Capering & Kickery

Ballroom Heroes, 1897

I'm in the midst of a particularly stuporous jet-lagged stupor, so here's a very serious article from 1897 to entertain everyone until my wits return.  Oh, those manly Boston dandies!

A few equally serious editorial comments are interpolated in italics.

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Professor Lefort's Five Step

I made a brief excursion last week to the Bibliothèque nationale de France to further my research about what the French were up to with the five-step in the 1920s.  While marauding merrily through their sheet music collection, frantically transcribing five-step instructions, I stumbled across yet another dance which (like the Five-Step York, Five-Step Schottische, and Five-Step Boston) was called Five Step but was not in 5/4 time.

The copy of Professor C. Lefort's Five Step in the Bibliothèque nationale is stamped 1910, which seems about right for the dance.  Lefort was a busy little composer of dances; the sheet music lists his other credits as the Aéronette (another early flight-inspired dance like the Aeroplane Waltz) and the Chanteclerette.

Frolicking at Frogmore, 1800

Frogmore House, Windsor Great Park
© Copyright Gill Hicks and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Mentions of dance in men's magazines are somewhat rarer than in women's, but in 1800, The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle twice briefly mentioned country dancing by the royal family at Frogmore, a royal country estate in Berkshire that is best known today as the burial place of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  Frogmore House (left; click to enlarge) was built in the late seventeenth century and purchased by (or for) the queen in 1792.  It was updated by the architect James Wyatt during the early 1790s; among his improvements was the front Colonnade, which in 1800 was open to the gardens.

In 1800 the royal family consisted of George III, Queen Charlotte, and their thirteen surviving children, most of whom were unmarried and still lived with their notoriously strict parents.  Their oldest son, the future George IV, would become best known to history as the Prince Regent from 1810-1820.  Their second son, Prince Frederick, and his wife, Princess Frederica, held the titles of Duke and Duchess of York. 

Among their guests was the exiled William V, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, and a refugee from the spillover of the French Revolution.

Their third-oldest daughter, the Princess Elizabeth (right, in 1797), who would turn thirty in the May of 1800, seems to have served as organizer and hostess for her parents in the events at Frogmore.  While there is no detailed description of the dancing, there are some intriguing tidbits of information in the description of the first event and appearances by noted performers of the era in the entertainment preceding the ball in the second.

The Gentleman Dancing-Master, 1673

Restoration playwright William Wycherley had a remarkably short career, writing only four plays, all between 1671 and 1676.  Three of them are considered noteworthy: Love in a Wood, which earned him the attention of Charles II's mistress, Barbara Villiers, and brought him into court circles; the oft-produced The Country Wife, the only one of the four that I have personally seen; and The Plain Dealer.

The remaining play, second to be produced and generally considered (including by Wycherley himself) his weakest, was The Gentleman Dancing-Master, probably first played in 1672 and then published in 1673.  The title caught my eye for obvious reasons, and I took advantage of an oversupply of time on public transit lately to finally get around to reading it to find out what it could tell me about English dance in the late seventeenth century.

The plot is fairly simple: fourteen-year-old Hippolita has been raised under the close supervision of her aunt, Mrs. Caution, while her father spent his time in Spain, going so far as to adopt Spanish mannerisms, phrases, and the name Don Diego.  Her cousin is similarly attracted to France and now wears French fashions and calls himself Monsieur de Paris.  Hippolita is betrothed to Monsieur de Paris, but has no desire to marry him, so she tricks him into sending  Gerrard, a gallant young gentleman, to court her.  When they are discovered together by her father, Gerrard must pretend to be her dancing-master.  This is a problem, since he cannot actually dance.  Farce ensues, with much poking of fun at the character and clothing of the French, the Spanish, and the Englishmen who ape the manners and fashions of either, while Hippolita and Gerrard have to constantly evade her father's requests to demonstrate their dancing skills.  Eventually Hippolita gets her way and marries Gerrard.

While I would love to see The Gentleman Dancing-Master played someday, my immediate interest is in what the play reveals about dancing and dancing masters in late seventeenth-century England.  I'm going to illustrate these revelations by pulling individual lines out of the play.  If you want to see these lines in context, the entire play is available at Literature Online as well as in several scholarly editions.

Proper dress for cotillons, Boston, 1808

This short satire is really a commentary on early nineteenth-century fashion.  My excuse for posting it here is that it pertains to dance history by making it clear that cotillons were still sufficiently fashionable in Boston in 1808 as to allow them to be part of a bilingual joke. 

Also, it's funny, and I like it, and I'm feeling self-indulgent this month.

The excerpt below is taken from The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, Vol. V, 1808.  It is found in the December section under a column called "Silva", which seems to be a sort of literary miscellanea with a title shortened from a supposed Cicero quote starting "silvia rerum" (forest of things).  "Cotillons" starts on page 657.  I will include it in its entirety below with a short explanation for anyone who doesn't get the joke.

COTILLONS

The Cotillon, or under-petticoat dance, received its name from that garment, which, to the exclusion of others was appropriated to its use.  It is painful to observe that the ladies of Boston, are so far backward in the ranks of fashion, that, on those days of battle array, when they are drawn up to near and warm engagements, they have not yet ventured to assume their uniform.  Is there no one of sufficient publick spirit to stand forward, and, like Ulysses, throwing off her useless rags, assume the majesty and simplicity of the Cotillon.  An objection, indeed, may be raised, that, provided the external finery be removed, the expected substitute would not appear : that fashion has long since deprived a lady's person of that useless incumbrance.  Without pretending to enter into the merits of this objection, or to decide, whether the garment, next but one to the skin, whatever be its quality and texture, be not the one in question, we would, with all humility, beg leave to inquire, whether Mrs. Cruft, and Miss Brown, and Mrs. _____, and Miss _____, &c. ad infinitum, are not sufficient to supply any demand, which this town and its vicinity can create.  Away with such frivolous evasions.

What's with this Paul Jones thing anyway?

David Millstone of the Square Dance History Project sent me a query in email about how the name "Paul Jones", after the naval hero of the American Revolution, came to be attached to a late nineteenth century song and then a twentieth-century mixer dance.  I can't give a precise answer to David's question, but I can offer some background and informed speculation while meandering through a quick survey of some of the dances given the "Paul Jones" name.

The tl;dr version is: just because two things in dance or music have the same name doesn't mean they necessarily have any relationship whatsoever.

Dancing with the Wine Clerks, 1888

I'm trying this summer to share some of my eclectic collection of descriptions of dancing, specific dances, and balls from various periodicals.  These mini-sources provide useful context for the descriptions and recommendations given in dance manuals. 

The report from the Boston Daily Globe of the first ball of the East Boston Wine Clerks in 1888 adds nothing to my knowledge of specific dances, but it does provide a bit of information about the ball in general, including the very spectacular decorations.  Apparently wine clerks really know how to throw a party.  Who'd have guessed?

The Lyon Chassé

The Lyon Chassé, diagrammed at left, is a one-measure waltz variation which appeared in Troy and Margaret Kinney's  Social Dancing of To-Day (New York, 1914).  In essence, it inserts a brief moment of double-speed grapevine into a waltz.  This has the effect of changing the lead foot against the music.

The sequence is not particularly complicated.  The dancers are promenading forward in waltz time, one step to each beat of music.  The Lyon Chassé starts on the inside foot (gentleman's right, lady's left).  The dancers step forward, cross the outside foot over the inside foot to come facing each other, quickly cross behind as in a mirror grapevine, and step out to the side to face line of dance and continue promenading.