Capering & Kickery

June 2016 Gig Calendar

June starts out crazy for me with a trip to Washington and New York and a weekend in the Catskills, then everything calms down as I wind up my spring waltz class serieses and head toward a summer hiatus that I'm taking to give myself time to work on some special projects.

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Saturday, June 4th ~ Washington, D.C.
How Did Jane Austen Dance?  (Facebook event)
2:00-5:00pm.  Lecture for JASNA-DC on early-nineteenth century ballroom practices, followed by social dancing.

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

Wednesday, June 8th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (3 of 5)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, June 8th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Nineteenth-Century Waltz (4 of 5)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 8:00-9:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Friday-Sunday, June 10-12th ~ East Durham, New York (Catskills)
Steampunk in the Catskills II with Jeff Mach & Friends (Facebook event)
Friendly, low-key steampunk weekend with dancing at the Blackthorne Resort!  Dance workshop 5:00-6:00pm Saturday, then leading some dancing during the dinner and Grand Ball 6:00-8:30pm.

Wednesday, June 15th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (4 of 5)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, June 15th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Nineteenth-Century Waltz (5 of 5)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 8:00-9:00pm. 

Wednesday, June 22nd ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (5 of 5)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  

Wednesday, June 22nd ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Jane Austen Era Dancing  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly lesson 8:00-9:30pm.  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 York City: June 5
New Haven and Middletown, Connecticut: June 6-9, 13-30
Blackthorne Resort, Catskills: June 10-12
Baltimore/D.C.: June 1-3

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

The Butterfly Tango

The Butterfly Tango is an anonymous sixteen-bar sequence published in the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad, or the dances of the day (St. Louis; both editions 1914).  It not named after a piece of music or colorful insect, but rather after the position of the dancers.  A rather confusing illustration, shown below, accompanies the dance in the first edition of Dance Mad: 

The only one of these positions which actually appears in the dance is the center one, which is described very precisely:

The partners stand side by side, the gentleman taking the lady's left hand in his left and the fingers of her right hand in his right, over her right shoulder.

This is more usually called sweetheart or varsovienne position.  The dancers also shift to holding only right hands and to waltz position, but never actually take either the left- or right-hand positions in the illustration.  

A "Butterfly Tango No. 2" appears in the index of both editions, but not in the text, so perhaps these illustrations go with some other Butterfly Tango that somehow slipped out of the final version.

The Butterfly Tango is an anonymous sixteen-bar sequence published in the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad, or the dances of the day (St. Louis; both editions 1914).  It not named after a piece of music or colorful insect, but rather after the position of the dancers.  A rather confusing illustration, shown below, accompanies the dance in the first edition of Dance Mad: 

The only one of these positions which actually appears in the dance is the center one, which is described very precisely:

The partners stand side by side, the gentleman taking the lady's left hand in his left and the fingers of her right hand in his right, over her right shoulder.

This is more usually called sweetheart or varsovienne position.  The dancers also shift to holding only right hands and to waltz position, but never actually take either the left- or right-hand positions in the illustration.  

A "Butterfly Tango No. 2" appears in the index of both editions, but not in the text, so perhaps these illustrations go with some other Butterfly Tango that somehow slipped out of the final version.

Revisiting the Flirtation Figure

Almost six and a half years ago, I reconstructed and briefly discussed the Flirtation Figure, which appeared in William Lamb's How and What to Dance (London, 1903 or 1904) as a separate figure after the usual five figures of the first set of quadrilles.  My slightly revised reconstruction of Lamb's figure:

Flirtation Figure (8 bars + 32 bars x4 + 8 bars)
8b     Introduction (not repeated)
4b     Grand Circle: all take hands and forward and back
4b     All turn partners two hands
4b     All four ladies forward and back
4b     All four gentlemen forward, turn, and bow to lady at their left (their corner lady)
4b     Facing corners, all balance by stepping right, close left behind, step right, touch toe of left in front (1, 2, 3, 4); repeat to left
4b     Turn corners two hands, ending in gentleman's original place and taking closed hold
8b     All galopade around the set (four-slide galop to each position, alternating over hands/over elbows)
Repeat previous thirty-two bars three more times. After last repetition:
8b     Grand Circle and turn partners two hands

I recently noticed that versions of the Flirtation Figure appear as the fifth figure in a number of "old time dance" manuals published in England during the 1940s, including:

• Francis & Day's Ball Room Guide of Old Time Favourite and Modern Dances (London, c1940)
  
  
• Cecil Taylor, Old Time and Novelty Dances (London, 1944)
  
  
• Victor Sylvester, Old Time Dancing (London, c1949; 4th impression 1951)

Taylor and the Francis & Day book referred to it as the "Grand Circle" and danced it with a galop at the end of each figure, as in Lamb.  Sylvester gaves it no special title and had the couples promenade instead.  All three had the ladies curtsey in the center before retiring to places and gave very precise instructions that the gentlemen should advance, bow first to each other, then step back on the right foot, turn to the left, and bow to the corner lady.

Francis & Day also gave an adapted version of the figure in the "present day" version of the quadrille, which replaces turns and promenades with waltzing.  But I more interested in the history of the figure and how at least some writers in the 1940s considered it not an alternative figure but actually the standard Finale figure for the first quadrille.

Teaching the hey for three

I didn't realize my way of teaching heys for three was particularly unusual until one of my regular musicians, who is himself a contra dance caller, commented on it, impressed by how quickly I was able to get a roomful of dancers at a public ball (meaning dancers of wildly mixed ability and experience) doing heys in unison.  Since heys of one sort or another are especially popular in early nineteenth century dance, I teach them frequently and prefer not to take too much time about it, especially when calling at a ball. 

My little trick for teaching a hey for three is to start by teaching it from an L-shaped formation, as a "corner hey", rather than in a straight line.  I find that it can be difficult for dancers, especially beginners, to visualize the figure-eight path of the hey when they all start in a straight line, and that it is not intuitively obvious in which direction the second and third dancers move when everyone starts at once (as they should!) rather than one dancer moving and the other two waiting out a measure or two before starting.  

Doing a corner hey simplifies things.

The Red Domino Dance, 1898

An exciting fancy dress ball from the other side of the Atlantic was the "red domino dance" that took place in New York City on January 28, 1898, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Heber Bishop.

Heber Bishop (1840-1902) made himself a substantial fortune in Cuba, and the Bishops were well-known philanthropists and art collectors.  They also held some unusually-themed fancy dress balls which, as was typical at the time, made the society columns of various newspapers, both in New York City and elsewhere.  The column header at left is taken from the January 29, 1898, issue of The New York Times.  Happily, the paper of record devoted several column-inches to details of the red domino dance, which must have been visually stunning.  Unless otherwise noted, all quotes below are taken from the Times column, which may be found in PDF format in The New York Times online archive.

I have a general interest in fancy dress balls, but aside from my enjoyment of the colorful details of costumes and decorations, descriptions like this also offer bits of useful information about the organization of such a ball, which in this case included dancing, a late-night supper, and, in the small hours of the morning, a cotillion.

Butchers and Drovers Ball, 1842

I finally got to spend some time recently looking through Philadelphia newspaper microfilms, investigating the mysterious (and unlikely) "Cauliflower Chemi" appearing on the 1842 Butchers and Drovers Ball program transcribed by Charles K. Jones in his 2006 biography of Francis Johnson. 

I was able to find the newspaper announcement with the ball program in the pages of Philadelphia's Public Ledger (Vol. XII, No. 139, February 28, 1842).  

Printing from a very tiny newspaper ad on a low-resolution microfilm which only gets blurrier when enlarged does not produce very good results, so I can see why Jones, lacking a dance background, had trouble figuring out the names of dances.  After a lot of squinting, I was able to determine that "Chemi" was actually "Cheat", which makes considerably more sense.  The full line reads:

4. Cauliflower.  Cheat.

Both are popular "promiscuous figures", which could be substituted in for other figures in a quadrille or, apparently, danced as independent figures one or two at a time.  I'm not sure I've ever seen such direct evidence of that on a dance program before.

Since the image from the microfilm is next to useless, I'm going to retranscribe the full program, then talk a little about it below.