There's a dance history question that comes up periodically that I have never been able to satisfactorily answer:
When did the "buzz step" swing become common in contra dance?
As I've been working my way through more and more American contra/country dance history, I've become more interested in this problem and kept track of a few useful clues.
First, let's be clear about what the buzz-step swing is. Here's a good demonstration of it as performed in contra dancing today. Watch the feet closely.
The earliest clear description of the buzz swing in a contra/country dance source that I am aware of is by Elizabeth Burchenal, who published the explanation and diagram (click to enlarge) below in 1918, in her American Country-Dances, Volume I:
Buzz Step
This is a sort of pivoting step, used when swinging partners in place. The man holds his partner in ordinary dance position, but well out to his right, so that they are practically side by side, with right shoulder to right shoulder.
In fitting the step to the music, each measure should be counted ("one, and, two, and"). On "one," put down the right foot in place; on "and," step forward on the ball of the left foot; on "two," put down the right foot on the same spot as before; on "and," step forward on the ball of the left foot, and so on. The step is usually continued for eight measures, and is merely a quick walk (or run) with the right foot always put down in the same place and the left foot always advancing. More weight is put on the right foot than on the left, which gives a slight emphasis on "one" and "two." With this step the man swings his partner around very vigorously.
Balance and Swing (or, "Swing Partners")
The most usual way of executing the "Balance and Swing" to-day, is for partners to meet, take "ordinary dance position" (the usual way of holding partner for waltzing), and swing around vigorously with the buzz step. Originally the "Balance" was executed before the swing, but for some reason this has been almost universally abandoned, so that the expression "Balance and Swing" now means nothing more than "Swing Partners."
It's clear that at the time she was researching her dances and writing the buzz-step swing was already standard in contra.
Comparison with the spin turn
The key elements that distinguish the buzz step from the superficially similar spin turn in the one-step, which I discussed here, are:
- that both dancers step onto the right foot at the same time, then push with the left foot at the same time, rather than being on opposite feet
- the offset position and placement of the dancers' feet completely outside their partner's, rather than interlaced, which is critical to avoid becoming tangled up
- to a lesser extent, the use of both strong and weak beats, with both dancers stepping onto the forward (right) foot on the strong beats (1, 2, 3...) and the back (left) foot on the weak beats (&, &, &)
Descriptions of the spin turn by Albert Newman in Dances of To-day (1914) and by Vernon and Irene Castle in Modern Dancing (1914) are ambiguous in some ways, but it's clear that they are not the buzz swing.
Newman gave slower timing, counting only on the strong beats (1...2...) as the dancers rock back and forth. More critically, the dancers are on opposite feet, with the gentleman rocking back onto the left while the lady rocks forward on the right and vice-versa. This is not spelled out, but it is standard in one-step, and it is clear from the description of how to reverse the direction of turn by stepping back on the right foot (which won't work if the dancers are both on the right foot) and by the lack of any instruction for one of the dancers to change feet to match. Newman did not specify or diagram the interlaced feet, but he also did not mention that the dancers do any sort of step out to Yale (hip to hip) position, which I believe he would have stated clearly if that were what he had meant, as he did elsewhere in his book.
The Castles, typically, did not specify the timing, but my experience is that rocking back and forth in the quick (1&2&) timing doesn't feel particularly graceful. This is also once again in a couple dance in which the dancers are generally on opposite feet, with no hint that this changes in the spin turn, meaning that they must be stepping in mirror image rather than both forward at once. And most importantly, in the still photo of included in my post on the spin turn (click to enlarge), it can be clearly seen that their legs are interlaced, each dancer's right foot between their partner's feet.
It's possible to get quite a bit of speed in a spin turn by moving the left a longer distance around the dancers on each step, but it's not the buzz-step swing.
Earlier use of "swing"
It's clear that in the early nineteenth century the command "swing" just meant to turn, generally by one hand (right or left), as in the figure "swing corners".
By the mid-nineteenth century, musician/caller/author Elias Howe was using the term "swing" in his books for other types of turn as well; one could take hands four or right hands across and "swing round" in that formation. Howe published books from the 1840s all the way into the 1890s with the same usage, and other books were published using plates and language originally from Howe's publications, but one can't draw reliable conclusions about the later meaning of the term from them. Howe generally didn't update his descriptions for new editions, and, in general, the writers of call books and dance manuals did not describe how individual figures were done.
To take a couple of examples from the end of the nineteenth century:
In John M. Schell's Prompting, How to Do It (Boston, 1890), "swing" appears to still be used in the old-fashioned meaning of a simple turn, as can be seen from the following:
Ladies' Chain. -- (8.) Danced by opposite couples at the same time. Opposite ladies cross, give right hand, in passing, join left hand with opposite gent, and turn half round. Repeat, swinging partners with left hand to place.
Turn Corners. -- (4 or 8.) Gents four steps to left-hand lady; swing half round; right hands joined; gents four steps to partner; swing with left hands to place.
In The American Prompter and Guide to Etiquette (Cincinnati, 1896), a compilation assembled by E.H. Kopp, "swing" was used without mention of a particular hand and in ways that made it possible it referred to a buzz swing:
"balance all [4]; swing [4]"
"balance (to) corners and swing [8]"
"All swing corners [4]; swing with your own partners [4]"
"swing three-quarters around [4]"
In the Montibello Quadrille, Kopp might have made a meaningful distinction; contrast:
"all balance (and) swing [8]"
with
"balance partners (and) turn [8]"
But in other places, he clearly used it to mean a turn by the hand:
"swing ladies to center [4]"
"swing with (the) right hand [4]"
And in his list of calls on page 11, he noted that prompters preferred to use "swing" rather than "turn", which implies they were interchangeable terms and referred to turning by the hand. And, of course, given the amount of casual plagiarism going on in call books and dance manuals in the nineteenth century, it's hard to say whether such differences in terminology and implication were meaningful or the result of calls being copied from different sources and not standardized.
There seems little help to be had in the callers' books. But that's not the only place to look for clues. Going back to Newman's Dances of to-day, here is his brief description of the Chicken Scratch:
This, another oddity, is very similar to the Pivot used in Ballet Work (using one foot as a pivot and moving the other around it by taking small steps). The only difference is that the foot that is doing the actual stepping scrapes or scratches the floor, imitating a chicken.
The turns may be complete or just half-way around, then back again.
He noted that this and similar steps should have no place in the ballroom, which rather begs the question of where they were used. That's not immediately solvable, but the the ballet connection leads us to some interesting descriptions. Newman also published a work on stage dancing called the Newman Catechism on Classical Dancing. The revised second edition, published in 1922, contained the following on page 118:
Pivote--Turn on one foot by moving the other around; the feet kept in open position. Step on the R. F. in Demi 4th Pos. (1). Turn on R. F. to the right by moving the L. F. a little toward the front, and at the same time lift the right heel and make a slight turn on the ball of R. F. (X). Continue this movement all around to complete the turn.
The Pivote is a gradual turn, sometimes called Paddle Turn, as one foot seems to work like a paddle, and is the turn used in many Folk Dances. The accent falls on the supporting foot.
This is a solo step, not a partnered one, but note the timing (1-X = 1&), the comparison to a paddle, and the association with folk dancing. This is the step of the buzz swing and presumably what he was referring to in his description of the Chicken Scratch.
Following the term "paddle step" brings us to Stage and Fancy Dancing, by F. C. Nott, published in Cincinnati in 1896. On page 7, Nott described the paddle step:
Paddle Step.
Turning, to R. or L., weight on R. leaning forward, touch, or pat L. to 2d and pivot on ball of R. (1.) [repeat symbol] ad-lib two for 2-4, four for 4-4. Same, weight on L. paddling R.
This is distinguished from the "Plain Rock", in which the dancer shifts weight back and forth. In the Paddle Step the weight stays on the forward foot, and the other just "pats" the floor as it propels the dancer around. The timing is not perfectly clear, but the foot pattern is once again that of the buzz step.
I think Newman's Pivote, Nott's Paddle Step, and Newman's Chicken Scratch are all the same step, with the one significant difference being that the Chicken Scratch was probably a couple movement: the buzz swing. Newman didn't want it in the ballroom in 1914, but was it danced in the barn or in less formal settings such as, perhaps, contra dance?
I doubt I'll ever find definite proof or be able to put a more specific date on the transition.
Interestingly, there is another, even earlier, detailed description of the buzz swing, without being called such. In London in 1892, English author Edward Scott published Dancing as an art and pastime, on pages 144-145 of which, he described at length an alternate way to turn partners in a quadrille:
Turning Partners by the Waist.--Where it is customary to turn partners by placing the hand to the waist--a practice be it understood which I do not recommend--the easiest way to execute the movement is to keep the weight of the body entirely sustained by the right leg, to use the left toe as a means of propulsion, and in turning to revolve simply on the ball of the right foot, drawing it a very little towards the left foot by a slight relaxation and sudden contraction of the muscles after each fresh impetus has been obtained. Two complete revolutions should be made in eight of these combined movements, occupying four bars of the music. The pivot on the sole of the right foot and flexion and tension of the leg, should immediately follow the propulsive action of the left toe, which should be slid round lightly from point to point of adhesion in describing, as it were, the circumference of a circle, the exact centre of revolution being situated between the right feet of the partners. For each of the eight movements count, and one, and two, and three, etc., the and corresponding to the propulsive action of the left toe, and the numbers to the action of the right foot and limb.
This is the same buzz swing described by Burchenal. Scott conceived of it as starting with the push by the left foot on "and" instead of the step of the right foot on "one", but that is not a significant difference. He did not specify here that the dancers were both on the right foot, but elsewhere in his directions for quadrille dancing he notes it as the default. The side-by-side instead of interlaced-position is once again implied by the difficulty of doing this type of turn with interlaced feet.
Scott further commented:
I have given instructions in turning by the waist because the practice is very general, and if done really well and quietly, is not so objectionable from an artistic point of view as are some of the other practices to which allusion has been made. I must warn the reader, however, that to turn with the arm to the waist is not considered "correct" in the most select circles, and that apart from all social considerations, the tour de main is decidedly preferable in point of elegance.
So what can we conclude from this? Like Newman, Scott disdained the step, though it seems more because of the gentleman's arm on the lady's waist than because of the actual foot movements. But he said its practice was "very general", though not in "the most select circles". In the second edition of Scott's book Dancing and Dancers, or Grace and Folly (London, 1888) he complained about "twisting with the arms to the waist" in the context of quadrilles (p. 86), which seems likely to have been the form of turning described above. He was still complaining about "twisting at corners" in quadrilles in The New Dancing as It Should Be (London, 1910), where he classified it as among the "rapid movements" that some people enjoyed (p. 34). Since the dances described in the book are the dances of the late nineteenth century, the book, or parts of it, may have been simply reprinted from the original Dancing as It Should Be (London, 1887), which I don't happen to have, rather than a new opinion about habits of the 1910s.
One is left to wonder not only whether the buzz-step swing originated in England and crossed over to America, or vice-versa, or whether it evolved independently, but also whether it originated in quadrilles and cross over to country/contra dancing, or vice-versa. These are more unanswerable questions, alas.
I'll end with one final thought relating to women's costumes. Buzz-step swings seem unlikely to have been performed in the hoop-skirt era of the mid-nineteenth century, and I have doubts about how well they would work in the large bustles of the 1880s because of the way they catch air like a sail. I'm also a little skeptical about how convenient they would be with the very large sleeves of the early-mid 1890s. It would be much easier to do buzz-step swings if one were not wearing highly fashionable nineteenth-century clothing. This both supports the idea that it was used at less select events and accounts for it becoming typical in contra dance in rural areas, for which people probably weren't wearing fashions by Worth. It would work well among settlers on the American frontier for the same reason.
This is hardly conclusive evidence (determined dancers will make it work regardless of awkward costuming!), but it's something to take into account.
Maybe someday we'll know more...
Edited 2/3/2024 to add the following:
On October 16, 2020, dance historian Richard Powers gave an online presentation on the polka during which he associated the buzz swing with the Kitchen Lancers, a rowdy version of the Lancers danced in England around 1900. He also mentioned an earlier reference to the buzz swing by Rudolph Radestock in 1877. I've looked through Radestock's book, The Royal Ball-Room Guide (London, 1877), and the only possibility I've found there is on page 47, where, in his introduction to The Lancers' Quadrille, Radestock wrote:
Observe that in this quadrille alone, in distinction from all other quadrilles, you turn partners with both hands round, but strictly withhold from swinging partners round.
That's extremely suggestive, but Radestock nowhere defined the "swinging" that he apparently disapproved of, so it's not 100% certain whether he was talking about the practice Scott complained about in 1892 under a different name or something else. Radestock used "swing" in its older sense in his description of The Tyrolese on page 75 of the same work, but that description was blatantly plagiarized; the earliest source I am aware of is the Tyrolese Dance in J. S. Pollock's Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne, (London, c1830), in which the only real difference is the use of "set" instead of "balance". One can't really be sure that the overall wording was what Radestock would have used if he'd been writing it in his own style, or even whether Radestock made the changes himself or just copied the description from some intervening source. For that matter, there's no certainty that Radestock wrote the sentence about swinging himself!
But it's certainly an interesting clue, and would take the presence of the buzz-step swing in quadrilles back to the 1870s in England.
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