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.
Lefort's Five Step is danced in 2/4 time like the polka. Lefort actually notes on the music (which is of his own composition) that it may be used for either the polka or the two-step as well as for his Five Step. For the polka or two-step, one should take it at a faster tempo; for the Five Step it should be slower. Sadly, he gives no actual tempo for guidance, but the near-contemporary La Danse, published in Paris in 1903 by the American expatriate George Washington Lopp, gives a tempo of 120 beats per minute for the two-step, which gives something of an upper boundary.
Since Lefort seems to feel there is no important musical distinction except tempo between the polka, the two-step, and his Five Step, I feel comfortable suggesting that any 2/4 two-step or polka played slowly could be used for Lefort's Five Step as well.
The basic step of this Five Step is quite simple: a series of five (!) steps in the rhythm "1, 2, 1&2" ("slow, slow, quick-quick-slow"), taking two measures of music. The partners are in a normal ballroom hold, the gentleman moving straight forward along the line of dance and the lady directly backward. The gentleman starts with the left foot, the lady with the right. The first four steps are straight along line of dance; the fifth is a close with weight:
step, step, step-step-close
The sequence is then repeated leading on the second foot (gentleman's right, lady's left).
Lefort calls this a "rhythme original", but it is not all that original -- the "passo, passo, seguito ordinario" sequence of late sixteenth century Italian dance follows exactly the same rhythm. It will be familiar to many present-day dancers as one of the common rhythm patterns for tango as well.
As a general rule, the final closing step is more easily led when the fourth and fifth steps (quick-slow) are taken at a slight diagonal angle so that the close is more from the side than from behind.
The basic sequence can also be done with the gentleman moving backward along the line of dance and the lady forward (potentially hazardous in a crowded ballroom) or turning either to the left or the right. A full turn takes four measures and runs through the basic five-step sequence twice. The first two slow steps are made directly along line of dance, the turn is made on the two quick steps, and the feet are closed on the final slow step. This is quite easy and intuitive in practice, but here is a more detailed breakdown:
To turn to the left (reverse or counter-clockwise turn), the gentleman should be moving forward along line of dance. On the two quick steps (his left, right), he angles to the left (toward the center of the room). The lady must take smaller steps as she backs slightly toward the center so that the gentleman can glide past her. On the final close of the feet, they will have made a half-turn. On the repeat of the sequnce, the gentleman backs toward the center on the two quick steps (his right, left), taking short steps so the lady can move past him. At the final close of feet, they are back in their original orientation, gentleman facing forward along line of dance and lady back.
To turn to the right (natural or clockwise turn), the dancers should start with the lady moving forward along the line of dance and the gentleman moving back. The starting foot remains the gentleman's left. On the two quick steps (his left, right), he backs slightly toward the wall, allowing the lady to move past him on the inside, making a half-turn and closing the feet on the final count. The repeat of the sequence finds the gentleman moving forward, and on the two quick steps (his right, left), the lady backs slightly toward the wall, taking short steps as the gentleman glides past her, closing the feet on the final count as they return to their original orientation with the gentleman's back to line of dance.
Lefort gives his turns only as four-measure full turns, but there is no particular reason one cannot do only a two-measure half-turn instead; indeed, it is necessary to switch from the gentleman traveling forward to the gentleman traveling backward. He notes in general that the dancers may mix and match forward and backward movement and natural and reverse turns at will.
I suspect that Lefort's Five Step was rarely (if ever) danced outside his own studio, or possibly his own parlor; this sheet music is the only evidence I have of the dance's existence. It rates an article primarily because in my process of cataloguing 5/4-time dances I am incidentally collecting non-5/4 five-steps as well.
Intriguingly, however, a "Five Step" does turn up on a 1909 dance card, that of the Enfield High School Annual Promenade, held in Thompsonville, Connecticut, on Friday, June 25, 1909. Could the students somehow have been dancing Lefort's Five Step? I doubt it. The timing is close, but not quite right, and given the geographic disparity (Enfield is not exactly a center of trans-Atlantic cultural exchange) I think it considerably more likely that the high schoolers were doing the Five-Step Schottische or, just possibly, a Saracco/Angelina-style nineteenth-century Five-Step Waltz.
I find Photo Ms. and Mme. Lefort dancing l'Aeronette: http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/bodhij/11045672/16046/16046_original.jpg
Posted by: bodhi | August 30, 2014 at 04:25 PM