Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian
Happy new year!
Since I didn't really get a holiday break in December, and I'm traveling overseas again the first week in January for a conference, the rest of January will be my Official Post-Holiday Break — the first time in several months I won't be preparing a gig, preparing a paper, preparing to travel, or recovering from some/all of the above.
It feels like November is going to stretch for two more days as I wind up an intense trip to the UK that has so far involved two days of teaching and visits to three different libraries and archives in three different cities/towns. Today and tomorrow will be library #4 in yet another town. On Saturday I fly home and have one entire day there before turning around and heading to Boston for my last public event of the year: DJing once more for Bluesy Tuesy! I'll be sneaking in some research there, too. Weather permitting, this may include a cemetery stroll…
Edited 12/20/23 to add:
Okay, one more public event: I will be teaching some Lancers (quadrille) at Yiddish New York 2023! It's a long story….
I don’t usually write about foxtrot in November, but I don’t usually teach foxtrot in Ukraine in the middle of a war, either, and last month, the dancers of Kyiv’s Vintage Dance Community wanted something for foxtrot that I hadn’t previously described here on Kickery. Here is the description for their future reference and that of others interested in the variations for the foxtrot of the 1910s.
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At least two versions of a zig-zag sequence appeared in short booklets published in 1914 and 1915:
Sawyer characterized the figure as a “hard one” but also “loads of fun”. Her description:
(more…)This month will be very, very quiet for sixteen days. Then it will be very, very busy for ten days as I ricochet from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to London, England, leading balls and teaching. Whee!
After my London weekend I will be wandering around the UK for a few days doing research. Dorset, here I come!
On January 25, 1862, a dramatic little story appeared in a column in The Philadelphia Inquirer, “The New York Letter”, which covered news from New York City. The United States was eight months into the Civil War against the Confederacy (formally, the Confederate States of America, or C. S. A.), and New Yorkers were on the alert for Confederate spies, or “Secesh” (secessionists). So it was quite alarming for a gentleman to notice, in a paint shop,
several suspicious looking bundles, boxes, etc., marked “C. S. A. Sutler’s Department,” “C. S. A. Medical Department,” etc.
He reported the items to the police, and detectives were duly assigned to watch the shop, where, on the evening of January 23rd (going by the date of the column), they noticed someone leaving the premises,
enwrapped in a long cloak and scarf, carrying the suspicious bundles under his arm
Suspicious indeed! The detectives followed him to a house, which he and dozens of other cloaked men entered. Was it a secret meeting of spies? Smugglers? Terrorists? Police surrounded the house, but after sending one policeman inside to reconnoiter, they abruptly retired from the scene.
Why did they leave? And what does this have to do with dance, anyway?
Ah, sweet October, which I generally devote to discussion of fancy dress and masquerade balls, weird cotillion figures, and similar frivolity!
I have two words to start off the month in the proper spirit:
headless quadrille
Specifically:
The first couple is Anne Boleyn and Louis XVI. They are facing Lady Jane Grey and Marino Faliero (a 14th century Venetian Doge). Marie Antoinette and Charles I make up the first side couple, facing the Earl of Essex, dancing alone.
In case anyone missed the connection, all of these people were beheaded.
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.
To sleep, perchance to actually get rested? Once again, I have a non-gig calendar for the month, though I will be making a couple of personal trips, including an Actual Vacation for the first time since 2018. See you in October, when things get lively again!
We are now on May, Take III, and I have nothing original to say about it except that I am really looking forward to autumn. I'll make a short trip to Boston for DJing and library research, then back at home again for research and writing and all the mundane life stuff.
The Woodland Yorke was introduced by Maine conductor and dancing master Horace M. Pullen at the Seventeenth Annual Convention of the American Society of Professors of Dancing, held in New York City on September 4th-7th, 1894, and published in the proceedings of the convention. Specifically, it was introduced on Tuesday, September 4th, 1894, as one of a list of eleven “works” placed in the hands of the Directors. The convention then promptly adjoined to practice them.
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Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian
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