Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

Email Susan

Month: November 2017

  • December 2017 Gig Calendar

    Living this binational life keeps me insanely busy, but I'm thrilled to be teaching a higher-level waltz series this month in Moscow, plus private classes and a return to beautiful Vladimir for a weekend of master-classes there!  

    I do not have much more availability for December, so the classes below are probably all I'll do this month.  Any groups in Moscow or elsewhere in Russia or Europe that might be interested in workshops in 2018 should contact me directly.  I'm also interested in exploring the Moscow blues community and maybe seeing about some DJing while I'm here.

    (more…)

  • Double Grand Chain (a march or cotillion figure)

    I first came across Double Grand Chain when flipping through Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by H. Layton Walker (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912) for interesting cotillion (dance party game) figures.  Like Winthrope, Double Grand Chain is not terribly game-like beyond the basic cotillion setup of dancing with one person and then finding a new partner, but it would make an interesting addition to a grand march for a group of reasonably skilled dancers.

    Double Grand Chain was not original to Walker; it also appeared in all the editions of Allen Dodworth’s Dancing and its relations to education and social life running from 1885 to 1913 (the link is to the 1900 edition), which puts it firmly in the “late Victorian” category.  Since it did reappear in 1912 separately from the Dodworth reprints, I’d still consider it legitimate for a ragtime-era event, and it is sufficiently innocuous in style that I wouldn’t be bothered by its use at a mid-nineteenth-century event either.

    (more…)

  • Aladdin Quadrille

    Like the New Scotia Quadrille, the Aladdin Quadrille is one of several single-figure quadrilles found in the “New, Enlarged, & Complete Edition” of D. (David) Anderson’s Ball-Room Guide (Dundee, this edition undated but probably c1886).  This is a simple, fun figure that would fit easily into a Scottish-themed ball.

    Despite there being various quadrille sets called the Aladdin Quadrilles, Anderson doesn’t seem to have had any specific music in mind.  He notes only that it can be danced in 2/4 or 6/8.

    Aladdin Quadrille (8 bars introduction + 64 bars x4)
    8b   Introduction/honors (not repeated)
    8b   All promenade round
    4b   Ladies advance to the center and retire
    4b   Gentlemen advance to the center and retire
    8b   All set to partners and turn by the right hand
    8b   Head couples advance and retire, then half right and left
    8b   Side couples advance and retire, then half right and left
    8b   Grand chain half round to places
    16b All waltz (in duple time) around (see performance notes below)

    The figure is danced four times, with the head couples leading on the first and third iterations and the side couples leading on the second and fourth.

    (more…)

PLEASE NOTE: as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made via the links at this site.

Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

Email Susan

© Susan de Guardiola and Capering & Kickery, 2008-2025. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Susan de Guardiola and Capering & Kickery with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.