And here it is: the last of the tiny Dance Mad tangos!
The South Indian "Harem" Tango, like the others in this series of posts, is an American tango which appeared in both the first and second editions of Dance Mad (St. Louis; both editions compiled by F. Leslie Clendenen and published in 1914). It is a very short sequence, only six measures (twelve steps or beats), and rather silly. Clendenen attributes it to W. T. Kaserman, a dancing master who does not appear on Clendenen's lists of contributors in either edition. Perhaps he was embarrassed?
I should state outright that there is nothing even slightly South Indian or harem-like about this sequence; it's utterly ordinary. The name is pure exoticism.
While I haven't looked into Kaserman in depth, I believe he was from the Cleveland area. He seems to have taught with his wife, since both of them appear (circled in red) in the picture at left of the "New Officers of International Asociation [sic] of Masters of Dancing for Season of 1906-1907 Just Chosen in Fort Wayne." taken from the June 13, 1906, edition of the Fort Wayne [Indiana] Weekly Sentinel. Also in the picture: Montréal dancing master Frank H. Norman, at top right, whose Rocker Hesitation and Rag-Time Crawl I have previously discussed. Click to enlarge the photo.
The sequence itself is basic beyond belief, its only oddity being its length and a speed change. The gentleman starts on the left foot and the lady on the right. The starting position is a normal closed hold with the gentleman's back to line of dance. The steps below are given for the gentleman, with the lady dancing opposite. There is only one minor difficulty in dancing it, in the transition to repeat the sequence, and it applies only if all dancers are moving in strict line of dance. I'll spell out how to do it that way first.
South Indian "Harem Tango" (six measures)
2b Gentleman walks backward four steps along line of dance, LRLR
(last step: angle forward toward the center to initiate a clockwise pivot turn halfway)
2b Gentleman walks forward four steps along line of dance, LRLR
(last step toward the wall to gain extra degrees of turn)
1b Spin turn clockwise, LRLR
1b Spin turn counter-clockwise, LRLR
Performance notes
As in Zebley's tango sequence, the change from backward to forward walks can be made either direction, but a clockwise pivot feels more graceful to myself and my practice partner than the reverse, even though it involves cheating the last "backward" step a bit. If doing the reverse turn, the first step of the forward walks (the second half) is a pivot.
The spin turn is described in detail here. Note that the steps of the spin turn are performed twice as fast as the walking steps of the first four bars. The sequence is eight slow steps and eight fast steps. Really!
The first spin turn starts with the gentleman stepping back with his left foot, turning clockwise, then rocking forward on the right, back on the left, and forward on the right. They then reverse direction to turn counter-clockwise. This is accomplished by the gentleman stepping forward on his left foot, then rocking back on his right, etc. The full breakdown:
Gentleman:
back left, fwd right, back left, fwd right
fwd left, back right, fwd left, back right
Lady:
fwd left, back right, fwd left, back right
back left, fwd right, back left, fwd right
To restart the sequence with the gentleman's back to line of dance, one should overturn the clockwise half and underturn the counter-clockwise half. It helps in doing so the dancers end the second set of walks with a step angling toward the wall (him forward, her backward) for an extra quarter-turn of clockwise motion. Otherwise the counter-clockwise spin turn has to be very, very minimal.
If one is not going to restart this sequence, and wants to end with the gentleman facing forward or the dancers side by side, no cheating at the end of the walking steps is needed and the two spin turns can be exactly equal in degree of turn.
I do note, however, that line of dance is not actually mentioned in the instructions, and the issue with the transition into the restart goes away completely if all the dancers are moving more chaotically and can just set off in whatever direction they happen to be facing at the end. Videos I've seen of dancers of this era suggest that while the general motion of the whole group was line of dance (counter-clockwise), there was also some degree of wandering around or cutting through the center of the room. If one performs this sequence outside of the main "traffic pattern" of other dancers, one doesn't have to worry about degree of turn or which way to face at the end.
Music
I sincerely hope that the reason for the name is that somewhere out there is a piece of music called "South Indian Harem Tango" or similar, but I haven't come across it and don't like the sequence enough to put much effort into a search. Any tango music will work, though the odd six-bar length may feel vaguely annoying, as it crosses the typical eight-bar musical phrase.
Comments