English dance teacher William Lamb, in his Everybody's Guide to Ball-Room Dancing (London c1898-1900), published quite a few short dance sequences, most of limited interest to the average dancer. His American Schottische has more potential than most of these because it does not involve any reverse-line-of-dance movement and thus can be easily used as a simple variation when dancing a late 19th-century schottische.
Despite the name, there is nothing specifically American about this particular sequence, and it does not seem to have been taken up by other writers/compilers of dance manuals, even those who otherwise plagiarized Lamb quite freely. I suspect it was not a particular hit, perhaps never having any life in period outside the pages of Lamb's book. Nonetheless, I find it quite danceable and an interesting break from more typical schottische patterns.
The sequence does not divide neatly into the usual two parts of the schottische (as described in a previous post here) and is even more unusual in its lack of internal repetition. The labels used below for each bar are directly from Lamb's instructions.
American Schottische (four bars of schottische music)
Starting position: normal late-19th century ballroom hold, gentleman's back to center of room
First bar (Pas de Bourrée)
1 Slide left foot to side
2 Close right foot to third position
3 Slide left foot to side
4 Close right foot to third position
Second bar (Chassé and Two Step)
1 Slide left foot to side
&2 Close right to left and slide left to side again (chassé)
&3 Repeat chassé, starting to turn clockwise
&4 Repeat chassé, completing half-turn
(this bar is essentially a four-slide galop with a half-turn at the end)
Third bar (Two Step)
1&2 Two-step; half-turn starting right foot (RLR)
3&4 Two-step; half-turn starting left foot (LRL)
(the second two-step is underturned to leave the gentleman's back to line of dance)
Fourth bar (Pas Marche and Two Step)
1 Gentleman's back to line of dance, step right straight backwards (lady forward left)
2 Gentleman steps back left (lady forward right)
3&4 Two-step; half-turn starting right foot (RLR)
(between beats 2 and 3 the couple must turn one quarter clockwise to prepare for the final two-step)
The couple ends in starting position, with the gentleman's back to the center of the room, and can then restart this or some other schottische sequence. They could also underturn the final two-step to end with the gentleman facing line of dance in order to use a sequence starting in that position.
Edited 07/4/2016 to add all of the following:
A slightly different version of the dance is found in Walter Humphrey's The London Ball-Room Guide (London & New York, c1900). Either there existed a variation which repeated the entire sequence starting on the second foot, necessitating a change in the earlier movements to set this up, or Humphrey simply misunderstood Lamb's explanation when he wrote his more concise instructions. He did, helpfully, date the American Schottische specifically to 1899 in his book, though he neglected to credit Lamb.
Humphrey's alterations and additions:
In the first bar, Humphrey specifies that the close is to third position behind.
In the second bar, there is no half-turn at the end; simply chassé along the line of dance, closing the trailing foot at the end to leave the first foot free again. Count: 1&2&3&4&. This is the critical change!
In the third bar, the turning two-step now starts on the gentleman's left foot/lady's right, and makes a complete turn as before, but now must overturn to put the gentleman's back to line of dance. This takes more effort than underturning, but is not particularly difficult if the dancers have enough momentum.
In the fourth bar, the two steps straight backward along line of dance by the gentleman are with the gentleman's left foot, then right; the lady steps forward right, left. The final two-step is then led with the first foot (his left/her right), and is really only a quarter-turn, putting the gentleman with his back to the wall and his right foot free to restart the dance from the beginning. This is actually easier than the original version.
Adding the repeat on the contrary foot makes this an eight-bar sequence rather than a four-bar sequence. Since the whole thing is quite leadable, it doesn't actually matter if the lady doesn't know which version is coming, or, in a regular schottische, that either version is coming. A confident and competent leader could even mix in both versions.
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