This being the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II of England's official Platinum Jubilee celebration, it seems appropriate to look back almost 125 years to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, for which English dancing master Walter Humphrey composed a sequence called, logically enough, The Victorian:
This dance was arranged as a novelty for the ball-room, to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen in 1897, and, as it can be danced to Two-step music or Washington Post, makes a pleasant variety.
The sequence itself is short and the reconstruction ought to be straightforward, but, unfortunately, Humphrey's instructions complicate matters. I'll present my reconstruction first then talk about the problems.
The starting position is "military" position, dancers side by side, the gentleman on the left and the lady on the right, his right arm around her and her left hand on his shoulder. The gentleman starts on the left foot, the lady on the right.
The Victorian (16 measures of two-step music)
4b Four pas de basque forward, starting first with outside foot (gentleman's left, lady's right)
At the end of the fourth pas de basque, partners face and join free hands (his left, her right) to take normal closed ballroom hold.
2b Turning two-step, one complete turn
2b Four-slide galop, ending with half-turn
The couple should release their joined hands during the four-slide galop and the gentleman slide his left arm under the lady's right, releasing her from his right arm as they make the final half-turn so that they open up side by side, gentleman at the lady's right side, his left arm around her waist.
4b Four pas de basque forward, starting first with new outside foot (gentleman's right, lady's left)
At the end of the fourth pas de basque, partners face and switch to a normal closed ballroom hold. The gentleman releases the lady from his left arm and takes her with his right arm so they are "over elbows" to line of dance, and they join free hands (his left, her right).
2b Turning two-step, one complete turn
2b Four-slide galop, ending with half-turn
At the end of the final half-turn, release joined hands to open up side by side in original starting position to start again from the beginning.
Reconstruction notes
This reconstruction would have been much easier if Humphrey had not (1) wanted to make it repeat on the second foot and (2) failed to think things through to allow this. His instructions for measures 5-8 are:
Take partner by waist, and Deux Temps valse, 4 measures.
Changing side of partner, gentleman over the front, on eighth beat.
First, there is no need to "take partner by waist". The gentleman has already got the lady by the waist, and has had since the beginning of the dance. Take partner by the hand would make more sense here. I assume this is just a mistake. He also never specified where the lady's inside hand goes during the pas de basque, but if it just hangs loose in front of the gentleman's arm, she looks like an unwilling hostage, so I would expect it to be in the typical position on his inside shoulder.
Second, changing sides on the eighth beat is...problematic. Four measures of deux temps, or two-step (see below) would normally leave the dancers on their original sides. To change sides, there needs to be either half a turn less or half a turn more, which means changing the steps somehow. To make half a turn less, one could either make the final two step (counts 7&8) go straight forward (but that ignores the bit about the eighth beat) or merge the third and fourth two-steps into a single four-slide galop, which would put the final turn right on the eighth beat where Humphrey wants it. That is the solution I prefer and have included above.
To make half a turn more, one could replace the last two-step with two pivots, but that's a bit tricky to position and perform so that they travel along line of dance, especially while simultaneously changing arms. Effectively, the last movement of the third two-step needs to itself be a pivot: count 1&2, 3&4, 5&PIVOT PIVOT PIVOT. But Humphrey doesn't say anything about pivots, which I feel are a bigger departure from deux temps than a long galop is. Nor are fast pivots (two to a bar) particularly typical for this era, though slower pivots in the form of step-hops (one per bar, which wouldn't work here) are.
The second part of the dance should simply be a repeat with opposite feet and opposite arm positions, but, once again, Humphrey complicated matters. He explicitly stated that in the last four bars, it is once again "right around round the waist (ordinary dancing position)". That means the gentleman's left arm is around the lady's waist for the four pas de basque but then as they come face to face they have to switch holds back to the standard ballroom hold, which at least is an easy and familiar way to go.
The end result of all this messing around is very similar to the American dancing master Albert Newman's simpler Military Two-Step.
Performance notes
Humphrey used deux temps rather than two-step in his description of the turning movement, which is not unique when talking about a dance in 6/8 time. His description of the valse à deux temps elsewhere in his book is typical, and in 3/4 time, though he did not actually specify the step timing in 3/4. Since The Victorian is in two-step time, it is counted like the galop, 1&2, or, more precisely for 6/8 time, 1...a2. The distinction is slight at tempo, and most dancers will instinctively follow the musical accent. More detailed discussion of this point may be found here.
Humphrey did not explain the pas de basque step, so for the technical details I refer to his contemporary William Lamb, whose American Schottische Humphrey included in his book. From Lamb's How and What to Dance (London c1900), a description of the Pas de Basque in 3/4 time:
Spring on to left foot at side (second position), count one. Step lightly on to right foot in front (fifth position), count two. Put the weight back on to left foot (fifth position), count three.
In duple time, this would be counted 1&2 (or 1...a2) instead of 1-2-3. The mnemonic is "side-close-shift". The pas de basque steps also must be small, as the dancers are enlaced; combined with forward movement, this will tend to drift toward turning slightly away from each other and then slightly toward each other.
Music
John Philip Sousa's "The Washington Post" (1889), named for the iconic Washington, D. C., newspaper, is one of the most famous marches and two-steps in existence. Some background and a downloadable recording and score may be found here, and numerous other recordings exist. Since it had a popular dance of its own, dancers may prefer to select a different two-step; there are plenty of others by Sousa as well as other composers.
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