Exeter Waltz

Last year I wrote up Massachusetts dancing master George F. Walters' Exeter Caprice, one of two Walters dances that appeared in the second edition of F. Leslie Clendenen's 1914 compilation, Dance Mad.  The other was the Exeter Waltz, a hesitation waltz sequence which, at sixteen bars, is long enough to function as a standalone sequence dance or, if the surrounding dancers are accustomed to accommodating hesitations, used as a puzzle-piece for improvisation.  There is no choreographic connection between the Exeter Waltz and the Exeter Caprice.

There were some difficulties in reconstructing the Exeter Waltz (see the Reconstruction Notes below); the following version is what I came up with after some experimentation with different possibilities.

Starting position: normal ballroom hold, gentleman's back to line of dance and lady facing line of dance.  Gentleman starts left foot, lady right.  The instructions below are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

The dance consists of sixteen measures of waltz music divided into two eight-bar sections.  Turns to the right are clockwise or natural; turns to the left are counter-clockwise or reverse.

Part One (eight bars)
1b    Turning 1/4 to the right, step left foot back and toward the wall
1b    Point right foot along line of dance without weight
1b    Turning 1/2 to the left, step right foot back and toward the center of the room
1b    Point left foot along line of dance without weight
1b    Turning 1/4 to the right, step left back along line of dance, dipping slightly
1b    Turning individually 1/2 to the left, step right back against line of dance, shifting to right Yale position (right hip to right hip)
1b    In right Yale position, step left foot forward along line of dance, dipping slightly
1b    Waltz 1/2 turn to the right (step forward-side-close), coming face to face again on the last two beats and ending with gentleman's back to line of dance

Part Two (eight bars, described as six counts performed four times)
1    Turning 1/4 to the right, step left foot back
23  Point right foot along line of dance
(turn a quarter to the right)
4    Step right forward along line of dance, angling slightly toward center
5    Step left sideways along line of dance
6    Close right to left with weight, completing the half-turn to put gentleman's back to line of dance
Repeat above six counts (two measures) three more times.

Performance Notes
This one is much easier to do than describe; all the partial turns shifting back and forth sound messy but are actually not very difficult.  During the first four bars of Part One, the gentleman should underturn slightly, keeping a little further along line of dance than the lady.  During the turn in the sixth measure of Part One that shifts the dancers from facing to right Yale position, they turn counter-clockwise individually, rather than as a couple, to end the turn hip to hip.  The waltz step on the eighth bar easily shifts them to face straight on again.

By comparison, Part Two is a breeze, a classic hesitation sequence: step and point, waltz.  Do that three more times.  This is excellent practice for normal (improvisational) hesitation waltz.

A general caution: the Exeter Waltz travels very little during Part One, which makes it a bit dangerous to do on a crowded dance floor or one where the other dancers are not expecting hesitations and prepared to navigate around relatively stationary couples.  If the sequence is not being done by all the dancers in unison, consider carefully whether it's suited to the dance floor at hand or will cause more trouble than it's worth.

Reconstruction Notes
There was one judgment call to be made and one outright error in the instructions to be worked around:

The judgment call: at the end of Part One, there is a note, "Above waltz measures to be danced by beginning on right side of partner, dipping slightly on first step."  But it doesn't specify which measures, and technically there is only one measure of actual waltzing in Part One.  Presumably it is not meant to apply to all of Part One, or the instruction would be at the beginning.  Experimentation with my long-suffering practice partner suggests that the first six measures are not particularly graceful in right Yale position, but that there is a very natural switch from facing partner to right Yale during the turn at the end of the sixth measure with an equally graceful transition back to facing at the end of the eighth in preparation for Part Two.  I've interpreted "above waltz measures" to refer to just the seventh and eighth, which are a classic "hesitate, waltz" pair.

The error: the directions for Part Two give three measures of dance to be done four times for a total of eight bars.  That obviously doesn't work, nor does the footwork given.  Here's the original description:

Step left foot back, turning to right, count (1) point right foot, count (2-3).  1 measure: retaining weight on left foot for whole measure 1/2 turn (Boston), 1 measure: regular waltz, turning to right, beginning with right foot, 1 measure: repeat above two measures three times.

Sixteen measures complete the dance.

The sixteen measures includes the first eight measures of Part One, so Part Two must be eight as well.  There's one measure too many in the instructions.  There is also a problem in that there is just no way the second measure given (retaining weight on left foot for whole measure 1/2 turn (Boston)) actually works following the first measure's step-and-point.  I think that the first "1 measure" is an error, and the description should be more like:

Step left foot back, turning 1/4 to right, count (1) point right foot, count (2-3).  1 measure: retaining weight on left foot for whole measure and completing the 1/2 turn (Boston) at the end, 1 measure

The strikethrough is a deletion and the bold/underline sections additions.  Basically, one steps on 1, points the foot on 2-3, and between 3 and the first beat of the next measure, continues turning to the right so that the step with the right foot is along the line of dance, aiming slightly toward the wall, in order to make a clean waltz turn.  Here's roughly where the turns fall:

1/4 turn, left foot back (1)
point right foot along line of dance (2-3)
1/4 turn, right foot forward (1)
1/4 turn, side (2)
1/4 turn, close (3)

The dancers once again end with the gentleman's back to line of dance, ready to restart the sequence.  I can't be one hundred percent certain that this was what Walters intended, but it makes reasonable sense and it works.

Music
The published recommendation for the Exeter Waltz is "Love's Sigh" or any dreamy waltz.  Given the last three words, specific music isn't critical, but if one really wants to use "Love's Sigh", I would guess that this refers to the 1886 composition by Fred Baker, the cover of which is shown at left (click to enlarge).  I don't have a recording of it to point to, but the sheet music is available online at the Lester S. Levy Collection at Johns Hopkins University.  There are no tempo markings, but like all hesitation waltzes, the Exeter Waltz is best done to a rather brisk tempo (180 beats per minute and up) to provide enough momentum for the changes of position and prevent the hesitations from becoming tedious.  At the moment, I'm dancing it to the extremely brisk "Memories of Home" Waltz from the American Brass Quintet's The Yankee Brass Band, which is actually 200 bpm and not particularly dreamy - sorry, George Walters!  That recording has a 44-second introduction followed by enough well-marked sixteen-bar phrases to do the dance eleven times through, or twelve times through if one can waltz through the musical flourishes at the end.

Special thanks to my practice partner, Christina, for her patience with my experiments!