While searching through a periodicals index I came across an interesting little article that neatly summarizes my previous three foxtrot posts. "How to Dance the Fox Trot" was published in the Los Angeles Times on October 18, 1914. It commends the dance as
the most simple of all the new dances. If you were discouraged when you tackled the tango or maxixe, here is a dance that every one can dance and enjoy with practically no mental exertion.
It continues on with explicit instructions in the basic form of the dance, an alternating series of four slow walks and eight trots, as described in "Basic Walking and Trotting Patterns in the 1910s Foxtrot." Interestingly, the author then adds:
from this we can go into the two-step and we can also make our turn with a quick, fast hop and then resume the slow walk.
This neatly picks up the topic of my second foxtrot article, "Quick-Quick-Slow: The Two-Step Infiltrates the Foxtrot" and, much to my delight, also mentions the very obscure hopping turn described in "Fancy Little Foxtrot." This is the first mention I have seen in print of any hop in the foxtrot and suggests that Bassett & Elliott were not entirely out of the mainstream in demonstrating such a move.
The article concludes with the prediction that
undoubtably the fox trot will be even more popular than the tango was last season.
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