"Dorothea" is a full choreographed march taken from H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912). It combines some standard march figures used in unusual ways with less standard ones and enough mixer elements that it also qualifies as a fun cotillion (dance party game).
Like many figures in Walker's book, this one probably originated elsewhere. I don't know where, and I don't know the significance of the name. But how could I possibly resist a march whose creator fully expected it to devolve into chaos at the end?
"...when the dancers have become helplessly tangled at the sides of the room, trying to find out where to go next..."
It's comforting to know that if the figure goes terribly wrong the caller can just skip to the end and claim it was planned!
It is not at all comforting, however, for the first diagram to present a problem.
"All couples up, waltz. Form in march. Down centre of room. Ladies and gents separate and go half way up opposite sides of the room, then to centre of room thus. First:"
At left is the original image with my addition of more white space and text to show where the center of the room is, which was not at all clear from just the X's and O's. At center bottom is the tail end of a march in a column down the center of the room before the dancers separate. The only problem? The gentlemen (X) are on the right of the ladies (O) as the dancers march down the center. It's possible to make that happen, but (1) it's a pain, (2) there is no evidence of it in the instructions, and (3) experienced dancers tend to "fix" it by switching sides. So on the right is a vertically-flipped version. Now the dancers are marching up the center toward the top before separating and heading out to the corners. Since the only critical thing is that at the end of this segment they be marching into the center from the correct side, this works just as well and avoids having to get the dancers into an unusual arrangement. Here are corrected instructions:
All couples up, waltz. Form in march. Up centre of room. Ladies and gents separate and go half way down opposite sides of the room, then to centre of room thus.
We end the first part with the line of ladies and line of gents heading straight toward each other in the center of the room. Will they crash? Well, the directions leave out instructions for what happens to get the dancers in position in the next diagram (left, below):
Let me help out here: ladies and gentlemen pass each other by right shoulders in the center and continue on to the opposite wall, where they turn left, ladies down the room and gentlemen up. Continue counter clockwise along the sides of the room to center bottom (ladies) and center top (gents).
Back to the instructions:
"Second, ladies going up centre towards gentlemen and gentlemen going down centre to meet ladies."
That's the diagram on the left. The one on the right shows the continuation: the lines meet in the center. Will they crash this time? Nope!
"Third, when in this position the first lady goes to right and the second lady to the left; the gentlemen doing the same, the first to right and second to left."
So, the dancers are splitting off into two lines each, ladies and gents, alternately right and left. Note that this is not mirror-image; the first ladies and gentlemen cast to their own right, going to opposite sides of the room. The dancers should bid their partners farewell; they won't see them again until the "hopelessly tangled" bit later on.
"Fourth, then go down towards centre two and two. Two ladies together, two gentlemen together and meet in centre of room."
The four lines having reached the sides of the room, they keep looping around the edges, ladies down and gentlemen up, to come back to center bottom (ladies) / top (gents) and then march back to the center in lines of two, as shown in the diagram at left below:
This is just like the very common march figure in which couples separate alternately to each side, march around the room, and come back up, but in this case the ladies and gentlemen each have their own half of the room and keep coming back to the center. This is a really nifty variant on the standard figure. So it's easy to guess what comes next:
"Fifth, when this formation will appear, after which the first two ladies will go to the right and the second two to the left, the first two gents go to the right and second two to the left and come down the centre four ladies abreast and four gentlemen abreast and meet in the centre."
I love "when this formation will appear", like it might spontaneously generate itself! (though the grammar, gah...)
The twos split and come up in fours, check. Note that the ladies are still coming up the centre while the gentlemen are coming down. The figure on the right shows the dancers meeting in the center in lines of four. They would be well-advised not to get so close, because what's coming next is exactly what you'd expect:
"Sixth, thus, after which the same movement is repeated until they come down the centre in lines of eight ladies and eight gentlemen abreast in this formation:"
The lines of four alternately wheel right and left, come around again, and come toward the centre in lines of eight. Once again, ladies are coming up and gentlemen down; the instructions keep leaving that out. The diagram at left below shows the lines of eight meeting in the center after all this:
Now we have a mystery interlude:
"Seventh, in this formation."
It's probably just an error in the instructions; I suspect the "all step to the right" below belongs in the seventh segment. That would make it match the diagram on the right above.
"Eighth, all step to the right, gents join hands and raise arms and march forward, the ladies marching forward at the same time and going underneath the gentlemen's arms."
We have now come to the end of the diagrams and are approaching the tangled part.
Arches! The lines lead through each other as the gentlemen make arches. At the end of the eighth segment, the lines of ladies are now in the top half of the room facing up and the lines of gentlemen in the bottom of half of the room facing down. That is incorporated into the next bit:
"Ninth, march way down to the end of the room and about face and everybody march back again."
As usual, the author forgot to note that the ladies are actually marching up while the gentlemen march down.
There are two ways to interpret this part:
- everyone about-face in place and the lines effectively reverse position: the last line of each group is now nearest the center and the original first line at the back, or
- everyone continue following the leading line as each member of it turns individually and marches back up. So everyone marches to the wall before turning.
I think the second matches the instructions better. I would have the leading line of each gender turn individually to their own right, marching back between the columns, which continue following, until the leading lines once again meet in the center. The instructions continue:
"until the ladies and gentlemen face each other in lines of eight, after which ask the ladies to face one another and the gentlemen to do likewise and take right hand for right and left to sides of room."
Once again, there are two possible interpretations:
- the center two in each line face each other; the others line up behind them so all eight are facing the center of the line, or
- alternate dancers turn so each line has four facing pairs
I favor the first, but not that strongly. Either way, it's going to be a problem when dancers reach the ends of their lines and have no idea what to do next. Yes, we have reached the chaos part!
"Tenth, when the dancers have become helplessly tangled at the sides of the room, trying to find out where to go next, suddenly call, find your partners and two-step and before they get fairly started call again suddenly, find somebody else's partner and dance."
Hahahahaha. If I've calculated correctly, when each dancer gets to the end of their line, their partner is on the opposite side of the room somewhere. It will take a few moments for partners to find each other and start to two-step, at which point the caller messes with them by telling them to split up and find someone else to dance with. At least those people who hadn't managed to find their partners yet will be fine now...until the caller messes with them again. And again!
"Eleventh. This may be repeated by calling again, find your partners and hesitating sufficiently long for them to locate their partners, finish the call by saying, "And dance with somebody else's partner." "
At this point hopefully everyone will be laughing, because they won't have managed much dancing. I think this sounds like great fun, personally. And finally, with a random partner, they get to finish the two-step.
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To summarize, with my preferred choices:
- All waltz. Music changes to march; form a column and march round the room.
- Column up the centre; gents to left and ladies to right; along the edge to center sides, then head into center of room.
- Line of ladies passes line of gentlemen by right shoulders; lines turn left so gentlemen head up the opposite side wall and ladies down.
- Lines follow edge of room to center top (gents) and bottom (ladies) and march to the center.
- Lines divide alternately right and left, first singly, then in same-gender pairs, then fours, then eights.
- All step sideways to the right; gentlemen raise arms along lines and ladies' lines pass under toward the opposite end of the room. All lines follow the leading line, effectively eight columns.
- At the wall, leading lines turn as individuals to the right and march back up between the columns, their own column following.
- Ladies meet gents in the center; pause and turn to face center of each line. Right and left along lines, starting with the two dancers in the center.
- When wall is reached, seek partner and two-step. Caller quickly says to seek a new partner, then your own partner again, then a new partner again. Finish two-step.
Got it?
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I'm not sure I would try this without a floor manager or two, but it's right on the edge of callable without rehearsal. You do need a decent number of dancers to do it; I'd say thirty-two is the minimum, and consider leaving the lines at four rather than eight. I definitely would not try it without live music; the length of the march part is indeterminate but longer than most recordings, and it will be easiest to set up the right and left if the music pauses and then restarts. Two-step can be done (and was done) to march music, so flowing into the final tangle two-step is no problem.
Enjoy!
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