Author: Susan de Guardiola

  • Sorority Glide

    Most of the steps in Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914) were collected by “author” F. Leslie Clendenen from other dancing masters, but he gives himself credit for the Sorority Glide, a sixteen-bar one-step sequence that he recommends be danced to “Too Much Mustard” or “any One Step music of a similar swing.  It’s a fun little sequence with a very “Castles” feel to it and room for some personal style.  It works as an independent dance or can be plugged into a regular one-step as a variation.

    The dancers begin in a ballroom hold, turned out slightly so both face line of dance.  The dancers need to be far enough apart to make a cross step without crowding.  Weight should be shifted onto the forward (outside) foot, the gentleman’s left and the lady’s right, since the dance starts on the inside foot.

    (more…)

  • December 2013 Gig Calendar

    I'm winding down my gig and class schedule for the year, so I have a light schedule through mid-month followed by seven quiet days at home with no teaching or travel before I go away over Christmas.  Here are the details:

    (more…)

  • November 2013 Gig Calendar

    Lots of southward travel this month: New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.  Sadly, no Boston DJing this month, but I'm working on a couple more gigs, so check back for updates!

    (more…)

  • Double Scotch Reel

    Double Scotch Reel does not seem to be Scotch and, as I reconstruct it, does not actually include any reels (heys).  It is a trio contra (three facing three in long lines own the room) which I have found only in one source: the Gems of the Ball Room Call Book published by E. T. Root & Sons in Chicago in 1896.  The Gems call book appears to have been published specifically as dance calls for quadrilles and contra dances to go with the tunes in a series of music books called Gems of the Ball Room also published by Root.

    The contra dance figures in Gems have some noticeable variations from those found in New England manuals such as those of Elias Howe, which might indicate regional variations between the northeast and midwest or might be simple carelessness on the part of the editor.  The language and format of the different figures makes it obvious that they were pulled from different sources, so I suspect that somewhere there is another source for Double Scotch Reel, and that the collator of dances for Gems copied it exactly.

    (more…)

  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Polka Dot Waltz

    The Polka Dot Waltz was either a sequence dance or waltz variant described by Melvin B. Gilbert in Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and later by [George] Washington Lopp in his translation-plus of Gilbert’s book, La Danse (Paris, 1903), in which it is listed as Polka Dot (Valse).  Both Gilbert and Lopp credit it to Herman Strassburg, presumably the same dancing master who was the author of the Call Book of Modern Quadrilles (Detroit, 1889).

    The pattern of the Polka Dot, its imaginative name, and the way Lopp formats the title make me suspect that this was not a variation for normal waltzing but instead was intended as a choreographed sequence dance matched to a particular piece of music.  I’ve only been able to find one piece of sheet music by that title, “The Polka Dot Waltz”, by Edward A. Abell, (San Francisco, 1873), which is archived on the Library of Congress website.  It does not include dance instructions.  It is possible that Strassburg wrote this as choreography to go with it, or with a different waltz by the same name, but in the absence of proof one way or the other, it is also possible to dance it to any waltz music with even eight-bar phrases, either by the entire room dancing it in unison or by individual couples using it (carefully!) as a variation.

    (more…)

  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Double Glide Waltz

    The Double Glide Waltz, as described by Melvin B. Gilbert in his compendium Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), is an elaboration on the alternating measures of sliding and waltzing found in variations like the Metropole.  In La Danse, by [George] Washington Lopp, published in Paris in 1903, it is called La Double Boston and credited to Lopp himself.  Much of La Danse is a direct French translation of Gilbert, so Lopp’s addition of the credit to himself is notable.

    Like other late variations such as the Bowdoin and Fascination, the Double Glide Waltz alters the sliding steps, in this case to include in each sideways measure two “slide-closes”, one slow and one fast.  The pattern here is “one, two-and-three” or “slow, quick-quick-slow”.  It also reverses the Metropole pattern from slide/waltz/slide/waltz to waltz/slide/waltz/slide, a distinction which is not particularly significant when actually dancing.

    (more…)

  • Figure Four?

    In a post a while back on the Regency “figure eight” and the many meanings of the term “figure” in that era, I mentioned a joking suggestion made by a guest at one of my Regency balls that a half figure eight should be called a “figure four”.  Much to my astonishment, while pursuing some research on American country dance of this era, I actually found a figure four!

    The figure is in an American manual published in 1808 in upstate New York, in the figure given for the tune “Flowers of Glasgow”:

    Flowers of Glasgow
    First couple figure four with second couple, cast down two couple, back again, cross over, down one couple, balance, lead up, hands round with third couple, and right and left at top.
        — A Select Collection of the Newest and Most Favorite Country Dances, Otsego, NY, 1808.

    (more…)

  • October 2013 Gig Calendar

    The big event this month is the 11th Regency Assembly, this year with a masquerade theme!  Other than that, this is a quiet month between the wildness of September and November, with just my usual New York/New England travels and a bit of DJing.  I'll be making some short research trips mid-month in my continuing quest to track down every tiny little American country dance/cotillion manual in New England, and then I'm spending a few days in Florida with family.

    (more…)

  • New Scotia Quadrille

    A while back I discussed the wonderful dance CD Music for Quadrilles, by the English band Green Ginger (with Kevin Smith).  At the time, I skimmed over the tracks for five modern Scottish (RSCDS) dances, since I didn’t have any way to check the ones with historical sources against the originals.  Since then, I’ve come across a copy of one of the editions of D. (David) Anderson’s Ball-Room Guide, a “New, Enlarged, & Complete Edition”, which the liner notes of Music for Quadrilles cite as the source for one of the historical dances, New Scotia Quadrille.

    According to J. P. (Joan) and T. M. Flett in Traditional Dancing in Scotland (paid link), David Anderson taught in Dundee and in a number of other towns from c1850-1911.  His Ball-Room Guide seems to have gone through at least five editions, with the “New, Enlarged” versions appearing between the mid-1880s and late 1890s.  Since the one I examined is not dated, and I have no others to compare it to, I cannot date it precisely.

    (more…)

  • September 2013 Gig Calendar

    Back in the swing of things for fall!  I'll be teaching 19th century dance in Chicago, Connecticut, and New York and doing blues DJ gigs in New York, New Haven, and Boston.  In between there'll be a bit of Renaissance dance and a Regency tea dance in Connecticut, a basic cross-step waltz class series, and a walking tour of historical song and dance in Boston!  Here's the schedule as it stands, subject to a few more additions.  I'll be adding details and Facebook event links as they become available.

    (more…)