Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Author: Susan de Guardiola

  • The Five Step York

    The Five Step York, created by Indianapolis dancing master D. B. Brenneke, is yet another of the myriad variations for the York, one of the more durable and popular redowa/mazurka waltz variations of the late nineteenth century.  It builds directly on Brenneke’s own New York sequence.  While it is not a regular part of my “York set”, the Five Step York is an easy little variation to add to one’s York repertoire.

    I am aware of only two published descriptions of the Five Step York: in English, in M. B. Gilbert’s Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), and in French, in [George] Washington Lopp’s La Danse (Paris, 1903), where it is listed as “Le York à 5 Pas”.  Gilbert puts it under redowa/mazurka variations, and Lopp lists it as a mazurka.  Much of Lopp is simply a translation of Gilbert, but he differs just enough to add either clarity or confusion to some of the descriptions.  In this case, I believe that both Gilbert and Lopp have flaws in their descriptions, but I can make two reasonable guesses as to what the actual sequence should be.

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  • Hop, hop, foxtrotters!

    Concluding my extended celebration of the foxtrot‘s centennial year: more about the hop-turn!

    A few years ago, I considered hopping in the 1910s foxtrot to be a relatively obscure practice — I’d only ever found one sequence with a hop in it and had only a brief mention in a newspaper article to reassure me that it was not just a one-couple oddity.  But looking through Edna Stuart Lee’s Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916), there are actually several sequences that include hops, including two that are strikingly similar to the previously described Bassett/Elliott hop-turn.

    Here are two more ways to, in the words of the newspaper article, “make our turn with a quick, fast hop” while foxtrotting.

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  • Thinking in Fives

    I spent a lot of time thinking about quintuple-meter (5/4 or 5/8 time) dances earlier this year, though not much of it showed up on Kickery at the time.  Since historical dance description and terminology are not standardized, there’s an important distinction to keep in mind for all dances with some association with the number five:

    Five steps (or movements) in a dance do not necessarily imply 5/4 or 5/8 time.

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  • On the Exclusive in Dancing, 1834

    The English and French seem never to have been shy about taking sly little pokes at each other.  In 1834 a New York newspaper reprinted from an unnamed London paper an article, “On the Exclusive in Dancing”, which took aim at French ballroom etiquette.  Apparently the French were questioning the propriety of the country dance:

    [The French] appear to be growing fastidious in their amusements, and have learned to be English enough to question certain minor points of propriety and etiquette in their public balls; as, for instance, whether it be proper for a gentleman to resign the hand of his partner to contact with strangers for the mere preservation of a figure in a country dance, 

    and had in fact discarded country dances completely, in favor of

    some more conjugal kind of movement, either waltzes, mazurkas, or galopes, that rivet a couple together for a whole evening till (we would fain hope) they were sick of one another and themselves.

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  • July 2014 Gig Calendar

    This month I am staying home and writing a lot (or going somewhere else to alternate writing and swimming) then making one extended research trip before spending most of August far, far away.  Check back for possible added DJ gigs, but don't expect anything else this month.  I am hibernating, socially speaking.

    I have so, so, so much to do before I leave that at five-plus weeks out I am already in a pre-trip panic.

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  • End-of-fellowship thoughts

    I wrapped up my New England Regional Fellowship at the end of May, and other than a few loose research ends that I will be making more library trips this summer and fall to wind up, I've mostly completed the initial stage of my cotillon project: gathering lots and lots of cotillons so that I have enough of them to make some meaningful analysis of the genre. 

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  • The Castles’ Paul Jones

    In 1914, Victor Records made a celebrity-endorsement deal with Vernon and Irene Castle, “the greatest exponents of Modern Dancing who supervise the making of Victor Dance Records”.  The company put out a little booklet, Victor Records for Dancing, which included short instructions for various couple dances (including the brand-new foxtrot) plus an enthusiastic note from Vernon Castle about the superiority of Victor records and the indispensibility of the Victrola in teaching classes.

    The instructions for each dance were accompanied by a convenient list of suitable Victor recordings.  Tucked at the end of the book were instructions for a country dance and a Paul Jones circle mixer “as taught at the Castle School of Dancing, New York City”.

    In the past, I’ve discussed a very simple 1903 two-step circle mixer and a more complex English Paul Jones from the 1920s.  The Castles’ version is quite similar to the 1903 one, but it’s physically rather livelier while mentally less taxing; the dancers don’t have to count.

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  • Tales of the Schottische from Godey’s Lady’s Book

    A comment from one of my Russian correspondents that the schottische was rarely, if ever, danced in Russia in the nineteenth century* started me thinking, after a series of mental jumps**, about how well-accepted (or not) the schottische was in America in its early years.

    There appears to have been some dissension on the merits of the dance after its introduction to America around 1849.  Edmund Ferrero claimed in The art of dancing (New York, 1859) that the schottische had “acquired great favor”, and all the major dance manuals from the end of the 1850s onward include it.  But the anonymous author of Beadle’s dime ball-room companion and guide to dancing (New York, 1868) claimed that the schottische was considered “vulgar”.  Since it appeared regularly on dance cards from at least the late 1850s all the way into the early twentieth century, that can’t have been a universal opinion.  But was it really anyone’s other than, presumably, those of ministers and others who condemned dancing altogether?

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  • Early Foxtrot: The Newburgh

    The Newburgh is a longer and more complicated foxtrot sequence taken from Edna Stuart Lee’s Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916).  Like her Left Glide, it changes the lead foot against the music, with same opportunities and issues previously discussed for that move.

    As is typical, the gentleman starts on the left foot, moving forward, and the lady on the right foot, moving backward.  The steps below are the gentleman’s steps; reverse everything for the lady.  The numbers are beats, not measures.

    The Newburgh
    12345    five walking steps (left, right, left, right)
    6            cross right over left (lady crosses left behind right)
    7&8       two-step (left-right-left)

    1            cross right over left
 (lady crosses left behind right)
    2&3       two-step (left-right-left)
    4            cross right over left (lady crosses left behind right)
    5&6       two-step (left-right-left)
    7            step side right

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  • Early Foxtrot: Slides & Glides, 1916

    Continuing on with my little celebration of the centennial year of the foxtrot:

    I’ve discussed before how the two-step and sliding sequences similar to the four-slide galop of the nineteenth century were incorporated into the foxtrot in its earliest years.  Other than one 1919 variation from Charles Coll, the two-step sequences described were generally symmetrical, with even numbers of two-steps either in sequence or broken up by walking steps.  Slides were generally done in sets of four.

    Here’s another pair of simple “glides” from Edna Stuart Lee’s Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916) that break that pattern with single two-steps and a set of three slides.  The “Right Glide” and “Left Glide” are very accessible variations for foxtrot beginners.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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