This is turning into a miniseries of galop variation posts. Moving right along, the Gaiety is another one found in both M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and G. W. Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903). The dance was attributed to George T. Wilson by Gilbert and plain George Wilson by Lopp. I'm familiar with books by George E. Wilson, but not George T. Wilson. The "T" might be a typo, but I don't think it is. George E. published rather standard manuals from New York. The two I have looked at (one that I own, one at the New York Public Library) do not include the Gaiety, and are so pedestrian and derivative that I think it unlikely that he created something as, ah, non-pedestrian as the racket-like Gaiety. And Gilbert listed George T. as living in Maine. Possibly the reason they both used their middle initials was to avoid confusion!
Gilbert noted that the Gaiety was accepted by the American Society of Professors of Dancing, New York, on September 4th, 1889.
Allowing for translation issues, the two descriptions are almost identical in wording, and the reconstruction is mostly straightforward. For the steps given below, the gentleman begins on the left foot and the lady on the right. The starting position is a normal closed ballroom hold, starting either with the gentleman facing more-or-less along line of dance (if dancing diagonally, which is my preferred reconstruction) or with his back to the center if one is attempting to turn the Gaiety. See the notes below for more about this issue.
Reconstruction (eight measures)
12 Slide left to second with weight (1), cut with right foot, bringing left to raised second (2)
34 Cut with left foot, bring right to raised second (3), hop on left, bringing right to raised third (4)
12 Repeat first measure, starting with right foot
34 Repeat second measure, starting with right foot
12 Slide left to second with weight (1), cut with right foot, bringing left to raised second (2)
&34 Hop on right (&), slide left to second (3), cut with right foot, bringing left to raised second (4)
&12 Hop on right (&), slide left to second (1), cut with right foot, bringing left to raised second (2)
34 Cut with left foot, bring right to raised second (3), bring right to raised third position
Restart with the right foot
Mnemonic: "slide, cut, cut, hop; slide, cut, cut, hop; slide, cut, (hop)slide, cut, (hop)slide, cut, cut, tuck"
Reconstruction and performance notes
1. Gilbert did not specify the foot for the restart, which usually means restart on the same foot, but Lopp stated specifically that it restarts on the opposite foot, and the steps given match that interpretation. It's also more symmetrical; the patterns ends up as "A left, A right, B left, A right, A left, B right". Asymmetrical patterns aren't unheard of, but I prefer symmetrical ones when they are supported by the source.
2. There is no indication of any turning at all, either in Gilbert or in Lopp. One could add turns, but since this dance is basically a very flashy racket, I'd rather see it done moving it in a zigzag pattern along the line of dance. The dancers move at a gentle diagonal along the line of dance. Every time there is a "cut-cut" sequence (crossing bars 1-2, 3-4, and 7-8), that changes the diagonal. On bars 5 and 6, most of the movement needs to be almost straight along line of dance or the dancers will end up in the middle of the ballroom.
If one really, really wants to turn, the turns happen in the same places, but racket-style steps are not really well-designed for constant turning.
3. The two halves of the Gaiety are really quite independent; if one wanted to experiment with some wilder improvisation, breaking the two parts up and repeating either of them more times than give before switching would be an interesting option. The cue to switch to the second part would be suddenly traveling straight along line of dance rather than diagonally. One could also, in theory, extend the second part for indefinite sideways travel just by repeating bars 6 & 7 over and over. Bar 7 is already an exact repeat of bar 6; just keep doing it.
Music
This is another dance where we have a good candidate for likely sheet music for it. There are no printed dance instructions, but the timing and location are plausible. A "Gaiety" composed by George Philipp appears in Little Albumleaves for Pianoforte, published in Boston in 1881 or 1882 (1881 on the cover, 1882 on the interior music copyright). It is available online at the Library of Congress, here. The music is in 2/4 and marked as "un poco vivo" ("a little lively"). Lopp gives the tempo as "allegro" (fast). The Gaiety can actually be danced to surprisingly fast music. Unlike a typical galop or a true racket, its movements are almost all on the strong beats (1..2), with only the occasional upbeat hop, rather than in a constant 1&2& rhythm like a regular galop or racket. It's literally only a little over half the steps of a galop or true racket. So 124 beats per minute, for example, actually feels quite gentle, almost too gentle. If you ever wanted a dance to do to one of those fast Waldteufel galop recordings, the Gaiety is a good candidate!
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