The Palais Glide

Between the two World Wars a fad for easy and often silly "romping" sequence dances swept Britain.  The Lambeth Walk is the best known of these, but many others survive.  Among them is the Palais Glide, which can be done by a couple or by an entire line of dancers side-by-side in a line, arms around each others' waists.  It is a living tradition in the British isles, having been danced continuously since the 1930s, and survives today as a ceilidh and party dance as well as being performed by World War II reenactors.

Most secondary sources consider the Lambeth Walk (1937) the first of the romping sequence dances and date the Palais Glide to 1938, but one of my sheet music sources for it is actually dated 1935.  This might be a misprint, or it might be that it took a few years to catch on or that it was not popularly accepted until after the Lambeth Walk.

The dance requires eight bars of 4/4 music and consists of a thrice-repeated short grapevine sequences in a slow-quick-quick-slow rhythm followed by a series of forward steps.  In 2001, Syd Bruce recalled dancing it during World War II:

I can remember as a teenager during the war, going to socials and dances in the school, attended by soldiers and land girls billeted in the village and sometimes sailors from Point Clear, which were very popular.  Seeing the Palais Glide, Waltz etc and even the Highland Fling performed in army boots was something to behold!

Sources
I have pulled the instructions for the original Palais Glide from a trio of period sources:

1. The Original Palais Glide (sheet music with dance instructions by D.T. Foster, BATD).  Music copyright by Francis Day & Hunter, London, 1935.  Australian edition by J. Albert & Son with an advertisement dated 1938 on back cover.  An image from the cover of that sheet music is above at left (click to enlarge).

2. The Original Palais Glide (sheet music with dance instructions by Monsieur Pierre).  The Peter Maurice Music Co., London, 1938.

3. Old Time and Novelty Dances, by Major Cecil H. Taylor.  London, 1944.

Steps
(all dancers start on the left foot; S=slow/two beats, Q=quick/one beat)
S     Point left heel diagonally forward (no weight)
Q    Step left behind right
Q    Step right to side
S     Cross left foot in front of right

S     Point right heel diagonally forward (no weight)
Q    Step right behind left
Q    Step left to side
S     Cross right foot in front of left

S     Point left heel diagonally forward (no weight)
Q    Step left behind right
Q    Step right to side
S     Cross left foot in front of right

S     Cross right foot in front
S     Cross left foot in front
S     Cross right foot in front
S     Step left forward (leaning slightly forward, leaving right leg behind)

S     Swing right forward from rear
Q    Step right forward
Q    Step left forward
S     Step right forward

The "pointing the heel" done bouncily becomes effectively a tap of the heel.

The only differences between the sources are: (1) that Taylor (#3) notes that the last two forward steps are small ("just passing" the other foot) and (2) that the later sheet music (#2) is alone in mentioning the leaning on the forward step at the end of the fourth segment of the dance.  A photograph captioned "22nd March 1938: The Cambridge boat crew rehearsing the latest dance craze the Palais Glide at Hurlingham Yacht Club, London, England" in the stock photo collection of Getty Images shows a particularly aggressive version of "leaning slightly forward." (Edited 12/31/2012 to add:) A 1938 British Pathé video, "New Dances for Everybody!" shows London dancers at the Locarno Dance Hall doing the Palais Glide with a fair amount of body lean as well.

Also of interest is an undated video clip from the era which shows an entire roomful of dancers performing the dance with the last four steps done as a bouncy series of foot-switches in place -- a practical modification in a packed ballroom!

Music
Given the very brief length of the dance, almost any 4/4 tune with eight-bar strains will work, and a wide variety was used even in the 1930s.  My two pieces of sheet music each give different tunes for the Palais Glide which may be intended either as alternates or as medleys.  The 1935 source (#1 above) gives the name tune with "Little Brown Jug" and "Waiting at the Church" and includes lyrics:

Learn to do the Palais Glide
All together side by side
It's as easy as can be
All you've got to do is take your step from me!
So come and do the Palais Glide
You'll be happy when you've tried
Once you start you'll want to go on forever
Swaying in the Palais Glide.

The second sheet music source (pictured at left; click to enlarge) is a nine-song medley containing "Poor Little Angeline," "Rusty and Dusty," "Old Folks at Home," "The Sunset Trail," "Loch Lomond," "Pop Goes the Weasel," "The Miller's Daughter Marianne," "Il Trovatore," and "Ten Pretty Girls." 

Other tunes were also used.  A 1938 Palais Glide in the collection of Streetswing (here) gives "When Granny Wore Her Crinoline" as "the most popular of Palais Glides" and Cecil Taylor recommends "The Policeman's Holiday" but notes that "many others are also available."

Since the Palais Glide remains in living tradition, recorded music for it is easy to find.  Very Scottish music for the Palais Glide may be easily downloaded here, or a more ballroom-style medley using the traditional pieces "Poor Little Angeline(a)" and "Ten Pretty Girls" here.  A sample snippet:

Poor Little Angelina Snippet

Eclectic musician and music historian Ian Whitcomb and his Bungalow Boys have recorded yet another, "The Bumbling Bear," available for download here.  A snippet:

Bumbling Bear Snippet

The Palais Glide today
As with any dance that lasts seventy-five years, some evolution has taken place.  A group of reenactors dancing a version with a knee bend rather than the full-body lean of the 1930s dancers may be seen here.  A modern ceilidh variation which replaces the last two parts of the dance with still more grapevine sequences and uses a toe tap rather than a heel tap in the early grapevines may be seen on YouTube here.  London artist Rose Sayers has painted dancers performing it.  And at the Shetland Islands festival Unstfest in 2009, dancers set a record for the world's longest line of dancers in a Palais Glide.

Edited April 21, 2021 to add: one year ago, on the 94th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II (UK), the Royal Family Twitter account posted a video compilation of then-Princess Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret as children. In the last fifteen seconds, the two Princesses, wearing saddle shoes and bobby socks, are shown first dancing together and then learning the Palais Glide with two adult women on board a yacht in the 1930s.

Comments

[Jeff]

Brain ouch as I imagine the people dressed as if they are dancing pop-goes-the-weasel during the Remeberance day dance.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Jeff:
Um, what? People dancing the Palais Glide in hoop skirts? It would probably be dreadful.

[Lyndon B Wainwright]

I am British and live in England. I am now 92 and have clear t memory of being taken to a dance with my parents when I was about 12 or 13 (1932 oe 3) and joining in the Palais Glide