Another dance associated with the Mahler family of dancing masters in St. Louis is the American Boy, an easy two-step sequence described by Jacob Mahler in the October 24th, 1909, issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It is one of two sequences fully described in an article entitled "Five New Dances Now the Delight of Society" on page 65. It's not clear whether Mahler choreographed it himself, and I've not been able to find any other source for the dance.
The starting position is the dancers side by side, gentleman on the left and lady on the right, holding inside hands as shown in the illustration at left from the Post-Dispatch article, and facing line of dance. The gentleman starts on the left foot and the lady on the right.
Interestingly, Mahler gave the lady's steps, with the gentleman dancing opposite, so I will do the same.
American Boy (16-bar two-step sequence)
1b Balance forward upon right foot (leaning forward, free foot raised behind)
1b Balance backward upon left foot (free foot raised in front)
1b Two-step forward, starting with right foot
1b Two forward walking steps (left, right), pivoting on the second step to face against line of dance
1b Balance forward upon left foot (leaning forward, free foot raised behind)
1b Balance backward upon right foot (free foot raised in front)
1b Two-step forward, starting with left foot
1b Two forward walking steps (left, right), pivoting on the second step to face partner and take closed ballroom hold
4b Turning four-slide galop
4b Turning two-step, separating at the end to take inside hands facing line of dance
Repeat from the beginning.
Performance Notes
See the illustration at the top of this post for the degree of lean and lift of the rear foot when balancing forward.
When balancing backward, as shown in the illustration at left, the lift of the free foot is less pronounced and the dancers do not appear to actually lean backward.
For the second balance sequence (against line of dance), the left foot will already be touching the ground, trailing the right foot on the two walking steps, so weight can simply be shifted to that foot rather than actually lifting it for a step.
The two-step is described in detail here and the four-slide galop here.
At the end of the two-step sequence, the gentleman needs to release the lady from his right arm on the final half-turn so that they can open out to holding hands again.
Reconstruction NotesMahler's description of the dance from the Post-Dispatch is shown at left; click to enlarge.
The only reconstruction issue is that Mahler never actually said either to take closed position or to turn, either on the four-slide galop or the two-step. But I am reasonably confident that, like Russian Militaire and many other sequence dances of the period, American Boy follows the "this way, that way, turn" pattern, in which the dancers move along line of dance, repeat the same steps against line of dance, and then take closed position and do a turning couple dance. Here, the turning segment is varied by starting with the four-slide galops rather than just doing eight bars of turning two-step. I think this would have been sufficiently obvious to dancers at the time that Mahler wouldn't have needed to spell it out in detail.
Music
It's often the case with these little sequence dances that they were written to go with a specific piece of music. But it's hard to determine whether American Boy fell into this category or was meant as a generic two-step sequence that could be danced to any two-step with even sixteen-bar segments. The title, unfortunately, was a common term for both actual American boys and American soldiers. There are a number of pieces of music by that title going back to at least the mid-nineteenth century and continuing right up to the twenty-first. There was even a magazine called The American Boy. The cover of the July, 1909, issue is shown at left (click to enlarge), and several issues are available online.
Although the generic nature of the title makes it impossible to say for certain, I do have one reasonable candidate for a tune that might have inspired the dance: the march and two-step "The American Boy", composed by Sarah L. Fees and published in 1903. The sheet music cover, shown at right (click to enlarge), prominently features the claim that it was played by John Philip Sousa's Band, which would suggest it achieved more than local popularity. I haven't found any verification of this, unfortunately.
The tune is a typical 6/8 two-step that fits the dance well enough. Here's a short clip of the introduction and first thirty-two bars:
I'm not aware of any recording of this piece, so in the absence of musicians to play it, the American Boy can be danced to any other two-step music.
Comments