Capering & Kickery

They ought to be ashamed of themselves

A while back, a friend sent me a flyer and the dance program for a "Regency ball" (the organizers' term, not mine) in their area.  I'm not going to tell you where, or when, or who the caller was, because there are plenty of similar events going on all over (at least) the English-speaking world.  But I am going to tell you one thing:

This program is utter bullshit.

Dixie Swirl

The Dixie Swirl is a short tango-ish sequence found in F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914).  While it is not actually in the tango section and doesn't really have much of a tango feel, the brief description states that it is to be done to tango music.  It is attributed to Mrs. Nantoinette Ohnmeiss, about whom I've not been able to discover any information.

The sequence appears at first glance to be eight bars, which is really too short to be interesting:

2b    Gallop four times along line of dance (slide-close x4)
2b    Two-step (presumably a full turn)
4b    Swirl (the spin turn described here)
Repeat from the beginning

I've interpreted the "gallop four times" rather literally, as a repeating slide-close, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to interpret it as a four-slide galop, which gives the dance one and a half turns, meaning the repeat starts on the opposite foot and is "over elbows" for the gallop steps.  That makes the pattern of the first half the equivalent of the old Esmeralda or the more contemporary Glide Two-Step (published by Albert Newman in 1903), which seems reasonable. 

That gives us a more interesting sixteen-bar sequence with a typical repeat pattern of altering the lead foot on the repetition.  I've written it out in detail below, giving the steps for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  The dancers start facing each other, joined hands pointing along the line of dance.

Dixie Swirl (sixteen bars of tango music)
2b    Four-slide galop, ending with half-turn (LRLRLRL, 1&2&3&4)
2b    Two-step, full turn (RLR LRL, 1&2 3&4)
4b    Spin turn (R fwd/L back x4, 12345678)
(End with R side toward line of dance)

2b    Four-slide galop "over elbows", ending with half-turn (RLRLRLR, 1&2&3&4)
2b    Two-step, full turn (LRL RLR, 1&2 3&4)
4b    Spin turn (L back/R fwd x4, 12345678)
(End with L side toward line of dance, ready to restart from the beginning)

A note on the "swirl", as the spin turn is generally referred to in Dance Mad: 

The first time, the gentleman's first step is right foot along line of dance, then rock back left to the center of the room, right toward the wall, left back against line of dance, right against line of dance, left back toward the wall, right toward the center of the room, and left back against line of dance.  This leaves the dancers making a quarter turn to the left (or just underturning slightly) to be ready to proceed "over elbows" for the second iteration.

The second time, because the gentleman's left foot is free, it starts with left back against line of dance, right toward wall, left back toward center, right against line of dance, left back along line of dance, right toward center, left back toward the wall, right along line of dance, and making a quarter turn to the right to repeat from the beginning.

It is possible to do two complete spin turns in eight counts with enough momentum, but that doesn't seem to be in keeping with the leisurely feel of the sequence.

The entire sequence would work equally well as a one-step.

New England Regional Fellowship

Much obliged for the quadrilles, which I am grown to think pretty enough, though of course they are very inferior to the cotillions of my own day.
            --- Jane Austen, letter of February 20, 1816, to her niece Fanny

A formal announcement has at last been made: I will be spending the next year (June 1, 2013-May 31, 2014) as one of the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium research fellows.  I'm very excited and honored to have received a research grant which more typically goes to those with a conventional academic career path.  And I'm thrilled that this will enable me to devote months of intense research time to the complicated topic of cotillions, which I've been looking into off and on over the past year or so.