Dancing Mormons

I come across little tidbits of information about dance history in the oddest places.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, better known as the Mormon church, places a premium on genealogical research for theological reasons.  This has inspired one Mormon family, the Blakes, to create a website about their immediate ancestors.

Among the reminiscences on their site is an interesting excerpt from the book In Search of Zion: King, Youngberg and Allied Families by Richard K. Hart, which apparently features the recollections of one James King, a friend of Blake ancestor Walter Frank Blake (1880-1965). 

According to the information on the Blake family site, Walter Blake was born in England and immigrated to Utah with his parents at the age of two.  His mother converted to the Mormon faith in the 1880s and Walter and his siblings followed suit.  The King family, already Mormons, were neighbors and friends.  James King recounted his memories of life in turn-of-the-century Utah farm country to his wife in 1959.  Though the stereotype of Mormons is rather stuffy, apparently social dancing was (and is) allowed and even encouraged, provided that it doesn't get too intimate or suggestive.

King's stories of life near Utah's Great Salt Lake include a wonderful glimpse of rural dancing  around 1900:

“There used to be a big pavilion on John Simpson’s place, where they held dances and celebrations. They built some bath houses west of there and had bathing and dancing excursions. There was a railroad spur that came down from Clearfield and people came from Ogden, Salt Lake City and all over to dance and swim in the lake. The water was so salty you could float as easy as pie if you could keep your head up. The lake is too polluted today to swim in. Some of the poles that the bath houses were built on still stand today.”

Here's the Blake family connection and a bit about the musicians:

“Walt Blake and I managed the dances in the old hall, and we sure had good times. I would rather dance than eat any time, and have gone a good many nights when you could wring water out of my shirts. Mr. Singleton played his fiddle at all of our dances for many, many years, and Aunt Ann (his sister) chorded on the organ. He never had a sheet of music with him, and yet he could play for hours and seldom play the same tune twice the same night. I remember one of the favorite tunes he played for our quadrilles was a jig called, the “Devil’s Dream.”

That's one of my favorite jigs as well; I choreographed a performance Scotch reel to it for the Flying Cloud Academy of Vintage Dance a few years ago.  Note the implication that there was no fixed tune for quadrille figures!

Getting better and better, King actually remembers specific dances:

"Some of the good old dances we liked were: Waltzes, polkas, Heel and Toe Polka, Trilby Two-step, The Polygamy Dance (where each man had two partners), the Seven-up, Fascination, Scottise, the Buffalo Glide, Hesitation Waltz, The Baltimore Glide, Varsouvienne, The Red Wing Two-Step and they never made a better dance than the good old square dance.”

Waltz, polka (including the heel and toe), Varsouvienne, Schottise (schottische) -- all of these are popular nineteenth century dances that reasonably would have a longer span of popularity on the western frontier.  Square dances would be quadrilles.  The hesitation waltz is more a dance of the 1910s, at least by that name, but hesitation techniques were in use from the 1880s onward.  King may be conflating a couple of decades worth of memories here, understandable in someone who must have been in his late 70s or early 80s when telling his stories.

The Trilby Two-Step is a two-step sequence from 1895.  The Red Wing Two-Step might be another sequence dance of that general vintage; there were a lot of them.  The Fascination might be D. B. Brenneke's short waltz sequence.  I've never heard of Seven-up, the Buffalo Glide, or the Baltimore Glide. 

I can't help but wonder whether the wonderfully named Polygamy Dance (a wry comment on the polygamy controversy that was still an issue in the Mormon church in the early twentieth century) was some form of the old trio country dance genre called Swedish dances (which were not Swedish in origin), or perhaps some form of the similar Highland Reel country dance, or even the Troïka.  What a shame King did not elaborate!

Partner-changing was routine, in contrast to "today" (the late 1950s):

“At our dances, everybody had a good time. Everyone knew everyone, and we danced with all. I have danced with young unmarried women, married women, mothers and grandmothers- all in the same evening. It isn’t like that today. One fellow dances all evening with the same girl.”

He even talks about entertainment during the break:

“At intermission we often had Will Craythorne and his dad tap dance, and Bishop Bennett would sing. One song was “Quit Your Winkin’ at Me”. He’d sing verse after verse and he’d put the names of different people in the words, and he’d pick out about any one he wanted to out of the audience."

I should perhaps mention for those with no exposure to Mormonism that all Mormon men are members of a "lay priesthood", so Bishop should not be understood as a title carrying the sort of pomp that it does in, for example, Roman Catholicism.  As I understand it, a Mormon bishop is the head of a congregation, more akin to a parish priest.  And the Mormon priesthood is not a celibate one; all priests (male Mormons) are supposed to marry.  So having a bishop singing flirty songs at a dance party is not as bizarre as it sounds to outsiders. 

Mormon practices in general are way beyond Kickery's scope, but there's plenty of information online for those who are curious.  For myself, I'll keep in mind that Mormon family stories might include more of these little nuggets of dance history.

The Blake-related parts of King's reminiscences may be found in full on the Walter Frank Blake page of the Blake family website.  Many thanks to the Blake family for making them available online!

Comments

[Vivian Williams]

"Seven Up" is apparently the same as "La Yucca" which is in the book "Dances of Early California Days" by Lucile Czarnowsky. It is a version of the "Siebenschritt" or "Seven Step," a folk dance well known in Germany and in the British Isles. It also appears in the Peter Beemer manuscript, from the mining town of Warrens Diggins Idaho in the 1860's. Cool that they did it in Utah also; another example of the central question of the history of traditional music: Who stole what from whom, and when?!!
Vivian Williams

[Laraine Miner]

The "Seven Step Schotische" is still alive and well in small hold-out communities in Utah, such as Koosharem, Hooper, etc., where they still maintain an old time dance tradition. Seven Step has many cousins. To add to what Vivian Williams has posted, the Norwegian folk dance "Rugen" is another cousin. Dudley Laufman has included the "Seven Step Polka" in his Barn Dance collection, which originated in the Shetland Islands. (BTW: it is technically more a schottische than a polka). Dudley recorded that it has also been found on Native American reservations in North Dakota. ! 2 3 4 5 6 7 is another cousin, a Play Party found in the southern states.

Craig Miller, Utah State Folklorist, and I found the above dances still in living tradition in our fieldwork research during the 1980s and 90s We found the Trilby, Varsouvienne, Chicago Glide, Baltimore, Heel-toe Polka, Heel Toe Schottische, Circle Two-Step (a version of Paul Jones danced to RedWing) etc. Utah and the Mormon West has a huge social dance tradition dating back to pioneer days. Mostly round dances have survived in living tradition, except for one Quadrille that is still danced today in the town of Oak City.

Craig Miller's materials, "An Old Time Utah Dance Party, Sheet Music and Dance Steps," "Social Dances of the Mormon West" and a CD of field recordings of dance music, are available through Utah Heritage Arts.

Polygamy dances were trio dances like one would find in Scandinavia like the "Polygamy Waltz," one man, two ladies, and the "Double Quadrille" danced with trios instead of couples. The Danish trio folk dance, "The Crested Hen" is documented in Daughters of Utah Pioneers' Museum archives as a "polygamy dance." Scandinavians were the second largest immigrant community. First were Brts.

I am currently putting together a "Mormon Pioneer Dance" project featuring 30 dances of Mormon pioneer era 1847 to 1869, and some of their descendants. This project is partially funded by the National Folk Organization. and will consist of a book, CD an DVD of these 30 dances, This is the final product of my lifetime research. It will be completed by July 2016 and hopefully published thereafter.
Laraine Miner