"Boston" is a tremendously fuzzy term which meant several different things to different dancing masters at different times and in different places from the late nineteenth century all the way into the 1920s. About all that is consistent among them is that they were in waltz time. Bostons-as-a-whole are an enormous topic, so rather than try to cover it all at once, I'm going to take different authors' versions individually and eventually work my way to some sort of summary of the different meanings of the term, with whatever patterns (by time or geography or both) to those meanings emerges.
I'm going to start with one of my favorite 1910s authors, Albert W. Newman, who, in his Dances of to-day (Philadelphia, 1914), published over a dozen different variations under the general term "Boston". I long ago described the Three-Step Boston and the Five-Step Boston. Now I'm planning to work through all the others. First on that list is the first one Newman described with a whole list of names: the Philadelphia Boston, also known as the Long Boston, the One-Step Waltz, the Drop Step and, in England, the Berceuse or Cradle Boston. Of all this collection, I prefer the Long Boston or One-Step Waltz, though Newman was evidently partial to Philadelphia Boston, under which name it appeared in the 1914 compendium Dance Mad, which collected variations from dancing masters all over the United States. Newman described it there as "the form of Boston most popular in Philadelphia at present."
Many Bostons are effectively hesitation waltzes, with fewer than three actual steps to each bar of music. The Long Boston is such a waltz. Its other name of One-Step Waltz (also a term used for a hesitation waltz) is descriptive: it is literally one step to each bar, though the other two beats are filled by a rise on the ball of the foot and subsequent fall. Newman also noted that it was called the Drop Step "on account of all the steps being dropped or eliminated except the one."
The basic movement of the Long Boston is identical to the Spin Turn in the one-step, described here and diagrammed by Newman for the Boston as shown at left. The dancers place one foot forward and rotate in place, shifting weight on each measure. Newman described this as "a delicate wave or cradle movement, with a bending of the knee and a rising on the ball of the foot" and "a smooth gliding movement" and noted that the dancers' toes should never leave the floor. Using the step-rise-fall sequence, the dancers rock back and forth, pivoting on the ball of the forward foot. The rocking movement provides enough momentum to turn in place. When rotating to the right (clockwise), their right feet are forward, the insides of the feet close together, and their left feet travel around the outside of an imaginary circle . When turning to the left (counter-clockwise), their left feet are in the center and their right feet travel around the outside.
While I am not going to go back to the nineteenth century and the origins of the Boston(s) just yet, I will note that Newman's description, while more elaborate, is essentially the same as that of M. B. Gilbert in his description of the Boston in Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890).
Back to the practical: Newman suggested starting the Long Boston by the gentleman stepping backward on his left foot, and transitioning between directions of turn by stepping backward onto his right foot, the lady dancing opposite (forward on her right foot / forward on her left foot). There is no specific number of steps required to complete a full turn.
Newman noted, with considerable understatement, that "there is not much progression in this movement, and that it is quite difficult to move as quickly around the room as in the old dance (the Waltz and the Two-Step)". Since the only opportunity to travel is with the single step used to shift the turn, moving around the room at all seems overly ambitious, though of course in practice one might simply intersperse more non-turning steps, one to the bar (with the rise and fall) in the style of the One-Step Waltz in its incarnation as a hesitation waltz. The boundary between hesitation waltz and Newman's Boston variations seems to be more a matter of terminology rather than anything qualitatively different about the steps!
Newman's final word on the Long Boston was that it was necessary to "add a few other movements" in order to actually travel and followed through with a series of variations, which I will cover in later posts.
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