Capering & Kickery

October 2023 Gig Calendar

Life and dancing return!  October is going to be filled primarily with a two-week trip to Europe for a conference and a very special dance workshop, then home to Connecticut to prepare for a crazy late November.

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Friday-Sunday, October 13-15th ~ Utrecht, Netherlands
European Association for Dance History Conference (Facebook group)
"Queerness in Dance History".  Extensive program of academic papers with some workshops.  In-person and online attendance available; some papers will be presented remotely.  I will be speaking about Dr. Mary Walker's involvement in social dance and how it connects to dress reform and teaching a workshop on basic 1910s maxixe as danced in America.

Thursday, October 19th ~ Kyiv, Ukraine
Dance workshop for Vintage Dance Community (Facebook group) (Facebook announcement)
7:00-9:00pm.  A sampler workshop!  A 1910s American contra dance, easy 1910s foxtrot variations and ornaments, a little cross-step waltz, and a new Steampunk contra dance choreography!  See Facebook announcement for location, cost, etc.

Monday, October 30th ~ New Britain, Connecticut
Dance workshop at Central Connecticut State University
11:00-12:05 pm.  Guest-teaching eighteenth & nineteenth-century dance for a dance history class.  Enrolled students only.

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I am available to travel for in-person dance teaching, lecturing, and ball precepting, pandemic permitting.  I am also still available for private or group online lessons and talks via Skype or Zoom (or your videoconferencing software of choice).  Please email me directly if you would like to schedule an event or workshop!

Coming in November: the Remembrance Day balls in Gettysburg and a late nineteenth-century workshop weekend in London (UK)!

City and country recreation, 1705

While rummaging around in early eighteenth century material, I came across the marvelous City and country recreation: or, wit and merriment rightly calculated, for the pleasure and advantage of either sex, part of the frontispiece illustration of which appears at left.  This short book, published in London in 1705, is a hilarious combination of advice book for lovers, warnings for the innocent newcomer to the city, poetry collection, and handy divination manual covering everything from astrology to palmistry with a few stops in between.  Dance comes into it only indirectly, alas, but it's great reading regardless.

No author is listed, but the preface is signed with the initials "J. S."  A scholar of the literature of this period, which I am not, might be able to connect those initials to a known writer. 

I'll include the full descriptions of each of the two parts of the book just for their impressive long-windedness:

Part I. Containing the Pleasures of Courtship and Address; or, The whole Art of making Love. Directions for making a suitable Choice. A Description of true Love in all its Changes. How to express Love's silent Language. To know if a Party be in Love. Instructions for Courting a Maid or Widow: and how the Female Sex may make Love known, without any Injury to a modest and vertuous Behaviour; and how to dive into the secret Thoughts of their Lovers. The Comforts of Marriage in all its Circumstances; and how a good Wife may Reclaim a bad Husband, and the like of a Husband by a Wife. The whole Art of Fortune-Telling, shewing what Good or Bad Fortune is assigned you in Affairs of Love, Business, &c. A Collection of Choice Poems, by the most Celebrated Wits of the Age.

Part II. Containing all the cunning Intreagues of the Beaus, Sharpers, Bullies, and Female-Decoys, to Deceive and Ruin Gentlemen, Tradesmen, &c. With their lively Characters, and a plain Discription of their several Practices, to prevent their future Designs.

The Town Miss; or, London Jilt, in all her Humours, Shifts, and Intreagues; set forth, as a Looking-Glass, for the unthinking Beaus; Keeping Squires, Foolish Tradesmen, and others, to see their Folly in.

To which is added, the Misery of Gaming: Or, The Art of keeping Ready Money in One's Pocket at all Times: With other useful Matters, never before made Publick.

As usual, I've pulled out only the dance-related references, but I heartily recommend reading the entire thing.  It was intended to be humorous in its time, but the overwrought eighteenth century prose makes it even more so to the modern reader.  There are also genuine insights to be had about period attitudes and practices. 

The entire book is available online here.