Capering & Kickery

February 2015 Gig Calendar

Things start getting busy in mid-February before building up to my absolutely crazy March! 

I've now added to Kickery the oft-requested calendar of my workshops and events past the current month; check the Gig Calendar for upcoming events from March onward!

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Sunday,  February 1st ~ New York City
Regency Dance Workshop (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly lesson 3:00-5:00pm.  No costume needed.

Thursday, February 5th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Jane Austen Era Dancing (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly dancing 7:30-9:00pm.  No costume needed.

Friday-Sunday, February 13-15th ~ Saratoga Springs, New York
Dance Flurry Festival (Facebook event)
Teaching intermediate cross-step waltz & historical dance, including the infamous disco line dance session on Friday night, plus partnering the fabulous Jennie Worden for basic cross-step!  Full schedule here.  My sessions:
        Friday 8:30-9:30pm                Friday Night Disco Fever!
        Friday 11:00pm-12:00mid      partnering Jennie Worden for Introductory Cross-Step Waltz
        Saturday 1:00-2:15pm            Vintage Dance
        Saturday 8:00-9:15pm            Austentatious!  Unusual Dances from Jane Austen's Era
        Sunday 10:00-11:00am           Intermediate Cross-Step Waltz

Sunday, February 22nd ~ Connecticut
Private event

Tuesday & Wednesday, February 24-25 ~ Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Private event

Thursday, February 26th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Jane Austen Era Dancing (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly dancing 7:30-9:00pm.  No costume needed.

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I am available for private lessons in Connecticut or on my various travels; during the latter, you must provide the dance space.  Email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson.

New Haven & Middletown, Connecticut: February 2-12, 16, 20-22, 26-27
Saratoga Springs: February 13-15
Pittsburgh: February 24-25
New York City: February 28

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Coming in March: Russia Whistle-Stop Tour!  St. Petersburg - Moscow - Kazan - Voronezh.  Вконтакте: классы, конференция / классы в СПб, классы в Воронеже.

Snowball fight!

In honor of tonight's incoming blizzard, and because I've been thinking lately about cotillion figures that scale up well for large groups, let's talk about Les Boules de Neige.  For those who don't speak French, that would be...The Snowballs!

A Late Victorian Galopade Country Dance

Galopade country dances turn up most frequently in the early-mid-nineteenth-century (1830s & 1840s), but they're not unknown later on.  A "Galopede" (under a wide variety of spellings) is still found in folk and traditional dance communities in Britain and former colonies such as Australia.

I have two sources for this particular galopade, both only vagely dated: Rudolph Radestock's The Royal Ball-Room Guide (London & Otley, c1877) and The People's Ball Room Guide, edited by James Scott Skinner (Dundee & London, c1905).  Both of these books were at least in part compiled (or plagiarized) from other dance manuals.  I suspect there is an earlier common source for this galopade -- there is nothing about it that would make it inappropriate as early as the 1840s.  If anything, it's rather old-fashioned for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  I'd also call it more typical for England or Scotland than America, where galopades don't seem to have been as common or had the same staying power.

Skinner classifies this galopade as a children's dance: "To Follow the March in a Children's Ball", presumably after ending a Grand March in platoons and flipping alternate lines of dancers around to create the couple-facing couple lines shown at left in a diagram from The People's Ball Room Guide.  Radestock doesn't specify an age group, and adults certainly did galopades -- and much sillier things -- in ballrooms during the nineteenth century.  It's a nice, easy dance that would be good for a ballroom full of beginners.

Mr. Newman's Tangos: "Walking" and the Fan Tango

To conclude my little survey of short tango sequences published in 1914 by Albert W. Newman of Philadelphia, here are the final two: "Walking" and the Fan Tango.  The quotes around "Walking" are Newman's.  Previous posts in this series covered the Minuet Tango and the "Argentine" and Tango Two-Step.

Neither "Walking" nor the Fan Tango follow the pattern of the earlier sequences, though "Walking" has similar elements in a different order, including cross steps and a rocking turn.  Fan Tango is a short, eight-measure sequence, with a faster, two-measure rocking turn. As with the previous three sequences, these two may be strung together with each other or with some combination of the earlier sequences to make a longer dance.  

Mr. Newman's Tangos: "Argentine" and Tango Two-Step

Continuing my survey of Philadelphia dancing master Albert Newman's short tango sequences, here are the next two: the "Argentine" and the Two-Step Tango.  The quotes around "Argentine" are Newman's, but I approve of them, since I feel these sequences are very American in style, despite Newman's use of Argentine steps.

These sequences can be paired with each other or one or both can be attached to Newman's Minuet Tango for a longer sequence.  No particular music beyond "Tango (slow)" is suggested; any period tango piece will do.

Mr. Newman's Tangos: The Minuet Tango

In 1914, Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman created a set of five tango sequences which were published both in his own book, Dances of To-Day, and in both editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914), for which Clendenen solicited contributions from other dance teachers. 

Newman seems to have felt that the tango needed a little fixing up for American dancers:

This adaptation of the Tango is most practical for ballroom use, as it enables the dancers to move around the room in a progressive manner just as in the Waltz and Two-Step.  It does not obstruct the way of the other dancers.  After one has acquired the steps of the Minuet Tango it is very easy to avoid collisions.

Along with progressing politely around the room, unlike the randomly-wandering tangos of Argentina and Paris, the Minuet Tango has the gentleman start on his left foot, rather than on the right, as seems to have been more traditional for tango. 

It has no connection either musically or choreographically to the minuet proper.

I suspect Newman was engaging in some optimistic self-promotion in claiming that his choreography was "approved and accepted by polite society throughout the world".  I can't claim to have made an exhaustive survey, but I've never seen it anywhere except in the two American books mentioned above. 

I wouldn't consider the Minuet Tango a good representation of sophisticated tango practices of the 1910s, and certainly not typical for either Argentina or Paris.  But it is an interesting illustration of the American tendency to turn tango into a sort of slow one-step and makes an easy entry dance for tango beginners.  Just keep in mind that although some of the individual steps are perfectly reasonable for a more authentic tango, as a sequence, its overall style is very, very American!

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:

Yale Positions

I sometimes wonder what it is about Yale that gets its name attached to dance positions as well as dances. 

At left is the Yale position of the 1910s, as illustrated in Albert W. Newman's Dances of To-Day (Philadelphia, 1914).  Click to enlarge the image.  The dancers stand right side to right side, feet not interlaced at all.  It's a perfectly reasonable position for traveling or hesitating in the one-step and a necessity for starting off moves like the Pomander Walk or the various hop-turns in the foxtrot.  Newman also calls this the American position, so I suppose there are some pleasing associations there: Yale, all-American college boys, rah rah, Boola Boola, etc.

I used to make jokes about this position being a reflection of Yale students' dating life (looking right past each other...), but earlier in the century Yale's reputation seems to have been rather the opposite.

January 2015 Gig Calendar

Happy New Year!

Having basically failed to stay home quietly and write in December, I'm going to try again in late January, with two weeks of a mostly-clear schedule at the end of the month.  Other than that, I'm slowly picking up my travel schedule again with the usual New York and Boston routine before it starts getting really crazy in February and March!

An open cross-step waltz class and possibly another couple of minor workshops will be added to this schedule; details TBA.  Not until February!

Sunday,  January 4th ~ New York City
Regency Dance Workshop (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly lesson 3:00-5:00pm.  No costume needed.

Thursday, January 8th ~ Somerville, Massachusetts (Boston area)
Blues Union (Facebook event)
7:30-11:00pm (lessons until 9:30 then dancing).  DJing blues from 9:30-10:30.

Tuesday, January 13th ~ Cambridge, Massachusetts (Boston area)
Bluesy Tuesy
7:30-11:00pm (lesson then dancing).  DJing blues from 9:45-11:00.

Saturday, January 17th ~ Connecticut
Private event

Saturday, January 31st ~ Hartford, Connecticut
Midwinter Ball with The 9th Regiment of Foot (Facebook event)
Revolutionary War reenactor dinner & ball.  Flexible costuming late 18th-early 19th century.

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I am available for private lessons in Connecticut or on my various travels; during the latter, you must provide the dance space.  Email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson.

New Haven & Middletown, Connecticut: January 5-7, 15-31
Boston area: January 8-14

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Coming in February: the Dance Flurry Festival!