It looks like this is going to be another one-step miniseries!
Another important, though deceptively simple, variation from the Castles is the "step out." This is commonly done in social ragtime dancing, but rarely named (most dance manuals don't even mention it as a separate movement) and even more rarely really thought through. But the Castles use it constantly in their one-step in The Whirl of Life, and it's the starting movement for variations like the Pomander Walk. It also comes up in the foxtrot as the setup for the hop-turn. So let's talk a little about it.
First, the definition, from Vernon Castle in Modern Dancing (1914):
"It is simply stepping out at the side of your partner so that instead of walking in front you are walking a little to the right of each other."
The result of the step out is commonly known today as "Yale position", though the Castles do not use that term. The dancers end up right hip to right hip, with their feet completely outside their partner's. Here's Vernon's detailed breakdown:
"The gentleman is walking forward and the lady backward, as in the ordinary One Step. Now the gentleman holds the lady a little distance away from him and steps out to his left so that, without changing the direction at all, his right foot is at the side of her right foot instead of being between her feet."
You then continue one-stepping along in this position for as long as you like.
The Castles also give a second, slightly more difficult way to perform the step out:
"In this the gentleman is going backward and the lady forward. Now the gentleman holds the lady a little distance away, and turns her so that she takes a half-turn backward, and he takes a half-turn forward, still going in the same direction as they originally started. The fact of your having held the lady away from you during the turn will have caused you both to be walking at the side of each other instead of in the front -- and there you are!"
This is not really that much harder to do. As the gentleman backs up, he should open up a little bit to gain space, then, rather than stepping directly backward on the left foot, turn a quarter counter-clockwise and step sideways with the left foot, the lady likewise making a quarter-turn and stepping sideways with the right, moving directly along the line of dance. Then both dancers make another quarter-turn, still counter-clockwise, so that the lady steps back left and the gentleman forward right along line of dance. And there you are in Yale position.
The new entrance to Yale position is nice, but what is more interesting to me is how the Castles suggest getting out of it. When I started learning one-step almost twenty years ago, we never discussed the step out by name, and pretty much used it only for two things: as a way to enter the Pomander Walk, and as a way to just get into Yale position, where we would walk for awhile, maybe hesitating a few times or flipping back and forth to left Yale position (left hip to left hip). We often did a very clumsy exit that involved the gentleman hanging back a bit and the dancers edging awkwardly sideways as they traveled in order to get face to face again. Even executed gracefully by good dancers, this wasn't really aesthetically pleasing. Having to hang back in a one-step just feels wrong.
Needless to say, the Castles had a much better grip on beautiful dancing and smooth transitions. Here are their suggestions:
"...a half turn or spin to the right will bring you to your original position."
This is one of those moments when I mutter "they were dancers, not writers", since "turn" could mean all sorts of different things. Merely having each dancer make a literal half-turn individually doesn't get them back to a face-to-face hold; it just flips them into left Yale position. Starting a traveling turn (pivot) is awkward; the gentleman has to get far enough ahead of the lady (while still maintaining a Yale position hold) to step sideways across her and close up again for the pivot. Unless he has arms like an orangutan, the risk of crashing awkwardly into each other is a bit too high for my taste.
I think that the "half turn" referred to here is really more than a half-turn, though the shift in position makes it feel like less than a full turn. A very graceful exit that fits the idea of a "turn" is a brief segment of Pomander Walk, with the dancers circling each other in Yale position. As they come around so that the gentleman faces line of dance again, the gentleman simply straightens his right arm partway so open some space between them -- at about the three-quarter point -- will let them drift very naturally into a face-to-face position again. The gentleman needs to give a clear lead to the lady to start stepping backward again. This is especially elegant on corners, where it needs only a three-quarter turn and the opening up happens at just about the halfway point.
The term "spin" is also interesting, since the Castles use that term to refer to a very specific sort of rocking turn, as previously described. To exit the step out with a spin turn, the two dancers turn one quarter clockwise, as if to step sideways along line of dance (with his left foot / her right). But instead of stepping sideways, the gentleman should step back (left foot), guiding the lady to step forward on her right foot straight toward him. At that point, they are in position for the spin turn and can just continue it as long as they like. Once again, this is a very nice corner move.
For those who really like pictures, there is a filmstrip set of the two versions of the step out (from the gentleman going forward and the gentleman going backward) in Modern Dancing, which may be seen here. The bottom two in each column are the most useful.
There's one other move the step out is very useful for, which I'll discuss in a later post in this series.
Comments