Capering & Kickery

March 2017 Gig Calendar

After a quiet three months of teaching hiatus, I am back on the road this month...but all roads this spring will be Russian ones!  I'll be living in Moscow for the next few months and doing a few weekend events in Russia and Ukraine as well as experimenting with regular weekly classes.  If those listed below go well, then classes will continue once or twice a week through the end of May!  Updated: both cross-step waltz and ragtime classes will continue as subscription courses through the end of May!  PLUS: a nineteenth-century schottische and country dance class added in late March!

For Russian-language information and questions about my classes in Russia this spring, please see my VK community.

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Thursdays, March 2nd & 9th ~ Moscow, Russia (VKontakte discussion - in Russian)
American Ragtime Dance Sampler Classes
8:00-9:30pm.  Open 1910s dance classes taught in a mix of English and Russian!  Some previous couple dance experience is recommended but no specific ragtime experience is required.  The first class will focus on the one-step/two-step/foxtrot trio, and the second class on hesitation waltz and, possibly, half and half.  500 rubles per person per class.  If interest is sufficient, these are the first two classes in a regular Thursday-night series.  For general discussion (in Russian) about my classes in Moscow, see my VK community.

Saturday, March 4th ~ Moscow, Russia
Private event

Tuesday, March 7th ~ Moscow, Russia (VKontakte discussion - in Russian)
Cross-Step Waltz Sampler Class
8:00-9:30pm.  Open cross-step waltz class taught in a mix of English and Russian!  Some previous couple dance experience is recommended, but no specific cross-step experience is required.  If interest is sufficient, this will be the first in a regular Tuesday-night series!  500 rubles per person.  For general discussion (in Russian) about my classes in Moscow, see my VK community.

Tuesday, March 14th ~ Moscow, Russia (VKontakte discussion - in Russian)
Cross-Step Waltz Class (1 of 10)
8:00-9:30pm.  Open cross-step waltz class, first in a ten-class course!  Taught in a mix of English and Russian.  Some previous couple dance experience is recommended, but no specific cross-step experience is required.  500 rubles for single class or 4500 for full course.  For general discussion (in Russian) about my classes in Moscow, see my VK community.

Friday-Sunday, March 17th-19th ~ Kyiv, Ukraine
Vintage Dance Exchange 2017 (Facebook event) (VKontakte event - in Russian)
Six dance classes covering material from the sixteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, plus a teacher training class.  The exchange has many other teachers and classes plus two balls and three dance parties!

Tuesday, March 21st ~ Moscow, Russia (VKontakte discussion - in Russian)
Cross-Step Waltz Class (2 of 10)
8:00-9:30pm.  Second class in the ten-class course; course subscription or special permission required.  Taught in a mix of English and Russian.  For general discussion (in Russian) about my classes in Moscow, see my VK community.

Thursday, March 23rd ~ Moscow, Russia (VKontakte discussion - in Russian)
American Ragtime Dance Class (1 of 10)
8:00-9:30pm.  1910s dance class, first in a ten-class course covering one-step, two-step, foxtrot, hesitation waltz, half & half, 1910s American contra dance, and more!  Taught in a mix of English and Russian.  Some previous couple dance experience is recommended.  500 rubles for single class or 4500 for full course.  For general discussion (in Russian) about my classes in Moscow, see my VK community.

Saturday, March 25th ~ Moscow, Russia
2:00-5:00pm.  Nineteenth Century Schottische & Country Dance for Студия «Танец весны» (VKontakte event - in Russian)
Workshop on early schottische technique, a late nineteenth-century French schottische quadrille, and English and American country dances from the second half of the nineteenth century.  Open to the public.

Tuesday, March 28th ~ Moscow, Russia (VKontakte discussion - in Russian)
Cross-Step Waltz Class (3 of 10)
8:00-9:30pm.  Third class in the ten-class course; course subscription or special permission required.  Taught in a mix of English and Russian.  For general discussion (in Russian) about my classes in Moscow, see my VK community.

Thursday, March 30th ~ Moscow, Russia (VKontakte discussion - in Russian)
American Ragtime Dance Class (2 of 10)
8:00-9:30pm.  1910s dance class, second in a ten-class course covering one-step, two-step, foxtrot, hesitation waltz, half & half, 1910s American contra dance, and more!  Taught in a mix of English and Russian.  Course subscription or special permission required.  For general discussion (in Russian) about my classes in Moscow, see my VK community.

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I am available for private lessons in Moscow and nearby cities; outside Moscow, the student must provide the dance space.  Email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson.

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Coming in April: regular ragtime and cross-step waltz classes continue in Moscow, plus more ragtime dance in Vladimir and Saint Petersburg!

Early foxtrot: the drag step

It's been quite some time since I've written up any early foxtrot variations, so here's a simple but stylish one from 1914 to add to your repertoire!  

Dancer Joan Sawyer, owner of the Persian Gardens nightclub in New York City, called this the "drag step", but unlike the drag or draw steps found in other dances of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the feet are not just closed heel to heel.  Instead, the closing foot is tucked behind (his) or in front of (hers) the other.  Here's Sawyer's description of the drag step and the following "trot", with the accompanying illustration at left:

The gentleman slides the left foot out to his left as though he were going to walk sideways.  He then drags his right foot over back of the heel of the left foot, coming up slightly on the toes at the end of the movement, and breaks into a forward "trot" of four steps, gentleman starting the first trot step with is left foot...The lady you see slides her right foot out to her right, she then points the toe of her left foot over in front of her right foot, throwing her weight on to the left foot, then trots backward four steps, sliding the right foot back first.

The rhythm is the slow-slow, quick-quick-quick-quick common to many early foxtrot patterns.  From the illustration it seems to be not just a side step; the dancers are actually be turning their bodies and feet so that they are moving forward to the side.  This accords with a second description of the move published in the Seattle Star on Friday, November 27, 1914:

Gentleman steps left diagonally forward to two counts of the music, slides right across behind left to two counts of the music and runs forward four steps, left foot beginning the running step. 

The article from which this description was taken is attributed to Edna Neil, a former dancer with Anna Pavlowa in the Imperial Russian ballet.  Pavlowa and her troupe famously toured America in 1914, and the article on foxtrot is headlined "Member of Pavlowa's Imperial Ballet Shows How to Dance the Fox Trot."  The article gives the drag step no name beyond "Figure 1", but it is the first variation that appears after the basic walk/trot sequence.  Sawyer's description, which appeared in her book How to Dance the Foxtrot (New York, 1914), is also the first given after the basic sequence.  This priority placement suggests that this was a small but important element of early foxtrot repertoire.

The actual move is just as simple to do as to describe.  Unlike the cross steps in foxtrot that I described a few years ago, in the drag step, the gentleman tucks his closing foot behind the other while the lady crosses hers in front, both of them rising up on the toes slightly.   I favor the Seattle Star description's diagonal angle rather than a step directly perpendicular to line of dance, as implied by Sawyer.  Her mnemonic for the move is "slide, drag, trot-trot-trot-trot."  Rather than the smooth continuous travel of the walk/trot combinations, the drag step has a sharper flavor, with a noticeable pause in travel on the second beat. 

Since the dancers are quite cozily close after they have just switched into a promenade position, I believe the gentleman, rather than isolating the leg movement, should allow his body to swivel slightly so that as he closes his trailing foot behind and the lady points hers in front, the dancers switch  briefly into a "Yale" position, hip to hip.  The will give the lady more space to make her cross in front.  The move is easily leadable; all that is necessary is to cue the lady to cross in front rather than step backward.  That should be taken care of in the process of guiding her into moving sideways.  Then straighten her out for the trotting steps.  Sawyer recommends doing full sequence (slide, drag, and trots) four times in a row, though that may be more as a means of learning it than a requirement when dancing socially.

Enjoy!

A Valentine Cotillion

I return once more, in honor of Valentine's Day, to H. Layton Walker's delightful Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), which is always guaranteed to provide me some interesting figures for imaginative dancers.  Christmas was a bit disappointing, as holiday cotillion themes go.  Valentine's Day seems much more promising, since both cotillions and valentines have the goal of matching up people and thus ought to combine nicely!  

Starting from the top of an evening's program, Walker does provide a couple of useful suggestions for the grand march.  I noted a few years ago that good leaders could get their marching dancers into formations such as the letters of the alphabet, or other geometric figures.  Hearts, for example, lend themselves easily to being both created and escaped from by lines of dancers.  Walker provided the diagrams at left for what he called a "Heart March Cotillion", though the shape is so basic that one hardly needs the help.  

More usefully, he noted that the dancers are left on the wrong side of their partners (men on the right rather than the left) when marching out of the figure.  That can be fixed by a standard kludge like having the partners cross each other when they meet, but Walker had a more elegant suggestion: simply repeat the figure going the opposite way up and down the room.  I find the symmetry of that appealing, though I also foresee a problem with dancers overthinking things and deciding to change places with their partners anyway, just because they are uneasy at marching in reversed positions.

Your marching dancers will, of course, be improved by silly headgear:

A St. Louis Hesitation Waltz (1914)

The generically named One Step Hesitation is a short hesitation waltz sequence that appeared in the second edition of the collection Dance Mad, or the dances of the day, compiled by F. Leslie Clendenen and published in St. Louis in late 1914.  It is subtitled "As Recommended by St. Louis Association Dancing Masters", and with no author listed, may have come from the hand of Clendenen himself.

Since the One Step Hesitation is almost entirely in the slowest possible type of hesitation (one step per bar of music), it calls for very fast waltz music or it will drag badly.  I prefer 180 beats per minute and up for this type of hesitation waltz.

The starting position is a normal ballroom hold with both dancers facing the line of dance.  The steps below are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  In general, forward steps are performed with a slight bounce to them: step (1), rise (2), fall (3).  

The full sixteen-bar sequence:

3b    Forward left, right, left; one step per bar
1b    Hop on left and swing right foot forward (1), step forward on right into a dip (2, 3)
4b    Face partner and step left sideways along line of dance, close the trailing foot; repeat step and close
(shift position slightly to the left so steps are entirely outside partner's feet)
3b    Three steps left, right, left around each other, clockwise, right hip to right hip, like a pomander walk
1b    Step strongly back on right foot into a dip (lady steps forward on left)
(shift position to the right)
3b    Three steps left, right, left around each other counter-clockwise, left hip to left hip
(end with the gentleman facing line of dance)
1b    Step strongly back on right foot into a dip (lady steps forward on left)
Repeat from the beginning

The last two dips are called "drop-dips" by Clendenen and are described fully under a different dance, the Dream Waltz, where each dip is referred to as "in reality a profound courtesy" by the gentleman, while the lady makes a "shallow dip" with the toes of her right (trailing) foot touching the floor.

For all three dips, the dancers need to rise again on the last beat of the measure in preparation for the next step.  These are not "hold that pose" moments, but brisk lunges 

The sequence is utterly straightforward to dance; the only real watch point other than coming out of the dips on time is the hop in the fourth measure.  The dancers need to avoid the common pattern of step (1), hop (2), swing foot (3).  In this dance, the hop is on the first beat of the next measure, so the dancers must step-rise-fall and then hop.  The dancers will notice a perceptible pause, but if the music is suitably fast, it won't feel awkward.

As a reconstruction, it is also fairly straightforward.  The only ambiguity is in the second half of the dance, when the dancers walk around each other for three measures.  In Dance Mad, the One Step Hesitation immediately follows the Rye Hesitation, which includes the same move with the dancers walking around each other for three measures then dropping into the dip/courtesy on the fourth, though in the Rye Hesitation, the walk-around does not reverse.  But the Dream Waltz, which follows after the One Step Hesitation, gives a slightly different turn called a "walking turn" in which the dancers shift their weight back and forth, more like a spin turn.  

Since the language in the One Step Hesitation is most like that of the Rye Hesitation (both use the phrases "walk three steps" and "moving around partners"), I've chosen to adopt the same movements for the walk-around part of this sequence.  

The One Step Hesitation can hardly be called a brilliant piece of choreography, but it is good for beginners because it incorporates common elements like the dips and walk-around.  It's not recommended for the social ballroom dancing, given the long stretches where there is no forward motion, unless all the dancers are doing it at the same time.