Capering & Kickery

Regency & Victorian Dance Workshops, NYC (Sunday, May 3, 2009)

I will be teaching two dance workshops for The Elegant Arts Society in New York City this Sunday, May 3rd.  Logistical details are below.

The first (1:00-3:45pm) will focus on the dances of the Regency era (1810-1820), including steps and figures for country dances and French quadrilles.  Specifically, we will dance and look at a step-sequences to use in Le Pantalon, L'Eté,  La Poule, and La Trenise (first through fourth figures of the French quadrille) and will enjoy a Spanish Dance and an 1816 version of the classic Money Musk as well as the Scotch Reel for six and -- numbers permitting -- the amazing reel for nine people (and one hat) known as the Bumpkin.

The second class (4:00-6:00pm) will cover the basic steps of the mazurka (primarily the promenade, but also including the tour sur place and possibly a bit of the valse mazurka) and several freestyle mazurka cotillion figures, including Le Grand Rond, Les Chaines Continues, La Genuflexion à Quatre, and the delightfully named L'X de Cavalier et de la Dame.  This will be a bouncy class with plenty of hops and small leaps.  Steps and figures are drawn from an 1847 Parisian dance manual by noted dancing master Henri Cellarius.

Both of the above are beginner-level classes, though the mazurka requires the ability to leap and hop.  No experience is needed, no partner is required, and clean leather-soled flat shoes (no high heels!) are recommended.  Gender balance is not guaranteed.

The classes are held at Dick Shea's (a capoeira studio), 104 W. 14th Street at 6th Avenue, New York City.  Ring buzzer #3, up 2 flights, first door on the right.  For more information, please email EAS.

The Regency class costs $18, or $12 for people attending for the first time; the Victorian class costs $15.

How to dance the galop

One of the simplest couple dances of the nineteenth century was the galop (gallop, galopade, gallopade), which traveled from the ballrooms of continental Europe to those of England and American in the 1820s and 1830s, often as part of quadrilles or country dances.  It was also -- by the middle of the century, predominantly -- a dance for individual couples, though it continued to appear in quadrille figures and occasional country dances throughout the nineteenth century.  It is described in just about every surviving French, English, and American source for couple dancing from the mid-nineteenth century into the early years of the twentieth.  I have cited a few of these in the text below; a complete bibliography would run multiple pages.

The galop is an aerobic dance done at a rapid pace.  One of the few manuals to include tempo notes, M.B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) gives a tempo of 144 beats per minute for the galop, as opposed to 116 beats per minute for the polka.  La Danse (Washington Lopp; Paris, 1903) agrees with those tempos (Lopp borrowed heavily from Gilbert) and adds 120 beats per minute for the two-step.

Coulon's handbook (third edition; London, c1860) describes the lively nature of the dance in its untamed form:

The Gallopade has had a long reign of nearly twenty years, and is still in high favour at public balls in Paris, as well as at Jullien's bal masqué in London. There is no dance more exciting, or easy to learn, it requires only a good ear to mark the time of the music. The chief requisite in this dance is to keep on one's feet, for there is great danger if once you fall that you will have those who follow over you, like the Capucins de Cartes. This power once acquired, you have only to throw yourself in the volcanic tourbillon and fellow the course of the stream, which with very little attention will be easily understood.

The Gallopade has recently been re-introduced in private society, where it is not customary to race as at a masquerade. They merely make a few steps of the galop and pass into the valse à deux temps. In this way the gallopade becomes a spirited and graceful dance instead of a tremendous rush.

The Three-Step Boston or English Boston

Concluding a trio of posts on easy hesitation waltzes, here is the simplest hesitation at all: a normal waltz sequence stretched over two bars of music.  Albert Newman succinctly described the dance in his 1914 manual, Dances of To-Day:

In reality it is our Standard Waltz, but instead of taking two measures this Boston takes four measures.

What this works out to in practice is that the first step (forward or backward) of each half-turn is held for an entire bar (three counts) and the step to the side and close are done on the first and third counts of the second bar of music, with the overall rhythm being ONE-two-three-FOUR-five-SIX.  The three steps taken over two measures give the variation one of its names; I see nothing especially English about this that would account for the other.

The Pompadour Waltz

The Pompadour Waltz is a minor but interesting variation on the five-step Boston or five-step waltz described by Albert Newman in 1914 (and by me here).  I have found it only in the collection Dance Mad, or the dances of the day, compiled by F. Leslie Clendenen and published in St. Louis in 1914.

To perform the Pompadour, the dancers alternate brief hesitating grapevine sequences with the five-step Boston in an eight-bar sequence as described below.  The steps given are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

The Five-Step Boston or Five-Step Waltz, 1914

In his 1914 manual, Dances of To-day, Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman describes a four-bar waltz variation he calls the Five-Step Boston or Five-Step Waltz.  Unlike the five-step waltz of the mid-19th century or the half-and-half of the 1910s, this waltz is done in the usual 3/4 waltz time, spreading five movements out over the six counts of music.  This is a hesitation waltz movement, well-suited the fast waltzes of the early 20th century.   It is easy to learn and provides a pleasant break from constant fast spinning.

Regency & Victorian Dance Workshops, NYC (Sunday, April 5, 2009)

I will be teaching two dance workshops for The Elegant Arts Society in New York City this Sunday, April 5th.  Logistical details are below.

The first (1:00-3:45pm) will focus on the dances of the Regency era (1810-1820), including steps and figures for country dances and French quadrilles.  Specifically, we will dance and look at a step-sequences to use in La Poule and La Trenise (third and fourth figures of the French quadrille) and the fifth figure of The Caledonians and will enjoy a Spanish Dance and an 1816 version of the classic Money Musk as well as the Scotch Reel for six and the amazing reel for nine people (and one hat) known as the Bumpkin.

The second class (4:00-6:00pm) will cover an interesting mid-19th-century half-quadrille (two couples rather than four) known as L'Alliance, which symbolically takes dancers through the Crimean War via six figures with names like "L'Empereur" and "La Victoire."  This dance is done entirely with polka mazurka steps, so it will be a bouncy class with plenty of hops and small leaps.

Both of the above are beginner-level classes.  No experience is needed, no partner is required, and clean leather-soled flat shoes (not high heels) are recommended.  Gender balance is not guaranteed.

The classes are held at Dick Shea's (a capoeira studio), 104 W. 14th Street at 6th Avenue, New York City.  Ring buzzer #3, up 2 flights, first door on the right.  For more information, please email EAS.

The Regency class costs $18, or $12 for people attending for the first time; the Victorian class costs $15.