I'm on the road again this week, hauling my still-jet-lagged self to the library to do research as well as DJing in the evenings, so it's a good week for easy one-step variations! These two are taken from an article by Elsie Janis published in the Chicago Daily Tribune on November 23, 1913. Janis (1889-1956) was a vaudeville actress who moved to the stage and later to film, as well as a poet, songwriter, composer, and producer. Ohio State University has a nice online exhibition on Janis with a biography and related ephemera.
While we tend to think of 1914 as the significant year for the new dances of the ragtime era, since that's when a cluster of major books on the topic came out and the foxtrot made a splash, several of the major dances of the 1910s became popular slightly earlier. Janis wrote about some of them in a series of breezy newspaper articles in late 1913. Dances covered included the one-step, Castle walk, hesitation waltz, and tango.
This particular article is misleadingly titled "It's Not What You DO -- It's What You DON'T In The One-Step Variations". What you don't do, in brief, is move your body in various ways that were considered vulgar. But Janis' heart wasn't really in this topic. After one short paragraph, she went on to devote three columns (plus illustrations) to what you do do, meaning variations.
Here are a pair of easy ones that can be generically described as "one-two-three-something".
A step that I love is like this: One-step position, girl well in front of her partner. Man starts with left, girl with right, and, for a change, going backwards. Man steps left, right, left, and on four just taps the floor with toe of his right. That tap is really the beginning of the reverse, for as he taps he steps on that right foot and goes back three, the same as he came forward, which makes it right, left, right, and tap, the toe of his left foot out behind him, and at the same time starting the step again left, right, left, etc. The girl steps back on her right and counts right, left, right, tap, left toe behind her, and starts on said left, forward counting left, right, left, and tap, the toe of the right out in front of her, then back again. That's all there is to it. You just go back and forth, tapping toes busily...The main idea is to make a little noise when you tap the toe, otherwise people won't know you are doing anything but walking back and forth.
That is pretty self-explanatory, but here it is neatly written out with counts:
1, 2, 3 Forward left, right, left
4 Tap right foot forward
1, 2, 3 Backward right, left, right
4 Tap left foot backward
Repeat indefinitely. The lady dances opposite, doing the second four counts followed by the first four. This is an extended hesitation; the dancers move back and forth but don't make any progress around the floor.
The only performance note is that the tapping foot has to swing forward or backward very quickly to take the next step on the beat.
Note that this is an somewhat antisocial hesitation, since it moves directly against line of dance for three steps. It's not good on a crowded floor, so if there isn't a lot of space, try it only in the center of the room where the gentleman won't crash into other dancers while moving backward.
The next is cheerfully subtitled "One More Little Tripper":
Same one-step position, walk three steps, man starting forward on left, girl starting back on right, and here is the difference. Instead of tapping the toe as in the last step, this is the routine: Man left, right, left, and on four the right foot goes out to the right side about a foot, and the left leg bends a little at the knee. So it is really a sort of refined dip. The right that has been out at the right side is not allowed to remain there, but dashes right ahead, making the start for the rest of the step, which is right, left, right, and left; foot goes over to the side about a foot, while the right leg bends a bit at the knee. The girl, of course, goes backwards, doing the same steps with opposite feet.
I like this jaunty little step much better, since it moves entirely with line of dance with only brief hesitations. Once again, the lady dances opposite.
1, 2, 3 Forward left, right, left
4 Bend left knee slightly and touch right foot out to side
1, 2, 3 Forward right, left, right
4 Bend right knee slightly and touch left foot out to side
Repeat indefinitely.
Both of these steps are leadable even if the lady does not know them beforehand, though she may not get the foot-tapping on the first, since foot movements cannot be led directly. The key thing to communicate on both variations is step-step-step-STOP, with no change of weight on that fourth beat. A slight lean of the body will keep the lady from putting her foot down.
In the first variation, she may or may not pick up the tap -- it depends on how much noise the gentleman manages to make when tapping. He should be careful when tapping forward to point his foot slightly outward, since the lady may not have extended her leg backward.
The second variation is much more obvious to the lady; she will feel the gentleman dipping slightly and can see the foot extended to the side. The gentleman can cue her to look by looking in that direction himself. Do the sequence a few times so the lady has a chance to catch on and do the foot-touches herself.
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