Capering & Kickery

February 2018 Gig Calendar

February will be a writing month for me, staying close to home-2 (Moscow) and trying to catch up on an enormous pile of unfinished work.  I'll be continuing my public and private waltz classes and conducting another small waltz party, and might add a couple of other one-shot classes, but overall I am planning a quiet month!

Any groups or individuals in Moscow or elsewhere in Russia or Europe that might be interested in workshops from now through May should contact me directly.  No American gigs through the end of May unless accompanied by plane tickets!

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Tuesdays, February 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th ~ Moscow, Russia
Cross-Step Waltz Series
19:00-20:30.  Intermediate cross-step waltz; previous experience required.  Note: must pre-register to get a pass for site security!

Tuesdays, February 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th ~ Moscow, Russia
Private classes 

Saturday, February 17th RESCHEDULED TO SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24th ~ Moscow Russia
Waltz Party (VK post - Russian) (updated VK post - Russian)
16:00-19:00.  16:00-18:00  Informal afternoon dance, primarily cross-step waltz with some faster waltzes.  Light refreshments, recorded music.  Must pre-register for site security if you do not already have a pass from my classes!

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I am available for private lessons in Moscow, or on my various travels; during the latter, you must provide the dance space.  Email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson.

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Paine's Quadrilles, Twelfth Set, 1819 (4 of 4)

(This is fourth in a series of four posts covering Paine's Twelfth Set.  The introductory post in the series may be found here, figures one and two here, and figures three and four here.)

Concluding my series on Paine's Twelfth Set, the final figure!

No. 5, tune "La Nouvelle Fantasia"
Figure.
Chassez croisez huit, les quatre Cavaliers en avant 4 mes, les quatre dames de meme, balancez tour de mains, la Cavalier seul en avant et en arriere 8 mes, la dame seul de meme. 
La Grand Promenade.

All 8 chassez across and back again, the 4 Gent: advance and retire 4 bars, the 4 Ladies the same, balancez and turn your partners, one Gent: advance and retire twice 8 bars, the opposite Lady do the same.  
Promenade all 8.

(This is fourth in a series of four posts covering Paine's Twelfth Set.  The introductory post in the series may be found here, figures one and two here, and figures three and four here.)

Concluding my series on Paine's Twelfth Set, the final figure!

No. 5, tune "La Nouvelle Fantasia"
Figure.
Chassez croisez huit, les quatre Cavaliers en avant 4 mes, les quatre dames de meme, balancez tour de mains, la Cavalier seul en avant et en arriere 8 mes, la dame seul de meme. 
La Grand Promenade.

All 8 chassez across and back again, the 4 Gent: advance and retire 4 bars, the 4 Ladies the same, balancez and turn your partners, one Gent: advance and retire twice 8 bars, the opposite Lady do the same.  
Promenade all 8.

Paine's Quadrilles, Twelfth Set, 1819 (3 of 4)

(This is third in a series of four posts covering Paine's Twelfth Set.  The introductory post in the series may be found here and figures one and two here.)

Continuing on with Paine's Twelfth Set, the next two figures... 

No. 3, tune "L’Aimable"
Figure de La Poule. -- or
Le 4 dames font le moulinet pendant que les 4 Cavaliers font la grand Promenade a droite, ils donnent les mins a leurs dames et balancez tour de mains pour se remettre a sa place, les tiroirs a quatre et restez à la place opposee, de meme les 4 autres demie Promenade tous les 8, Jusqua [sic] votre place et tour de mains en place. 
Contre Partie.

The 4 Ladies moulinet while the 4 Gent: do grand Promenade to the right, the 4 Gents: give their hands to their partners, balancez and turn them round to their places, the tiroirs 4 and stop at the opposite place the other 4 the same, half Promenade all 8 to your places, and turn your partner round to your place.  
The same again.

(This is third in a series of four posts covering Paine's Twelfth Set.  The introductory post in the series may be found here and figures one and two here.)

Continuing on with Paine's Twelfth Set, the next two figures... 

No. 3, tune "L’Aimable"
Figure de La Poule. -- or
Le 4 dames font le moulinet pendant que les 4 Cavaliers font la grand Promenade a droite, ils donnent les mins a leurs dames et balancez tour de mains pour se remettre a sa place, les tiroirs a quatre et restez à la place opposee, de meme les 4 autres demie Promenade tous les 8, Jusqua [sic] votre place et tour de mains en place. 
Contre Partie.

The 4 Ladies moulinet while the 4 Gent: do grand Promenade to the right, the 4 Gents: give their hands to their partners, balancez and turn them round to their places, the tiroirs 4 and stop at the opposite place the other 4 the same, half Promenade all 8 to your places, and turn your partner round to your place.  
The same again.

Paine's Quadrilles, Twelfth Set, 1819 (2 of 4)

(This is second in a series of four posts covering Paine's Twelfth Set.  The introductory post in the series may be found here.)

All right, let's move on to the actual figures!  In my transcriptions below of the French and English instructions, the capitalization, spelling, punctuation, and lack of accents over the French vowels are all as printed in the original.  

No. 1, tune "La Belle Flamand"
Figure de la Pantalon -- or
Quatre demie chaine Anglaise, les 4 autres demie chaine Anglaise, demie Promenade tous les 8, et tour de mains a votre place, chaine des dames celles qui ont commencez [sic], balancez 8 et tour de mains. 
Contre Partie.

Four half right and left, the other four the same, half Promanade [sic] all 8 to your place and turn your partners round, Ladies chain by those who began the dance, balance 8 and turn your partners round. 
The same again the other 4.

Paine's Quadrilles, Twelfth Set, 1819 (1 of 4)

As with my earlier reconstructions of Howe's figures for "Les Rats" and the third set of Simonet's Parisian Quadrilles, I was primarily motivated to reconstruct Paine's Twelfth Set of Quadrilles by the existence of a high-quality recording of the music.  I'm not sure what prompted Green Ginger to choose this quadrille, out of more than a dozen of Paine's other sets of quadrille music (besides his most-famous and oft-recorded first) to include on their CD of Regency-era dance music, Music for Quadrilles, but it's an excellent set of tunes played beautifully.  

I've used these recordings in the past as variant music for the standard quadrille figures, which they were structured to fit.  But Paine's original sheet music also included new figures for those who didn't want to dance the usual ones, and they turned out to have some unusual figures which I quite like.

The booklet of liner notes for Music for Quadrilles includes instructions for each dance; the quadrille ones are clearly Ellis Rogers' work.  I mostly agree with those reconstructions, but they are bare-bones figure lists with no steps or details of performance.  I have a few minor quibbles with figure interpretations and some of the musical repeats, and I think there are reconstruction issues with the fifth figure that are worth pointing out.

Larchmont Engine Company Ball, 1901

The first ball of the Larchmont (NY) Engine Company was held on Wednesday, April 17, 1901, as reported in The Larchmont Times on Saturday, April 20th.  Like the Wichita fireman's ball given in 1903, it heavily featured waltz, "deux temps" (which I believe to be two-step, rather than the older deux temps), and quadrilles, with a few other popular nineteenth century dances mixed in.  It's a bit more old-fashioned a program compared to Wichita's, which fits since it's a couple of years earlier and not as far along toward the "all waltz and two-step" programs sometimes found a few years later.  The image at left is courtesy of the Larchmont Historical Society; which has the whole front page of the newspaper up on its website. I've made the page available for download here.   (Edited 6/21/24 to remove the dead website link and add the link to LHS and the downloadable image.) 

Here's the dance list transcribed for readability:

Part First -- Grand March, Lanciers, Waltz, Deux Temps, Quadrille Waltz, Polka, Schottische, La Varsouvienne, Waltz, Lanciers, Deux Temps, Waltz.

Part Second -- Grand March, Quadrille, Waltz, Lanciers, Polka, Caledonian, Deux Temps, Schottische, Reel and Jig, Waltz, Deux Temps, Virginia Reel, Home Sweet Home.

That doesn't actually seem like a whole lot of dances for a ball that lasted from nine to midnight, then commenced again after supper and continued until "an early hour", but it's all we've got to go by.  Perhaps they took generous breaks between dances; I've seen dance programs where the dances all had dedications which probably involved toasts and speeches.

Firemen's Ball, Wichita, 1903

It's been quite some time since I discussed a dance card or program.  The image at left is not from an actual card, but rather an advance publication of a program of dances taken from a local newspaper.  The event was a Firemen's Ball, to be held in Wichita, Kansas, on Thursday, December 17th, 1903.  A short article and this program were published in the Wichita Daily Eagle on the previous Sunday, December 13th.

Firemen's balls were rather common, presumably serving as fundraisers, but they seem not to have been that popular in Wichita; the accompanying article noted that this would be the second such ball held by the department in twelve years, which does not exactly demonstrate a mania for dancing.  It seems to have been expected to be successful, however.  Although the "fireboys" had not had much time to sell tickets, since they were on duty night and day except for meal breaks, they had still managed to sell between three and four hundred.

The location of the ball was not specified, but the article did note that that the hall would be "handsomely decorated with palms and cut flowers by a committee appointed for that purpose", that Bamberger's orchestra (C. O. Alton, director) had been engaged, and that Professor Hartman would officiate as floor master.  The grand march would be led by Chief Walden and Mrs. Walden, and "the fireboys will no doubt prove as efficient in the dancing area as they are in the department work."

The program, shown in a scan from microfilm at left above (click to enlarge; sorry about the poor quality), is interesting to me mostly because it includes no fewer than four five-steps, meaning five-step schottisches.  That's quite a lot of five-step for a program with only twenty-two dances!

Ten Years

At midnight on January 1, 2008, after a couple of weeks of fussing with a name and site design, I nervously clicked "Post" and officially launched Capering & Kickery with a discussion of how many times one needed to play a country dance to dance in historical style and a plan to slowly write out everything I knew about historical dance.

It's hard to believe it's been ten years. 

Back when I started Kickery, I was warned that most individually-written blogs lasted only a year, maybe two at most, before folding.  I've personally had a couple of others that have dropped by the wayside, slain by obsolescence or by my own lack of time.  And nowadays blogs are quite out of fashion, displaced by social media platforms.  But, somehow, Kickery has endured, and from that first short article it has grown a collection of hundreds covering a potpourri of historical dance topics from the sixteenth century to 1970s disco, though with a primary focus on my current interests in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Writing Kickery has changed my life in ways I would never have imagined.  Along with improving my writing, motivating my research, and giving me an ever-growing repertoire of teaching material, it's turned into an advertisement for my work and been directly responsible for a variety of dance gigs.  It's introduced me to exciting new dance communities and wonderful new friends.  It brought me to Russia for the first time in 2011, which triggered a whole series of teaching trips and a fascination with the country that eventually led to my living here part-time.  Through Patreon, it's even become a small income stream, which is an enormous boon to a freelance dance historian.

Here's to the next ten years...