The Western Normal Newport was named after the Western Association Normal School Masters of Dancing, a professional organization for dancing masters in western North America. "Normal school" sounds odd to modern ears, but historically, it didn't mean what we'd imagine today. A normal school was a teacher-training school, where the "norms" of teaching and subject material were taught; more information on normal schools in general may be found here. The Western Association Normal School was founded in 1894 under Canadian dancing master John Freeman Davis, its first president.
My only source for the Western Normal Newport is George Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903). Lopp was from the northwestern USA and may have been a member of the Normal School or at least aware of it. The variation's name, as given in French by Lopp, was Le Western Normal Newport, attributed to l'Association de l'École normale des Maîtres de danse de l'Ouest.
Given that the school was founded in 1894, the Western Normal Newport was obviously created too late to appear in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing, published in Portland, Maine, in 1890, from which Lopp cribbed so much of his own book.
In my long-ago original post on the Newport, I noted that, like other nineteenth-century turning dances, it could be done turning to the right or left (natural or reverse turns, respectively) or along the line of dance without turning. This variation makes the left and right turns quite explicit, mixing them with simple walking steps, the gentleman moving forward along the line of dance and the lady backward. The variation takes eight bars of 3/4 music (see note below), and the reconstruction is very straightforward. The gentleman's steps are given below; the lady dances opposite. The overall scheme is three bars of right-turning Newport, three walking steps, three bars of left-turning Newport, and three more walking steps.
I've spelled out the individual steps of the Newport below. For some performance tips and further information on the Newport, please see my original Newport post.
Beat Step
1 Leap backward (along line of dance) with left foot
&2 Step right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
&3 Step right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
1 Leap forward (along line of dance) with right foot
&2 Step left foot to the side (along line of dance), close right to left
&3 Step left foot to the side (along line of dance), close right to left
1 Leap backward (along line of dance) with left foot
&2 Step right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
&3 Step right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
123 Walk three steps straight forward along line of dance, left-right-left (lady backward)
1 Leap forward (along line of dance) with left foot
&2 Step right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
&3 Step right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
1 Leap backward (along line of dance) with right foot
&2 Step left foot to the side (along line of dance), close right to left
&3 Step left foot to the side (along line of dance), close right to left
1 Leap forward (along line of dance) with left foot
&2 Step right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
&3 Step right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
123 Walk three steps straight forward along line of dance, right-left-right (lady backward)
Repeat from the beginning.
The only slight performance oddity is that on the seventh bar (left-turning Newport, gentleman leaping forward along line of dance to start), there is no half-turn. The dancers turn one-quarter to the right so the leader can continue moving forward along line of dance. At the end of the eighth bar, they need to pivot left halfway to be ready to restart.
One could also play around with the pattern, doing the Newport segments turning either way or moving straight along line of dance and the walking steps with the gentleman moving either forward or backward along line of dance. This presumably wasn't the intended "norm" for the dance, but it is in keeping with the general nineteenth-century pattern of varying couple dances, especially relevant here since this is itself a minor variation on the original Newport.
Music
I don't believe there is any special music for this Newport variation. Lopp recommended a metronome count of 144 beats per minute, which is the same speed he gave for the normal Newport, though also faster than the 135 bpm given for the regular Newport by E. H. Kopp. It is classified by Lopp as a mazurka, meaning that mazurka or redowa music will best fit the dance, though it can also be performed to regular waltzes.
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