I almost passed right by the brief Boston Daily Globe article from early 1897 in my endless digging for newspaper coverage of social dance. Although I have an interest in historical recital or performance pieces like skirt dances, they're not my major research focus. I'm glad I took a closer look, though, because when those wild and crazy Radcliffe students drew the curtains of Fay House for an all-girl post-exam party, not only did one perform a skirt dance, they also danced couple dances...which meant that the ladies were leading!
For Radcliffe girls are nothing if not adaptable. They can read Greek and Sanskrit, write plays, dance skirt dances, play basket ball and lead in the waltz with equal proficiency.
Whatever debate some dancing masters were having in the late 1890s about ladies learning to lead (and dance backward), the Radcliffe girls were obviously both willing and able to do so among themselves.
Radcliffe College was Harvard University's sister-school for women, founded in 1879 as an "annex" to provide classes to women and fully chartered under the Radcliffe name only in 1894. It underwent several levels of integration with Harvard over the course of the twentieth century until being fully absorbed in 1999. It exists today only as a Harvard "institute".
So in 1897, Radcliffe would have still been quite the novelty, and any admiration for the accomplishments of its students (who sat the same entrance exams as Harvard students) would have been accompanied by a slightly scandalized attitude toward the whole idea of female college students, especially at an institution like Harvard. The idea that they were closing the curtains to dance wildly (by historical standards) without men is the respectable late-nineteenth-century version of Girls Gone Wild.
Back to the article:
It has grown to be a custom at Radcliffe for the girls to celebrate the close of the midyear examinations by a dance. Last night's celebration was distinctly novel and a bit startling, for it introduced the Loie Fuller skirt dance to Fay house academic shades.
Fay House, shown around 1895 in the photo from the Radcliffe Institute's archives at left (click to enlarge), was the building in which Radcliffe was based. It still exists today and is used as an administrative building. Look through the photo album here for more pictures, including the music room and one of the large "recitation rooms", which were among several different rooms which might have been the site of a small private dance.
Skirt dances were like a respectable version of the can-can, minus the high kicks and other risqué elements. They were common dance school recital and parlor performance pieces in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; directions for one from H. C. Nott's Stage and Fancy Dancing (Cincinnati, 1896) may be seen online here.
Loïe Fuller's skirt dances were another matter entirely. Fuller was a pioneer of modern dance and stage technology, and her dances involved manipulating not just a skirt but enormous amounts of fabric draped from the neck, using rods to extend it past natural arm length, accompanied by lighting effects. Historical videos of the dance style and photos of Fuller's astonishing costumes may be seen here. The video clips are not Fuller herself (of whom no film footage exists), but they are at least contemporary imitators.
Given that Fuller's dances were said to have taken over a hundred yards of fabric and required considerable space to perform, I suspect the Radcliffe student actually performed a more typical skirt dance, and the Fuller link is journalistic exaggeration.
The skirt dance was one of at least three recital-type dances, along with
an eminently proper highland fling and a distinctly commendable fancy pas seul
and then they got down to the social part of the evening:
After the fancy dancing came a jolly Virginia reel, and then followed waltzes and two-steps galore, through all of which pretty, bright-faced girls in dainty evening gowns steered their partners with all possible skill and grace.
The couple-dance repertoire was quite fashionable for the late 1890s: nothing but the waltz and the much-maligned (by dancing masters) two-step, much like this 1906 dance program.
I don't think the mention of the Radcliffe students leading each other through couple dances was meant to be titillating in the same way as the skirt dance, or to imply lesbianism, but, as linked here with the study of Greek and playing basketball, it might well have played upon unease with educated women's femininity, or lack of it. Or it might have just been routine reporting of a typical solution to the problem of insufficient (in this case, zero) male partners (as discussed in 1898, here), or even a reassurance that men had not been allowed in at all. The girls may have done skirt dances in private, but they were still essentially respectable!
The full text of the article follows.
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From the Boston Daily Globe, February 14, 1897, p. 6:
ENJOYED SKIRT DANCE
~~~~~~~~~~
Novelty Introduced at a Rad-
cliffe Party.
Curtains Were Closely Drawn and Not a
Man Gazed on the Festivities.
Thus Did Girls Celebrate the Close of
the Mid-Year Exams.
It has grown to be a custom at Radcliffe for the girls to celebrate the close of the midyear examinations by a dance. Last night's celebration was distinctly novel and a bit startling, for it introduced the Loie Fuller skirt dance to Fay house academic shades.
Verily, yes! Sandwiched in between an eminently proper highland fling and a distinctly commendable fancy pas seul came an unmistakable skirt dance. The curtains had been tightly drawn to shut out the gaze of any curious passersby, but instinctively some of the more discreet maidens turned to examine the window drapings more closely. But it was all right. Not a man saw or was seen.
After the fancy dancing came a jolly Virginia reel, and then followed waltzes and two-steps galore, through all of which pretty, bright-faced girls in dainty evening gowns steered their partners with all possible skill and grace. For Radcliffe girls are nothing if not adaptable. They can read Greek and Sanskrit, write plays, dance skirt dances, play basket ball and lead in the waltz with equal proficiency.
Throughout the evening dainty refreshments were served by particularly popular girls. Everywhere jollity ruled, and there was nothing about the maidens present to indicate that for the last three weeks probably every one has been burning midnight oil and studying hard for the As and Bs, which are the ordinary results of a Radcliffe girl's midyear exams.
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