Capering & Kickery

Foxtrot Post Index

(Edited 7/18/24 to add: having had a Better Idea, this post is now superseded by this shiny new index page and will no longer be updated.)

I've written a great deal about recorded variations for the foxtrot in its early years.  It can be hard to locate all these posts or to navigate them using subject categories.  So, by request, here is a "mothership" post indexing all of my foxtrot material, sorted into categories in what seems to me to be the most useful way and in chronological order within the categories.  I'll continue to add to it as I write new posts on the foxtrot or find other ones that I had not properly tagged or that are useful in dancing early foxtrot.

Enjoy!

1. 1910s: foxtrot basics
These posts cover the main repertoire of the early foxtrot and some easy variations

04/19/08    Basic Walking & Trotting Patterns in the 1910s Foxtrot
    the absolute basics: walks, trots, walk/trot combinations, and side-slides (galop)

04/25/08    Quick-Quick-Slow: The Two-Step Infiltrates the Foxtrot
    moves in QQS rhythm: two-step, rocking hesitations, trots, and a lovely sequence with a reverse pivot

08/04/09    Sliding Along in the Foxtrot
    repeated diagonal four-slides (galops) without turning

05/12/14    Twinkle, Twinkle: Fast and Slow
    rocking hesitations, either slow or quick

10/09/14    Basic Foxtrots from Edna Lee
    simple sequences found in other sources

02/18/17    Early foxtrot: the drag step
    a simple slide-close followed by trots

 

2. 1910s: fun with foxtrot
Interesting moves for when one is ready to go beyond the basics.

05/02/08    Fancy Little Foxtrot
    a great little sequence with a hop and fast pomander walk

08/08/09    Foxes in Boxes
    traveling and turning box-steps in QQS timing

05/15/14    Two Easy Foxtrot Hesitations
    the Rock-a-bye and the Trot des Artistes; fancy names for a single hesitation and a drag step

06/05/14    Early Foxtrot: Slides & Glides, 1916
    two asymmetrical variations with three or four slides (galop)

07/21/14    Hop, hop, foxtrotters!
    two more hop-turn sequences

06/08/17    Early Foxtrot: Catch Steps
    using a single two-step to switch lead foot

12/26/20    Foxtrot Styling, c1920
    two English sources on "cross-steps", actually just an ornament for the two-step

06/03/21    Early Foxtrot: a bit of maxixe
   adding maxixe styling to the two-step in the foxtrot

06/13/22    Foxtrot in diagrams, 1919
    two basic walk/two-step patterns, a walk/waltz pattern, and an interesting syncopated sequence

06/06/22    The Castle Fox Trot (1 of 2)
    the first three sequences given by the Castles in late 1914: basic walk-trot, step out and pomander walk, and hop-kick

06/09/22    The Castle Fox Trot (2 of 2)
    the fourth and fifth sequences: "Get over, Sal" and trot and reverse trots

11/06/23    Early Foxtrot: The Zig-Zag
    two combinations incorporating QQS zig-zag movements

 

3. 1910s: oddities
Uncommon or one-shot variations only useful if you want a lot of variety.

05/19/14    Cross Steps in the Early Foxtrot
    two variations where you cross one foot over the other

06/09/14    Early Foxtrot: The Newburgh
    a long step-sequence with two-steps and cross steps

06/08/15    One for the ponies!
    a long sequence with lots of walks and hops

07/27/15    Early Foxtrot: The Castle Favorite
    walks, trots, and hops

06/10/19    Early Foxtrot: Quick Dips
    two sequences with ornamental dipping

06/18/20    Early Foxtrot: The Pavlowa Extension
    a long sequence with some especially graceful elements

06/22/20    Early Foxtrot: The Minuet Turn
    weird perpendicular promenades; nothing to do with minuet

06/07/21    Early Foxtrot: the St. Denis Spiral
    more maxixe styling and a spiral track

 

4. 1910s: miscellaneous
A few related posts.

05/31/08    Another Note on the Early Foxtrot
    a newspaper article briefly mentions several of the variations previously described

06/16/14    The Castles' Paul Jones
    a simple mixer that optionally uses the foxtrot for the couple dance part

12/11/14    Fox Trot Hats
    recommendations for the fashionable lady foxtrotter

03/21/24    Suspiciously similar
    did the dancing masters crib from Joan Sawyer?

 

5. Later foxtrot
I rarely go past 1920 in my foxtrot research, since my interest is primarily in the earliest form of the dance, but here are a few posts that touch on the foxtrot of the 1920s:

08/18/09    At the Prom: Yale 1921
        a dance card featuring a ridiculous number of foxtrots

11/25/09    Valencia!
        a novelty dance from 1926 with sequences that can be danced to the name tune or used in the foxtrot

02/07/10    A 1920s Medley Paul Jones
        a simple mixer which incorporates foxtrot as one of several couple dances

Revisiting La Russe

Twelve years ago, I wrote a brief post explaining how to dance "La Russe", a redowa/mazurka variation I found, like so many others, in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and [George] Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903).  I remain confident in my reconstruction, but in the intervening years I've discovered the official music for it, which clarifies that it was intended as an independent dance rather than merely a variation, and a bit of background.  So it's time to revisit La Russe!

First, I'd suggest going back and reading my original post on La Russe, since I am not going to go back through the details of how to perform it.

The choreographer of La Russe remains unknown, but apparently that was intentional: La Russe was created and promoted by the American Society of Professors of Dancing, which had a policy of not crediting the choreographer(s) for the dances they published as their own.  La Russe was established among them by early 1882, as their proceedings record that at their thirty-eight meeting, on April 2, 1882, they voted to publish original music for the dance by George W. Allen and noted that the step would be practiced at their next meeting.