Capering & Kickery

February 2016 Gig Calendar

Back on the road again for real this month: after the usual round of weekly waltz and monthly Regency workshops and a historical/modern mashup dance in New York City, I will once again be heading off to Europe for the first two stops of a four-city tour that will take me to three cities in Russia and one in Ukraine!  Catch me for dance workshops or private lessons on one continent or the other!

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Wednesday, February 3rd ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (4 of 6)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, February 3rd ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 102: Cross-Step Waltz (3 of 4)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 8:00-9:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Sunday, February 6th ~ New York City
A Hamiltonesque Afternoon Ball at Morris-Jumel Mansion (Facebook event)
3:00-6:00pm.  Historical dancing, modern music, and the run of the mansion!  Creative costuming appreciated!
Limited to 40 -- advance registration strongly encouraged!

Sunday, February 7th ~ New York City
Regency Dance Workshop (Facebook event)
3:00-5:00pm.  Beginner-friendly workshop, no costume required.  

Wednesday, February 10th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (5 of 6)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, February 10th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Jane Austen Era Dancing (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly lesson 8:00-9:30pm.  No costume needed.

Wednesday, February 17th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (6 of 6)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.

Wednesday, February 17th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 102: Cross-Step Waltz (4 of 4)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 8:00-9:00pm.

Saturday, February 20th ~ Moscow, Russia / YouTube
Presentation: Survey of Nineteenth-Century American Dance Cards (YouTube livestream)
Streaming live on YouTube at 17:00 Moscow Time / 09:00 Eastern Standard Time.

Tuesday-Wednesday, February 23-24 ~ Kirov, Russia
Regency-era and mid-19th century dance workshops.

Saturday-Sunday, February 27-28 ~ Samara, Russia
Weekend intensive - teachers and experienced dancers only.  Nineteenth and early twentieth century dance.

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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 1-5, 8-17
New York City: February 6-7
Kirov, Russia: February 22-24
Samara, Russia: February 26

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Coming in March: historical and waltz workshops here and there (New York City; Connecticut; and Voronezh, Russia) plus the first ever Vintage Dance Exchange in Kyiv, Ukraine!

See the Gig Calendar for further-out events and workshops!

The Comus Waltz

Having brought up the Comus Waltz in the context of Tom Willson's 1888 dance card, and since it also appears on my own 1894 dance card, an interesting question is how exactly one dances it.

I have only two sets of instructions for it.  The earlier ones are found on the 1882 sheet music "Comus Waltz" by G. F. Dyke, and are attributed to Professor J. Patoille.  A second set is found in George Washington Lopp's book La Danse, which was published in Paris in 1903.  Lopp himself was an American expatriate who made a name for himself as a dance teacher in France before becoming embroiled in a messy scandal.  Lopp gives the author's name as Patrille, but Lopp makes a lot of minor errors like that.

The 1882 instructions are a bit of a mess.  Here's the text:

Slide left foot back to 4th position and place right foot in 2d position and draw to 3d position and repeat draw step.  Slide right foot to 4th position place left in 2d position draw to 3d position and repeat draw step. (2) then left foot back to 4th position and Waltz two steps. (2) then slide left foot to 4th position slide right foot to 2d position bringing left foot to 3d position same as Society step and repeat the Society with left foot. (2)

Ugh!  What to make of that?  

Dance Card: A Leap Year Ball, 1888

Continuing with my leap year theme, here's a dance card from an event held on Tuesday, January 2nd, 1888, by the Fedora Leap Year Club.  The scans of this card were sent to me by California dancer Tom Willson, who had a question about a couple of the dances on the program.  I couldn't give him a definite answer, but the card itself turned out to be surprisingly interesting.  Click the image at left of the outside of the card to enlarge it and take a close look at the text.

The event was the "First Grand Quadrille Social", though the dance mix is not particularly quadrille-heavy for the era -- seven out of the twenty dances, with the rest being a typical mix of other dances, which I will discuss below.  I haven't been able to trace the origin of the card; unfortunately, there are a number of Russell Halls in the United States, and with no city listed, I can't pick out which one.  Nor have I had any luck with the Fedora Leap Year Club.  Digging around on genealogy sites, here are some hints from some of the names of the organizers (Lizzie Spooner, Maggie Breazeale) that they might have been from somewhere in the south, but I can't say for certain where the ball occurred.  

But those names are the start of what is so interesting about this card: they're all female.  That's not that out of the ordinary for an organizing committee, but to have the floor managers be female?  That's pretty unusual.  As evidenced by the name of the club, this was in fact a leap year ball, run along the lines of the fictional ladies' ball described in the 1835 story I just discussed.  What a bizarre coincidence to have this card turn up just as I was preparing to write that post!

The Ladies' Ball, 1835

2016 being a leap year, some folks have been chatting about leap year balls or leap day dances, including the idea of such balls being a traditional occasion for ladies to ask gentlemen to dance, rather than the standard vice-versa.  I'm not sure how far back that tradition actually goes, but it reminded me of an amusing story published in Atkinson's Saturday Evening Post & Bulletin in 1835, entitled "The Ladies' Ball".

Atkinson's Saturday Evening Post & Bulletin was a Philadelphia newspaper published under various names from 1800; Samuel Atkinson was the publisher from 1831-1839.  Along with domestic and foreign news, Atkinson also included essays, fiction, poetry, household hints, etc.  Its descendant survives to this day as the bimonthly Saturday Evening Post, famous in the mid-twentieth century for its Norman Rockwell covers.

"The Ladies' Ball" tells the story of a social crisis: the gentleman of a certain nameless city, distracted by the study of mnemonics and other sciences, had forgotten to organize the traditional Christmas ball.

CD Review: The Music of Francis Johnson & His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers

I recognized the name Francis Johnson (1792-1844) as the composer of various pieces of early-nineteenth-century American music found in library collections here and there, but I had not actually sought out his work specifically until this winter, after my dinner companion at a ball in Gettysburg in November told me a bit about his history as a famous African-American composer and bandleader who played for, among other things, society balls in Philadelphia and the summer resort town of Saratoga Springs, New York.  Since I'm always interested in dance music of this era, I picked up the CD The Music of Francis Johnson& His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers to see what I thought of his music.

From a dancer's perspective, it turned out to be a spectacularly good purchase.  The sound is beautiful, and almost every track on it is useful for dancing.  It's especially valuable for those willing to do a little work with music editing software.