Capering & Kickery

Early Foxtrot: the St. Denis Spiral

While thinking about mixing foxtrot and maxixe...

The St. Denis Spiral is a minor foxtrot variation from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916) which, like the sequences in my previous post, incorporates maxixe styling in the two-step.  Like Lee's Pavlowa Extension, it is named for a famous dancer, in this case Ruth St. Denis.  I am not a scholar of modern dance (theatrical or otherwise), so I have only the most superficial knowledge of her career, but apparently she was indeed noted for incorporating spiral figures, as may be seen in "The Delirium of Senses" from Radha (1906), recorded at Jacob's Pillow in 1941.  I seriously doubt she had anything to do with this foxtrot variation, however; the name is most likely just an homage.

The sequence is just as easy as the other foxtrot-maxixe combinations:

3b    Six walking steps
6b    Six turning two-steps, bending and turning as in the maxixe
2b    Four walking steps

The gentleman starts on the left foot moving forward, the lady on the right moving backward.  During the two-steps, the dancers should "turn around to the right as far as possible with each step, advancing along the floor in a spiral fashion".  Normally when turning one spirals into the center of a ballroom accidentally, by underturning.  In this variation, attempting some overturn would keep the dancers moving more-or-less along the line of dance even while doing little spirals.

As is often the case with Lee's sequences, her sense of musicality, or lack of it, is just bizarre.  Six walking steps (three measures) of music to start?  An eleven-bar sequence?  Why???  I would entirely support altering the sequence to do four walking steps at the beginning.  With the six turning two-steps, that would make an eight-bar sequence, and the four at the end are just walking out of it into something else.

Lee's final comment on the step, and the maxixe:

"This is a vigorous and interesting step, with reminiscences of the departed maxixe, which apparently was too beautiful to live."

Early Foxtrot: a bit of maxixe

Maxixe in the foxtrot?  They mixed bits and pieces of every other dance of the ragtime era together, so why not jazz up your foxtrot with a little body sway?  

At least two different sources suggest using maxixe-styled two-step in the foxtrot: Joan Sawyer's How to Dance the Fox Trot (Columbia Graphaphone Company, New York,1914) and Description of Modern Dances, as Standardized by the New York Society Teachers of Dancing and approved by the Congress of Dancing Societies of America at meeting held December 27th, 1914, in New York City, N. Y. (American National Association Masters of Dancing, Pittsburgh, 1915).

I'll start with Sawyer, since her booklet (dated November 23, 1914), is chronologically earlier.  Her foxtrot figures all consist of a pattern of a unique step or sequence followed by eight trotting steps.  Her third figure, the Maxixe-Glide and "Trot", starts with four measures of "Maxixe two-step" done moving along the line of dance (gentleman forward, lady backward) without turning.  The two-steps begin with the gentleman's left foot, lady's right; feet then alternate as usual

Sawyer's illustration of the "very first motion of the Maxixe-glide", shown at left (click to enlarge), is missing the characteristic heel lead of the maxixe, but it does hint at the body sway in the bend of the dancers toward their lead feet.  I would expect them to bring their joined hands up during the remainder of the first two-step and ended it with their bodies bent the opposite way, then swaying the other way as they two-step "over elbows" toward their second foot, ending in about the position shown in the illustration.

Following four two-steps forward (counted 1&2 each) for four bars total, the dancers then do eight trotting steps (counted 1&2&3&4&) for two bars total.  The entire six bars is then repeated, making a twelve-bar sequence.  This is really a very standard mix of two-step and trotting steps, very much in the pattern of other two-step combinations in the foxtrot.  Its only point of distinction is the maxixe styling.

Similarly, the figure standardized by the New York Society Teachers of Dancing and eventually published in the proceedings of their convention is a very ordinary combination, though at least it includes turning.  The two-steps and the running steps (trots) alternate:

1b    one turning"Maxixe two-step" (half-turn) (QQS)
1b    four running steps (QQQQ)
1b    one turning "Maxixe two-step" (half-turn) (QQS)
1b    four running steps (QQQQ)
4b    repeat all of the above

This is a nice, straightforward, musically square eight-bar sequence.  The gentleman starts on the left foot, the lady on the right, they make a half turn so that the first four running steps have the gentleman going backwards, then finish the turn and run again with the lady going backwards.  The only thing indicating the maxixe styling is the word "Maxixe" attached to the two-step.

Of the two, I actually prefer the dancing-masters version.  It's better matched to musical patterns, it has shorter pieces with more frequent alternation -- I am not a fan of long sequences of backward trotting steps for ladies -- and it turns.  I would also consider it valid to break up the sequences and just mix maxixe-styled two-step into walking and trotting in the same way one can mix a plain two-step.