- Era: 1880s into very early 1900s
I'm going to wrap up the year at Kickery with a different kind of racket waltz, the two-slide racket. This variant appears in at least two major and two minor sources in late nineteenth-century America, as listed at the bottom of this post. In the minor sources, the Cartier and Wehman books, which are compilations of dances from other sources, it is labeled "The Racquet".
Both the two major sources, Dodworth and Gilbert, list the two-slide racket as a redowa- or mazurka-time dance, implying a different accent in the 3/4 music than in a regular waltz.
While the racket waltz, or one-slide racket in waltz time, takes the steps of the one-slide racket and stretches them across three beats per measure rather than two, the two-slide racket takes the three-slide racket and trims it to take three beats instead of four in each direction.
The instructions below are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite. The dancers start in a normal late-nineteenth-century ballroom hold and travel at a fairly sharp diagonal along the line of dance. The dancers may play with the exact angles, but, as in other rackets, no full turn is made.
How to dance the two-slide racket (two bars)
1 Slide left foot diagonally forward along line of dance
& Draw right foot to left
2 Slide left foot diagonally forward along line of dance a
3 Draw right foot to left, displacing left (into second position raised) (cut)
& Draw left foot to right, displacing right (cut)
1 Slide right foot diagonally forward along line of dance
& Draw left foot to right
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 "one and two...cut-cut, one and two...cut-cut" in the rhythm quick-quick-slow-quick-quick (x2). Each pair of slides is made at an angle, with the change of angle occurring on the pairs of cuts.
Three of the four sources (Cartier, Wehman, and Gilbert) are missing the final cut needed to reset the feet. Cartier and Wehman are ambiguous about the timing of the cuts, but Gilbert and Dodworth are quite clear.
Comparing the two slide racket to the galop-time three-slide racket shows how steps were deleted to make it fit into six counts (two bars of waltz) rather than eight (four bars of galop):
Galop: 1&2&3 4& 1&2&3 4&
Waltz: 1&2 3& 1&2 3&
The entry is the same as for the normal racket waltz: simply stop turning and proceed sideways at a diagonal along the line of dance.
The waltz-time two-slide racket is less likely than the galop-time three-slide racket to be mistaken for a galop, partly because with one fewer beat of music it acquires less sideways momentum and partly because not that many people dance the (waltz time) three-slide galop!
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The two-slide racket is described in the following sources:
[Cartier?], Cartier's Practical Illustrated Waltz Instructor, Ball Room Guide, and Call Book (New York, 1882) (as "The Racquet")
Allen Dodworth, Dancing and its Relation to Education and Social Life (New York, 1885, reprinted 1900)
J. H. Harvey, Wehman's complete dancing master and call book (New York, 1889) (as "The Racquet")
M.B. Gilbert, Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890)
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A master list of all my racket posts is here.
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