When I discussed the Double Glide Waltz found in Melvin B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) a few years ago, I noted that there were other step sequences also called the Double Glide waltz. One of those was a strange little sequence that I at first took for a badly-written description of a Metropole-like alternation of draw steps (slide...close) and waltz steps. But on taking a closer look, it's a bit more complicated than that.
I've found this particular Double Glide Waltz only the late nineteenth-century American collections Cartier's practical illustrated waltz instructor, ball room guide, and call book (New York, 1882) and Prof. M. J. Koncen's quadrille call book and ball room guide (St. Louis, 1883). As a waltz variation, it is nice but not a particularly critical part of the repertoire of the period. I suspect both descriptions were copied from some common source -- another manual, or perhaps a description on some sheet music -- with some modest editorial brushing-up. What is interesting to me about these two descriptions is how they demonstrate just how much of a muddle dance terminology even relatively recent dance terminology can be, especially in late nineteenth-century compilation manuals like these that collect from a variety of sources and do not have the advantage of hindsight to divine what we nowadays consider to be standard usage.
Here's the original text from Koncen:
Glide backward with the left foot, (count one;) draw the right foot to the left, (count two;) glide backward with the left, (count three;) glide the right foot to left, (count four;) draw the left foot backward, (count five.) Glide forward with right foot, (count one;) draw left foot to right, (count two;) execute waltz step with right foot forward, (count 3, 4, 5.)
There is a slight rest between counts two and three, which fills up the six counts in the music.
The two halves of the description, and thus presumably the sequence, are interestingly asymmetrical. Since there is a pause after the second count, with more conventional numbering, the sequence would look like this:
1b Draw step, pause
1b Step-close-step (half-turn)
1b Draw step, pause
1b Waltz step (half-turn)
But what, exactly, did Koncen mean by "waltz step"? There are three possible options:
- He described the waltz itself as something like the old trois temps, as best I can interpret such eloquent instructions as "slide the right foot between the left in third position". (This could be an entire separate post...)
- He described the reverse waltz simply as a simple step-close-step, like a two-step with the movements evenly distributed across the beats, just as appears in the second bar of the sequence.
- He described the Glide Waltz as what I generally call the "new waltz", the box-like waltz step that became the foundation of modern ballroom waltzes: step-step-close, which when turning works out to step-side-close. The reverse of the Glide Waltz uses the same step sequence.
The last of these seems the most likely to me, since this is, after all, the Double Glide Waltz, implying some relationship to his normal Glide Waltz. The pirouette seems unlikely, and if he had meant the step-close-step used in the reverse waltz, the whole second half could have been shortened to some version of the standard "repeat from beginning on opposite foot".
Perhaps the description from Cartier will help?
Step backward with the left foot (count one); draw right foot to left (count two); step backward with left foot (count three); draw right foot to left (count four); step slightly backward with left foot (count five). (The three last steps are same as Glide Waltz step.)
Step forward with right foot (count one); draw left foot to right (count two); take full waltz step with right foot forward (count three, four, five).
There is a slight rest between counts two and three, which fills up the six counts in the music.
The lady begins with the forward movement of the right foot.
To reverse, step backward with right foot.
...or perhaps not.
This description adds two new elements: that it can be reversed, and that the second bar of the dance is the "same as Glide Waltz step", which would directly contradict Koncen's description of that measure. But did Cartier actually mean the same thing by "Glide Waltz" as Koncen? Going back through Cartier's other waltz descriptions, it becomes clear that by "Glide Waltz step" Cartier actually means something like a step-close-step, with the last movement being quite small ("nearly third), and by "waltz step" he means the box-shaped waltz that Koncen, Gilbert, and others call the Glide Waltz.
This is a good demonstration of why "glide waltz" is an unhelpful term in the late nineteenth century. Here's the problem in chart form:
Koncen Cartier
"waltz" trois temps-like box step
"reverse waltz" step-close-step box step
"glide waltz" box step step-close-step
"reverse glide waltz" box step step-close-step
Arrgh!
When working with a term like "waltz" or "glide waltz" that has had multiple step-sequences associated with it, and when one has limited sources for a dance, the best one can do is try to interpret the term in the same sense as the author or editor of the manual (hopefully) would have: whatever they put in print. Often that's going to mean ditching the actual term and going back to the step components.
So, to get back to the original reconstruction problem: if you abandon any attempt to use helpful-but-not-in-this-case terms like "waltz step" and "Glide Waltz", Koncen (in my best-guess version) and Cartier actually seem to be saying the same thing. The second bar consists of a step-close-step. The fourth bar consists of a half-turning step-side-close. The full sequence for the gentleman would thus be:
1b Slide left back (1), close right (2), pause (3)
1b Slide left back (1), close right (2), slide left back (3) (making a half-turn)
1b Slide right forward (1), close left (2), pause (3)
1b Slide right forward (1), left sideways (2), close right (3) (making a half-turn)
As I noted above, this is not an important dance in the context of the general repertoire of the era, but it's a pleasant enough variation, so if one wants to dance it, here are some quick performance notes:
(1) It's important to note that the draw step (slide-close) on bars one and three is not the standard, leisurely version in which the trailing foot closes on the third beat of the measure. This is a more staccato move with a noticeable pause after the close of the feet. I think of it as "1-2! 1-2-3 1-2! 1-2-3".
(2) To reverse, simply don't make the half-turn after the second bar. The sequence becomes:
1b Slide left back (1), close right (2), pause (3)
1b Slide left back (1), close right (2), slide left back (3)
1b Slide right back (1), close left (2), pause (3)
1b Slide right back (1), left sideways (2), close right (3) (making a half-turn)
Continue on by sliding the left foot forward, either making the half-turn in reverse after the second bar or changing direction again by not making it at all.
(3) Despite some ambiguity in the Cartier instructions, I believe that the lady's steps should simply be the reverse of the gentleman's, meaning that when his step is slide-close-slide (second bar), hers should be too, and when he waltzes on the fourth bar (step-side-close), so should she. Having one partner doing slide-close-slide while the other does slide-slide-close is just too awkward.
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