Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Author: Susan de Guardiola

  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: The Bowdoin

    This is the final post in this month’s little series of easy and useful late nineteenth century waltz variations from M.B. Gilbert’s 1890 manual, Round Dancing.  The first three posts in the series may be found here, here, and here.

    Gilbert notes of the Bowdoin that he “applied these movements to the Waltz during the seasons of 1888-89, and found the application very pleasing.”

    Once again, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding the waltz steps, with my preference being for the smoother transitions allowed by the gliding version.

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  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Le Metropole

    Returning once again to my short series on some of the more useful waltz variations published by M.B. Gilbert in his 1890 manual, Round Dancing, here’s a third simple variation for the late nineteenth century waltz.  The first and second posts in the series may be found here and here.

    Le Metropole uses the same simple sliding and waltzing steps of the Gavotte Glide but mixes them in a different way.  Gilbert attributes it to H. Fletcher Rivers.

    Like the Gavotte Glide, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding.  And as with the Gavotte Glide, its gliding feel makes me lean toward the latter for the sake of smoother transitions.

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  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Gavotte Glide

    This is the second in my short series on some of the more useful waltz variations published by M.B. Gilbert in his 1890 manual, Round Dancing. The first post in the series may be found here.

    Of all of the variations in Gilbert, this simple mix of sliding steps and waltz turns is probably the easiest and the one I use most frequently in teaching new dancers.  Gilbert attributes it to “Constantine Carpenter, Son, and Charles C. Martel.”

    As with the Diagonal Waltz, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding, though its gliding feel makes me lean toward the latter for smoother transitions within the variation.

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  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Diagonal Waltz

    By the end of the nineteenth century, American dancing masters such as M.B. Gilbert were coming up with long lists of little waltz variations of dubious utility and doubtful popularity.  Many of these are minor variations on a few simple themes, often interpolating sideways slides and chassé steps between measures of waltz.  I’m going to do a short series on some of the more useful and leadable of these variations this month, all taken from the pages of Gilbert’s immense manual, Round Dancing, published in Maine in 1890 and incorporating many variations from the 1870s and 1880s.  Calling them “Victorian” is a bit of misnomer, since these are essentially American variations.

    The Diagonal Waltz does not actually involve anything other than the normal step of the “new” waltz (step-side-close pattern) of the late nineteenth century.  It is really just a sequence incorporating natural and reverse turns in such a way as to never make a complete turn in either direction.  This is so basic a waltz skill that similar sequences are incorporated into most twentieth century versions of the box-step or Viennese waltz as well.

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  • Half & Half Variations: The Scroll

    Winding up this month's little half and half miniseries, here's another variation from the Castle Assistants, as published in Dance Mad in 1914.  This one even has a name, the scroll, as well as a number ("Step 2").  It's essentially a slow-motion grapevine step changing once per bar rather than on every beat, very similar in conception to the 1930s "about face waltz" described here, which has the pattern of one bar of traveling followed by one bar to change the direction each dancer is facing, with the lady and gentleman always facing opposite directions.

    The scroll uses the basic half and half step sequence (stepping on the first, fourth, and fifth beats of each bar) done in promenade position, as described in my half and half overview here, with the dancers facing opposite directions and traveling for two bars before pivoting.  The change of direction occupies only a partial bar rather than the full bar of the about face waltz.

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  • An Underarm Turn for the Half and Half

    I’m on a bit of a roll lately with variations for the 5/4 time waltz of the mid-1910s known as the half and half.  Here’s another easy one: an underarm turn for the lady, pulled once more from Dance Mad (1914), where it is included in a list taught by the “Castle Assistants” and prosaically labeled “Step 4.” The Castle Assistants are presumably associated with one of Vernon and Irene Castle’s dance studios.

    This is not the only variety of underarm turn in the half and half, but it’s the simplest of the variations I have come across other than the one found in a small 1914 book of sheet music by Malvin Franklin, illustrated at left (click to enlarge), where the gentleman just stands completely still while the lady makes her turn.  That doesn’t flow nearly as well as the Castle Assistants’ version.

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  • Five Steps in the Half and Half

    • Era: 1910s

    Among the variations listed for the half and half in the 1914 collection Dance Mad is an interesting waltz which, unusually for the half and half, involves stepping on all five beats of the bar rather than on the usual first, fourth, and fifth beats.  It doesn't have a name; the description is simply labeled "Sixth Figure" and is one of eight figures credited to "Quinlan Twins."  For lack of any better name, I refer to it as the five-step variation.

    Background information and basic traveling steps for the half and half may be found in my previous post here.

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  • The Invention of the York?

    A couple of months ago I described the late 19th-century waltz-time move known as the York, which incorporated mazurka-style heel-clicks and was considered a variation of the polka mazurka.  At the time, the earliest source I had located was M.B. Gilbert’s Round Dancing, published in 1890, where the dance was included “by permission of E.W. Masters,” possibly its creator.  An interesting article from The New York Times, dated September 9, 1885, both brings the date of the dance back a few years and provides an amusing anecdote about the dance’s possible origin.

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  • Victorian Dance Workshop, NYC (Sunday, May 23, 2010)

    A quick reminder that I will be teaching a mid-19th century dance workshop in New York City on Sunday, May 23rd, for a new group, Vintage Dance Northeast.  The quadrilles for the workshop will include selections from the First Set followed by the unusual Double Quadrille composed by London dance teacher Mrs.Nicholas Henderson in the 1850s and rarely taught today.  Couple dances will include waltz and polka with galop as needed for Mrs. Henderson’s Quadrille.

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  • The Yale University York

    • Era: 1890s-very early 1900s

    The Yale University York is one of those dance variations that probably had a short to nonexistent life outside the studio of its creator and a few other dancing masters.  Unlike the original York (described here), it seems to appear only in two sources: Melvin Gilbert’s Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and George Washington Lopp’s La Danse (Paris, 1903), much of which is merely a direct translation of Gilbert.  Both Gilbert and Lopp attribute it to A.M. Loomis.  Despite its obscurity and probable lack of popularity in its own time, I am devoting a post to it primarily because as a Yale alumna I am charmed whenever anyone names a dance after my alma mater.

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  • The York

    • Era: 1890s-very early 1900s

    (Edited 6/3/24 to add: more information about the somewhat earlier (c1885) origin of the York may be found at my articles “The Invention of the York” and “Revisiting La Russe“)

    The York is a waltz dance in the redowa/mazurka family which appeared in several American dance manuals in the last decade of the 19th century.  The earliest reference I have located is in Melvin Gilbert’s Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), where he includes it “by permission of E.W. Masters,” possibly the creator.  George Washington Lopp, who reprinted much of Gilbert in La Danse (Paris, 1903) directly attributes it to Masters.   (The underlined part of the first sentence of this paragraph added 12/22/2023 to make it clear at the start that this is a redowa/mazurka, not a waltz, and a distinct dance, not just a variation.)

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  • Royale gyneska with me, madam?

    Sometimes while doing dance research, I come across something so amusing I have to share it.   This time it’s a blurb from The New York Times on October 5, 1924 about an international conclave of dancing masters held in Paris which voted on the supposed dance of the year.  This was a matter of sufficient import to warrant delivery of the results to the Times by special cable:

    [The five-step], which received thirty-eight approving votes, is a mixture of the waltz and one-step and, as can be judged, somewhat involved.  The huppa-huppa, on the other hand, is neo-Chilian, being a backward glide which brings the partners in close contact.

    The winner of the third place was the royale gyneska…

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  • The Polish Galop

    • Era: 1880s-early 1900s, New England & Paris

    The so-called Polish Galop, which is neither Polish nor necessarily a galop, is one of those odd little variations that was the creation of a single dancing master and was not generally taken up by others.  It is not Polish in origin; the name comes from the heel-clicking move it incorporates, which is typical of Polish dances such as the mazurka.  Its creator, Maine dancing master and author M.B. Gilbert, explains in Round Dancing, published in 1890, that

    The movements of this dance were arranged by me for special use in children’s classes, and I found the combination a pleasant innovation.

    I also found it pleasant; it’s actually slightly less “busy” than a regular galop.  And its ambiguity on where the turn (if any) happens is interestingly similar to that of the racket.

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  • A 1920s Medley Paul Jones

    Most Paul Jones-style mixers are similar to the one found in the manual Dancing Made Easy (New York, c1919-1922): the dancers form a circle of couples, or possibly two concentric circles, each operating separately, if the numbers are too great.  They perform a grand right and left, then at the leader’s signal dance a one-step with the next person in the chain.  The 1903 Round Two-Step (described here) is quite similar, except that the dance of choice is a two-step.

    But in the mid-1920s English manual Foulsham’s Modern Dancing, by Maxwell Stewart, a more elaborate version is described. 

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  • Schottische à Pas Sauté

    By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, as the standard Victorian couple dances were becoming somewhat stale, there was a flurry of innovation among dancing masters attempting to come up with new variations, most of which do not appear to have caught on widely.  In M.B. Gilbert’s 1890 tome, Round Dancing, he describes a variation, the Schottische à Pas Sauté, which resembles the old “doubling” of the schottische parts (as described in my review of the early schottische) in consisting only of “step-hops” but employs the recently stylish “military position”, as described in my previous post, “À la Militaire“, rather than using the closed position of the earlier era throughout.  Gilbert footnotes this variation as the Hop Waltz, harking back to the jeté waltz of the Regency era.

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  • New York Bus Stop

    I always end up reconstructing line dances when I have a relevant gig coming up.  This time it's the Dance Flurry, where I will be teaching an entire session of disco line dances a month or so from now.

    This is another short line dance, only twenty-four beats long.  There are many, many dances called some version of "Bus Stop" — it seems every city or perhaps every club had its own special one.  This is not the only dance I have found that's called the New York Bus Stop!

    The source for this particular version is Let's Disco, no author given, published in 1978 by K-tel International, Inc.  It's slightly unusual in that the quarter-turns at the end of each iteration are to the right rather than to the left and occur in mid-dance rather than at the end.

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  • A Promiscuous Figure: Flirtation

    • Era: circa 1905

    A while back I published a couple of posts on so-called “promiscuous figures,” which may be substituted into the first set of quadrilles for variety.  The Flirtation figure is another of these, taken from English dancing master William Lamb’s How and What to Dance (London, 1903), an undated New York edition of which was published in the first decade of the 20th century.

    The figure is probably intended as a finale figure, replacing the usual fifth figure, since it is entirely full-set moves and finishes with a galopade, typically included in finale figures.

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  • The Two-Slide Racket

    • Era: 1880s into very early 1900s

    I’m going to wrap up the year at Kickery with a different kind of racket waltz, the two-slide racket.  This variant appears in at least two major and two minor sources in late nineteenth-century America, as listed at the bottom of this post.  In the minor sources, the Cartier and Wehman books, which are compilations of dances from other sources, it is labeled “The Racquet”.

    Both the two major sources, Dodworth and Gilbert, list the two-slide racket as a redowa- or mazurka-time dance, implying a different accent in the 3/4 music than in a regular waltz.

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  • An 1830s Galop Pattern

    • Era: 1830s England

    This new and fashionable dance, which it appears is of Russian origin, was first introduced into this country at His Majesty’s ball, St. James Palace, on the 11th June, 1829, when the Princess Esterhazy, the Earl of Clanwilliam, the Duke of Devonshire, and some of the foreign ministers exerted themselves in teachings its novel movements to the company, and was danced alternately with Quadrilles and Waltzing during the whole of the evening.

    — J.S. Pollock, Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne (2nd ed), London, c1830

    In an earlier post, I described the basic galop of the mid- to late 19th century as a series of slides and “chasing” steps with half-turns interspersed, commonly found in the pattern of four-slide galops, performed as follows:

    2b    Slide-close-slide-close-slide-close-slide (half-turn) (count: 1 & 2 & 3 & turn)
    2b    Slide-close-slide-close-slide-close-slide (half-turn) (count: 1 & 2 & 3 & turn)

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  • CD Review: The Regency Ballroom

    The very short version of this review is: historical dance band Spare Parts‘ The Regency Ballroom is one of the very best and most diverse recordings available for Regency-era dance music, and everyone should go out and get their own copy to support the making of such recordings.

    The longer version follows.

    But first, a disclaimer: the musicians of Spare Parts are personal friends, the band has played for my Regency Assemblies for the past several years, the selection of dances on this CD parallels the program of those Assemblies, and I served as one of the dance consultants for the recording and thus received a copy of it for free.  Unsurprisingly, I am very pleased with it.  I do not, however, receive any financial benefit from its sales or anything like that.

    So what’s on the CD?

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  • The Royal Gallopade

    The Royal Gallopade is an interesting mix of popular 1830s dances, with elements borrowed from country dances, galopades, and quadrilles, plus a concluding sauteuse waltz.  My only source for it is the Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne (Second Edition) by J. S. Pollock, London (see update at end of post).  It is undated, but the mix of dances and a textual reference to an 1829 event suggests the early 1830s.  Pollock claims that gallopades “appear” to be of Russian origin.  Among those he credits with their introduction is the sixth Duke of Devonshire, who was a close friend of both the Prince Regent (later George IV) and Czar Nicholas I and had traveled to the Russian court.

    Pollock depicts the original gallopade as a choreographed sequence dance for a circle of couples with gallop interspersed with short dance figures and gives not only this original but gallopades in country dance and quadrille form.  Fittingly, the Royal Gallopade is given a separate section of its own between the quadrille and country dance gallopades.

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  • What Did Jane Austen Dance?

    Since early 19th century (“Regency”) dance is one of my particular specialties, I get many questions that boil down to either “what did Jane Austen dance?” or “did Jane Austen dance _____?”  So let’s see what I can do for a general answer.

    I can divide things loosely into three categories: what we know she danced, what she might have danced, and what she didn’t dance.

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  • Rock ‘n’ Cha

    Ever so often I come across the oddest little novelties.  The Rock’n’Cha is a conga-line type dance which was discussed in the January, 1958 issue of Dance Magazine.  The cha-cha was first introduced in the 1950s, and it seems to have spawned some weird group variants (Cha-Cha Choo-Choo Caboose, anyone?)  The notes for this dance were sent to the magazine by Chicago resident Louise Ege, who attributed them to Grace Hansen, Dance Coordinator and Professional Consultant for the Chicago YMCA and head of the ballroom committee of the Chicago National Associate of Dance Masters.  Mrs. Ege claimed that Chicago teens loved the dance, with it even having “replaced the Bunny Hop in their affections.”  I’m not sure what this says about either the taste of Chicago teens in early 1958 or the accuracy of Mrs. Ege’s observations of contemporary teen culture.

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  • Ballroom Marsupials

    The most popular “animal dances” of the early 1900s appear to have been the Turkey Trot and Grizzly Bear.  But the F. Leslie Clendenen’s compilation manual Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914) offers a pair of one-step variations attributed to London dance teacher Walter Humphrey, who apparently found inspiration in the hopping of Australian marsupials.  I’ve never found these variations in any other source, so it’s not clear to me how widespread they ever were.  I would also have placed them a bit earlier, maybe 1908-1910, as by 1914 the animal dance fad was already well past and the smoother, more elegant style of Vernon and Irene Castle was making the one-step acceptable in respectable ballrooms.  It’s possible that Mr. Humphrey and/or English dancers in general had not quite caught up with the latest American dance fads, or that Clendenen was not as fussy in compiling his book as its subtitle, “The Dances of the Day,” suggests.

    For both variations, the dancers both face line of dance.  It’s not clear whether they should retain joined hands in front or open up fully.  I find the latter more graceful, but how much of a priority grace should be while hopping around a ballroom imitating a marsupial is debatable.  Those wishing to study wallaby technique in detail may consult this National Geographic video this video of a wallaby hopping across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  (Edited 11/19/2025 to replace vanished video with a new one.)

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  • Famous Last Words

    On the lighter side of dance research…

    There’s plenty of silliness in historical dance manuals, ranging from mythological origins of dancing in general to apocryphal stories about the origins of particular dances.  But none of that makes me laugh quite so much as a couple of lines in Foulsham’s Modern Dancing, by Maxwell Stewart, published in London around 1925 and ambitiously subtitled “A guide to everything the dancer old and young, skilled and unskilled, wants to know.”  That was rather optimistic of Stewart; this particular dancer wishes he had included a lot more detail about some of the moves he described.  But the following has got to be one of the most risible lines I’ve ever found in a dance manual.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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