Capering & Kickery

Two Easy Hesitation Steps

Here are a pair of easy hesitation waltz sequences from Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman's book Dances of To-day, published in 1914.  Newman unimaginatively calls them the "hesitation step" and the "hesitation step to the side."  I like to use these sequences as a short break from the fast regular waltz of the era and turning sequences such as the three-step and five-step Bostons.  They are also useful in a crowded ballroom -- the first to pause temporarily and the second to thread ones way between other couples more compactly than a turn permits.

Steps given are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  The sequences are performed in ballroom position with the gentleman facing out toward the wall of the room and the lady facing in toward the center.

Hesitation Step (two bars/six counts)
1 Step left foot sideways along line of dance, pointing right foot to the side
2 (hold)
3 (hold)
4 Transfer weight back to right foot, bending the right knee slightly
5 Straighten knee
6 Bend right knee slightly

I think of this informally as "step.....boing, boing" because of the springiness of the two little dips backward on the right foot on counts four and six.

Hesitation Step to the Side (two bars/six counts)
1 Step left foot sideways along line of dance, pointing right foot to the side
2 (hold)
3 (hold)
4 Cross right foot behind left (lady crosses left foot in front of right)
5 Step left foot sideways along line of dance
6 Close right foot to left in first position

This step starts with the same hesitation on the first bar, followed by a grapevine-like cross and side-step and a close of the feet.  Newman provides a diagram of the gentleman's steps for reference:

While Newman doesn't specifically pair the two sequences in his book, I find making them into a four-bar combination pleasing, with the first sequence gathering energy before launching into sideways motion on the second.

The Racket Waltz, or The Society

• Era: 1880s into very early 1900s

The simplest description of the racket waltz is that it is the step of the one-slide racket converted to waltz time, with the extra beat of music per measure added to the initial slide.  Edna Witherspoon, in The Perfect Art of Modern Dancing (1894), gives it the alternate title "The Society" and notes that "if thoughtlessly executed, it is a most ungraceful and unattractive dance."  Allen Dodworth, in Dancing and its Relation to Education and Social Life (1885), adds that "The racket, in this accent, is that unfortunate dance known as the "Society," and is the medium through which not a few show an entire absence of good taste in motion."  Honestly, it's not that bad!  It does not seem to have been quite as popular or well-known as the galop-time rackets I described earlier this summer, but it is an easy dance that works well to brisk waltz music.

The instructions below are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  The dancers start in a normal late-nineteenth-century ballroom hold with their bodies angled diagonally forward along the line of dance.  There is no full turn; the dancers zig-zag along the line of dance.

How to dance the racket waltz (two bars)
1,2    Slide left foot diagonally forward along line of dance
3       Draw right foot to left, displacing left (into second position raised) (="cut")
&      Draw left foot to right, displacing right (cut)
1,2    Slide right foot diagonally forward along line of dance
3       Draw left foot to right, displacing right (cut)
&      Draw right foot to left, displacing left (cut)

The mnemonic is "slideslide, cut-cut, slideslide, cut-cut", or "one/two, cut-cut, one/two, cut-cut."  In effect, this is a sort of early hesitation waltz.  Contrast the pattern with the one-slide racket in galop time and the simplicity of the conversion to 3/4 time becomes obvious:

Galop:        1 2&        1 2&
Waltz:       12 3&     12 3& 

All moves are made at angles, first diagonally left forward then diagonally right forward, with the change of angle occuring on the pairs of cuts.  It is also possible to dance with the gentleman going backward, although zigzagging back and forth along the line of dance with the leader unable to see where he is going requires great care.  By altering the angles, the dancers can also wander chaotically around the ballroom, which may not be appreciated much by other dancers.

To enter the racket waltz, simply stop turning in the waltz.  End with the gentleman facing the line of dance or the wall; the former will be easier from the "new waltz" of the late nineteenth century than from the constantly-rotating earlier waltz.  Slide along the line of dance at a slight angle.  Tilt back and forth a bit on the cuts while turning so that the other side is toward line of dance, being careful to kill all traveling momentum.  This is not generally something to try with someone who has never learned rackets, though a skilled lady might be able to pick it up on the fly.

As noted above, brisk music is required or the slide on the first two counts will drag horribly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Racket Waltz is described in the following sources:

Allen Dodworth, Dancing and its Relation to Education and Social Life (New York, 1885, reprinted 1900)

M.B. Gilbert, Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890)

Edna Witherspoon, The Perfect Art of Modern Dancing (London & New York, 1894)
    Note: in this source, it appears as ' "The Society" or Racket Waltz.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A master list of all my racket posts is here.

At the Prom: Yale 1921

Yale University's Junior Promenade, held on February 8, 1921, made the cover of the Yale Record, a humor magazine similar to (but predating) the Harvard Lampoon, which had a wide circulation outside Yale as a beacon of collegiate style. (Click the image at left for a larger version courtesy of Yale's Manuscripts & Archives.)  The event is of interest to me not only as a Yale alumna but because I recently purchased one of its ball cards.

The cover of the card (shown below) is made of white leather, with the Yale device and the year 1921 embossed in gold on the front.  A blue and white twisted cord holds the pages in place.  There is no sign of how a pencil might have been attached.  Between the cover and the pages of the card itself is a sheet of translucent vellum with a spiderweb pattern.

Of interest among the list of names given for the ball committee is the Floor Manager, James Smith Bush, the uncle of former United States President George H.W. Bush and great-uncle of former President George W. Bush.

The set of dances listed inside shows the growing dominance of the foxtrot in the upper-class ballroom of the early 1920s.  Forty-two dances are listed, with the twenty-first being the supper dance.  Of those, no fewer than thirty-two are foxtrots!  The other ten are divided between eight one-steps and a mere two waltzes.  The card belonged to a lady; twenty-one of the listed dances have gentlemen's names written by them.  Some names are written in formal style ("Mr. Newmarker") and some more casually ("Roddie").  Several men are listed twice, but none more than twice.

For those interested in details of etiquette, there is a notice on the back that gentlemen should "Please escort ladies to boxes immediately after each dance."
 

The Line Hustle

Line dances don't really get all that difficult, but there are a few longer ones with more complicated and less repetitive step sequences.  One of these is the Line Hustle.  These instructions are taken from Carter Lovisone's The Disco Hustle (1979) and claim to be "the original form used as the basis for all variations of the Line Hustle."  I would take this claim with a grain of salt, since Lovisone's book came out several years after the dance's first wave of popularity in the mid-1970s.

This version of the Line Hustle is a fifty-two beat dance.  My favorite music for it is Van McCoy's 1975 hit, "The Hustle," a snippet of which is included below.  The song is available on several different compilations, including The Hustle & The Best Of Van McCoy.  I like to wait out the intro and start at the "do the hustle!" verbal cue.  But as usual with line dances, the Line Hustle will also work to just about any disco tune.

Note that the so-called "Charleston" section below bears no relation to the Charleston in its 1920s form.

Foxes in Boxes

Among the moves described by Vernon and Irene Castle in their Victor Records for Dancing mini-manual (1914) are a trio of moves that are essentially box steps or fragments thereof: a so-called cortez (a.k.a. sentado or syncopated step), a double cortez, and a left-turning waltz.  The rhythm is specified as QQS: three steps and hold.  These make a nice set of variations to throw into basic walking-trotting sequences and two-step sequences when dancing a 1910s-style foxtrot.

Sliding Along in the Foxtrot

Over a year ago I discussed some of the earliest walking and trotting patterns found in the earliest sources describing the foxtrot.  Among other moves,  I touched on the gliding series of chassé steps given in the two sequences in F. L. Clendenen's Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914).  The sideways glides were done in quick-quick rhythm for each slide-close.  The two sequences were:

1. SS-SS-QQQQ-QQQQ twice, followed by four glides (step-closes) QQQQ-QQQQ

2. SS-QQQQ, followed by four glides QQQQ-QQQQ.

The man turns his left side toward the line of dance and the dancers execute a series of four sideways "step-closes" (QQ) along the line of dance.  No turn is involved; the first part of the sequence (walking and trotting) restarts on the first foot moving along the line of dance as usual.

More interestingly, Maurice Mouvet in his Maurice's Art of Dancing (1915) suggests a series of four slides to the (man's) right and four to the left (the pattern beginning on the man's right foot and hence to the right).  Mouvet does not specify whether the dancers make a half-turn after each set of four sideways slides or merely change their angle, with the man moving forward first on the right diagonal and then the left, without a turn, similar to my preferred reconstruction of the racket.  He also neglects to mention that the final close of each sideways sequence must be either skipped or a mere touch without weight in order to change feet for either the slide in the other direction or to restart normal walk-trot sequences on the leading foot.

If done turning, this series of slides would be very like the basic galop of the Victorian era.  But I don't think it turns.  Mouvet's right-foot start followed by a half-turn would have the couple turning in reverse, which seems mildly unlikely to me.  But more importantly, when writing that earlier piece, I unaccountably blanked on the fact that we actually have actual filmstrip evidence for the sideways glides in a brief silent film clip dated 1916, which shows dance instructors Clay Bassett and Catherine Elliott demonstrating "The Much Talked About 'Fox Trot.'"

In the film, Bassett and Elliott dance just what Mouvet described, though they initiate moves, the slides included, on the gentleman's left foot.  And they do not turn.  With Bassett moving diagonally forward to the left along the line of dance (and Elliott perforce dancing backwards), they slide-close-slide-close-slide-close-slide, joined hands leading the way.  Bassett then swings Elliott across his body (counter-clockwise) and leads "over elbows" another series of four slides starting on his right foot, angling his right shoulder diagonally forward.  The rhythm overall is QQQQ-QQS QQQQ-QQS.  The two dancers never make a turn; she merely switches from his right side to his left side.  In the filmstrip, the pair of sliding sequences (left and right) is preceded by four slow walking steps and followed by a series of simple QQS hesitations as described here.

These slides are a good thirty years later than the racket, so their lack of turn doesn't really prove anything about the earlier dance, but it's an interesting late example of non-turning galop/slide sequences.