Capering & Kickery

March 2022 Gig Calendar

Well. 

The major possibility I was expecting for March was to move back to Moscow and resume teaching dance in Russia and Ukraine, so I didn't plan much of anything else.  As anyone who has not been living under a rock for the last few days is no doubt aware, that is probably not happening this month, and it's hard to say whether it will happen in the foreseeable future.  Or at all.

So...new possibilities are needed.  I'll make a quick research trip to Boston early this month and will be working on other events and workshops in the USA for later this spring, plus planning for one or two conferences in Europe.  For those who've been wanting me in the USA but have been blocked first by my mostly being in Russia and then by the pandemic, this is a great time to book me.

Is anyone else tired of being resilient after the last two years?

Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones.  Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance! 

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Sunday, March 20th ~ ONLINE / Connecticut-based
Dance Historian Meetup
11:00am-2:00pm.  Private event.

 

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I am available for private or group online lessons and talks via Skype or Zoom (or your videoconferencing software of choice) during the pandemic; please email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson or talk.  I am also available for small-group in-person dance events; fully vaccinated dancers only, please!

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Coming in April: online dance workshops at the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA)!

Displeased by dancing, 1852

"Pleasing the Parish; or, The Minister's Wife", and its sequel, "Intervention", appeared in the January and July, 1852, issues of Godey's Lady's Book, probably the most prominent women's magazine of mid-19th century America.  The author remained anonymous, offering only a list of their previously published stories.

The first story is the sad tale of the overwhelming demands made upon Mrs. Stone, the wife of a theologian who accepts a position as rector of a large parish in New York City.  Her inability to fulfill all the demands on a rector's wife and her refusal to yield in all areas to the leading female parishioners makes her increasingly unpopular and, as a result, miserable.  In the second story, she has the temerity to attend a gathering of friends rather than the organizational meeting.  Both the gathering and its consequences offer brief insights into the practice and perception of dance in mid-nineteenth-century America.

American Boy

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.

Russian Militaire

"For children there have been accepted La Veta and the Russian Militaire, the latter a semi-drill and march step, combining simple and graceful poses for the little ones."

-- Marie Petravsky, "New Fads in Dances", The Sunday Morning Call (Lincoln, Nebraska). Sunday, October 25, 1896, p. 5.

The accepting organization referred to was The Western Association and Normal School of Masters of Dancing, which also accepted a number of dances for adults that year.  The newspaper article was timed to the start of the new dancing season in New York, but on the sheet music it is noted that the dance was adopted on June 11, 1896, in Toledo, Ohio.  It is also claimed, apparently inaccurately, that "This Dance was the only Dance adopted out of ten others presented." 

The choreographer of the dance was John A. Mahler, brother of the much better-known St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler.  Both brothers taught children; another of John Mahler's dances, the Two and a Half Step, was inscribed to "the Young Ladies of the Mary Institute and Hosmer Hall", two St. Louis schools.  There is no indication on the sheet music that it was meant for children, which makes one wonder how many of the other simple sequence dances of the period might also have been meant for the younger set!