Capering & Kickery

Late Victorian Waltz Variations: The Bowdoin

This is the final post in this month's little series of easy and useful late nineteenth century waltz variations from M.B. Gilbert's 1890 manual, Round Dancing.  The first three posts in the series may be found here, here, and here.

Gilbert notes of the Bowdoin that he "applied these movements to the Waltz during the seasons of 1888-89, and found the application very pleasing."

Once again, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding the waltz steps, with my preference being for the smoother transitions allowed by the gliding version.

Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Le Metropole

Returning once again to my short series on some of the more useful waltz variations published by M.B. Gilbert in his 1890 manual, Round Dancing, here's a third simple variation for the late nineteenth century waltz.  The first and second posts in the series may be found here and here.

Le Metropole uses the same simple sliding and waltzing steps of the Gavotte Glide but mixes them in a different way.  Gilbert attributes it to H. Fletcher Rivers.

Like the Gavotte Glide, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding.  And as with the Gavotte Glide, its gliding feel makes me lean toward the latter for the sake of smoother transitions.

Dance Card: Las Vegas Benefit Ball, 1894

The last dance card I posted having been well received, here's another one from my collection.  This one is from a benefit ball held in Las Vegas on April 24, 1894, with music by the East Las Vegas Military Band "Assisted by "Prof. J.A. Hand's Full Orchestra." 

The card is badly stained, but the lovely cover image of a putto playing a guitar to a group of birds is still charming.  The cord for the pencil is still attached, though discolored.  The edges are pinked.  The card has not been used, though one dance ("Comus Waltz") has been crossed out and "Waltz" written in, presumably after a last-minute program change.  The ball committee -- all men -- is listed on the back cover.

(click to enlarge the images)

Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Gavotte Glide

This is the second in my short series on some of the more useful waltz variations published by M.B. Gilbert in his 1890 manual, Round Dancing. The first post in the series may be found here.

Of all of the variations in Gilbert, this simple mix of sliding steps and waltz turns is probably the easiest and the one I use most frequently in teaching new dancers.  Gilbert attributes it to "Constantine Carpenter, Son, and Charles C. Martel."

As with the Diagonal Waltz, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding, though its gliding feel makes me lean toward the latter for smoother transitions within the variation.

Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Diagonal Waltz

By the end of the nineteenth century, American dancing masters such as M.B. Gilbert were coming up with long lists of little waltz variations of dubious utility and doubtful popularity.  Many of these are minor variations on a few simple themes, often interpolating sideways slides and chassé steps between measures of waltz.  I'm going to do a short series on some of the more useful and leadable of these variations this month, all taken from the pages of Gilbert's immense manual, Round Dancing, published in Maine in 1890 and incorporating many variations from the 1870s and 1880s.  Calling them "Victorian" is a bit of misnomer, since these are essentially American variations.

The Diagonal Waltz does not actually involve anything other than the normal step of the "new" waltz (step-side-close pattern) of the late nineteenth century.  It is really just a sequence incorporating natural and reverse turns in such a way as to never make a complete turn in either direction.  This is so basic a waltz skill that similar sequences are incorporated into most twentieth century versions of the box-step or Viennese waltz as well.

Gilbert considers a leaping version of the waltz (leaping-side-cut) to be the basic, but the Diagonal Waltz will work either leaping or simply gliding.

What did Regency-era dancers dance?

I combine the two as a category because people who are interested in the one are often interested in the other, but what was danced by Jane Austen (1775-1817) and what was danced during the English Regency era (1811-1820) are actually questions with slightly different answers.  Austen's dancing days were more of the late 18th century, and the Regency era was a time of rapid change in social dance, mostly emanating from Paris and London.  Austen would have missed out on much of this by being country gentry and by her death just as things were starting to get really interesting dancewise.

Having addressed dance in Jane Austen's lifetime in my previous post, which I recommend reading first for background, let me now talk a little bit about the 1810s.  What did they dance during the Regency era?  Around 1810, people probably weren't doing much that was different from the previous two or three decades: country dances and reels, with a cotillion perhaps still making an appearance now and then, and occasionally an oddity like the Boulanger, Sir Roger de Coverley, or (in Scotland) the Bumpkin.  But change was coming.  The upper classes and the residents of London would soon find themselves with a much wider set of options.