide to Ballroom Dancing (Chicago, c1900), both using Lamb's language to describe the dance.  (Some biographical information about Wirth may be found in my earlier post on the Rye Waltz.)

Mr. Newman's Two-Step Variations

• Era: circa 1900

Given the popularity of the two-step in the early years of the 20th century, it is surprising how few variations were recorded for the dance.  But in his 1903 dance manual, A Complete Practical Guide to Modern Society Dancing, Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman included two short and easy two-step sequences, the "Glide Two Step" and the "Military Two Step."

The basic turn of the century two-step (not the same as either today's country western "Texas Two-Step" or today's "Nightclub Two-Step") is a slide-close-slide, similar to the polka but performed smoothly with no hop, turning to the left or right as desired.  Newman specified that the "close" of the feet should be to third rear position, which happens fairly naturally if the leading foot is turned so that the toe points along the line of dance.  The steps are described below for the gentleman; the lady dances on opposite feet.