One hundred and sixteen years ago today, the magazine Harper's Bazaar published a brief blurb predicting fashionable dances for the winter would be of "military tone", no doubt influenced by the burst of patriotic fervor occasioned by the brief Spanish-American War, which by the autumn of 1898 had moved into peace negotiations. The article gives a quick peek at what dances interested Americans (or, at least, American dancing masters) in the second-to-last winter of the nineteenth century.
Unsurprisingly, the writer acknowledges the "extraordinary popularity" of the two-step. The five-step schottische is called a "new" schottische, which is inaccurate, since it had been around since at least 1890, when it was included in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing, and possibly as early as 1871 under a different name. The dance may have been receiving a fresh push from the assembled masters of The American Society of Professors of Dancing, whose meeting seems to have spurred this little notice. No other couple dances are mentioned.
But, reflecting the enthusiasm for the "cotillion" (or "German"), which was not the eighteenth-century square dance but a series of party-games that could be used as the organizing scheme for an entire evening, the writer's main interest is in new cotillion figures, particularly the "Admiral Dewey figure" (named for the famous admiral who defeated the Spanish in the Philippines), in which "after marching and countermarching, the lines of opposing dancers carry on a brisk battle with confetti, whose colored paper ribbons fairly enmesh the company in a great rainbowlike web." That one caught my eye because it is a close match for the figure Battle Confetti published in 1900 by St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler in his compilation Original Cotillion Figures, in which Mahler credits himself with its composition. (Edited 2/2/2015 to add: I've since found a description of the actual Dewey figure.)
Battle Confetti is a "properties figure", which in this case means it requires "[t]wo to three bags of Confetti to each dancer, three to five serpentines to each dancers." Serpentines are the long squiggly ribbon form of confetti. The music is any "lively Two-Step." Rather than countermarching (as in the Lancers), the dancers form circles, but the general concept is the same. Here's the description from Mahler:
At signal from leader, "all up" and dance two-step; form large circle; grand right and left once around; ladies form circle, gentlemen also form circle (outside of ladies); ladies circle to left, gentlemen to right (once around); all face partners; at signal from leader, battle begins, viz.: all first throw serpentines over strings (which must, of course, be strung across room twelve feet from the floor); when serpentines are all thrown, open bags, and fire Confetti at partner first, and then at anyone else; the leader will notice that as soon as the Confetti is exhausted, signal is given and all select a partner and dance two-step.
The dancing part of this figure (two-step, grand right & left, circle) is quite generic, though it is an interesting early example of a Paul Jones-style circle mixer, albeit in an unusual order. I suspect that the figure is mostly an excuse to have a rollicking time throwing confetti all over the ballroom.
On a practical level, I'm rather bemused by the strings; when and where are they strung, and how exactly does throwing things over them work when the dancers are in concentric circles? The march and countermarch described in the Harper's Bazaar notice would seem to make for a more practical battle formation, and it would be easy enough to adapt the Mahler figure to bring the dancers into opposing lines. Or one could just string the strings semi-randomly across the room and not mind the chaos of serpentines flying every which way.
The other figures listed include Stars and Stripes (possibly the Stars and Stripes figure described by Mahler, or similar); the Imperial Guards; and the Charge of the Light Brigade, the last of which seems to have wandered in from a different war entirely, likely inspired more by the Tennyson poem than the event of fifty-some years earlier.
A quadrille called the Cadet Lancers also sounds quite interesting: "instead of being danced in squares, [it] becomes really a diagonal dance, with resulting figures in the shape of triangles and stars". I have not run across any description of it, though some alternate Lancers music called Cadet-lancers from 1882 does survive. The Cadet Lancers quadrille did not necessarily relate to a particular set of tunes, however. Like other Lancers variants (Saratoga, Royal, New York, Newport, etc.) it could simply be an alternate set of figures that fit the standard Lancers musical structure and could thus be danced to any Lancers music.
The entire Harper's Bazaar notice is transcribed below.
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THE SEASON'S NEW DANCES.
Harper's Bazaar; October 15, 1898, p. 892.
The new dances, like almost everything else, are to have a military tone this winter. The American Society of Professors of Dancing has so decreed. "Carpet knights" will be more than an empty phrase. Terpsichore will not exactly carry a musket, nor trip in time to "hay foot, straw foot," but she will indulge in mimic battles, and mst warlike-sounding names. Admiral Dewey, who has been sponsor for everything from towns to tops, gives his name to a new figure for the cotillon. In the Dewey figure, after marching and countermarching, the lines of opposing dancers carry on a brisk battle with confetti, whose colored paper ribbons fairly enmesh the company in a great rainbowlike web. There are still other military figures -- the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Stars and Stripes, and the Imperial Guards. The Cadet Lancers, instead of being danced in squares, becomes really a diagonal dance, with resulting figures in the shape of triangles and stars. It is claimed that the five-step schottische will share the extraordinary popularity of the two-step. The new schottische is a rather difficult dance, but that will probably be one thing in its favor.
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