What would a Halloween ball be without some weird early twentieth-century cotillion figures? Here's a pair from St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler's 1900 compilation Original Cotillion Figures. One is, I think, genuinely creepy. The other isn't as scary, but requires a ridiculously complex prop. Both would require substantial preparation and stage-managing and are best suited to small events.
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Camping.
Adolph Newberger, New York City, N. Y.
Eight couple dance to the merry strains of a two-step. Each participant selects a new partner, and the sixteen couple arrange themselves around tent. All now dance toward tents, constructed of thin paper and erected for the purpose in the four corners of the room, the gentlemen concealing themselves within, as the ladies dance once around the tents. Four masculine hands are thrust through the paper walls; at a given signal each lady seizes one of the protruding hands, and proceeds to draw its owner through the tent, making him captive for the dance.
Perhaps I'm oversensitive to things suddenly bursting out of walls, but I have some trouble with this figure. Sure, why doesn't everyone just two-step merrily around the room until the ball suddenly turns into a scene out of Repulsion...
Let us also pause for a moment and contemplate the logistics of constructing and transporting to the ballroom four "thin paper" tents, each large enough to hold four gentlemen, and for getting those gentlemen inside without tearing the tents in the process. This once again highlights the invisible factor in successful cotillions: a high-quality staff working in the background to get props like this set up, help the guests into them, and remove the shredded tents afterward.
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The next figure could actually be a lot scarier, given how creepy-looking some Victorian Jack-in-the-Box toys were and the whole potential bursting out of a box thing. But as described by Mahler (its creator), it's not really meant to startle. Rather than someone suddenly popping out, it's set up as "touch the box and it falls apart and there's a guy in it". That's not nearly as disturbing.
Jack in the Box
Jacob Mahler, St. Louis, Mo.
Music -- Waltz.
Properties -- A box six feet high and three feet square, placed upon rollers, so as to be easily drawn around the room. The box is open at the back and top, and is held together at the top by hooks and eyes, the bottom half of the box is screwed together. Three sides of the box are hinged, so that when the hooks are loosened the top half falls, and exposes the person in the box. The box may be nicely papered or decorated.
This is a very pretty figure for a small Cotillion.
The Figure.
The leader sends all the gentlemen to another room, the ladies remaining in the hall. The box is in the gentlemen's room; the leader closes the box placing a gentleman inside, (sometimes three gentlemen may be put in the box). The leader or his valet will draw the box to the center of the room; the leader selects a lady, who steps forward, taps upon the box, when down drops the top exposing the gentleman, with whom she then dances. The leader then goes back for another gentleman, and repeats figure until all have partners. The surprise is agreeable to the lady, for she is wondering who is in the box.
For Favors -- Little jack-in-the-boxes are appropriate.
This is a much more complex prop, and it has to hold up to repeated usage, so presumably it's made of something sturdy like wood, "papered or decorated" appropriately. And read carefully to see the man almost literally behind the curtain: the leader's valet!
It doesn't surprise me that there were servants helping; as noted above, a staff would definitely be required to keep the more complex figures coming smoothly and without long setup delays. And considering the size of the box (3' x 3' x 6') and that it would have contained from one to three men (presumably a three-man box would be larger) even with the advantage of rollers, it would definitely have been helpful to have had some help pulling it in and out of the room.
It does surprise me somewhat that it was the leader's valet, singular, rather than, say, "three hefty footmen", but perhaps the average house in St. Louis wasn't that heavily staffed.
Given that it's a rare modern reenactment ball that has a large behind-the-scenes staff during the ball, these figures aren't terribly practical nowadays, but it's always interesting to contemplate how much preparation and behind-the-scenes work must have been required for an entire evening, even if most of the figures weren't quite as logistically challenging!
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