Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Author: Susan de Guardiola

  • Ten Years

    At midnight on January 1, 2008, after a couple of weeks of fussing with a name and site design, I nervously clicked "Post" and officially launched Capering & Kickery with a discussion of how many times one needed to play a country dance to dance in historical style and a plan to slowly write out everything I knew about historical dance.

    It's hard to believe it's been ten years. 

    Back when I started Kickery, I was warned that most individually-written blogs lasted only a year, maybe two at most, before folding.  I've personally had a couple of others that have dropped by the wayside, slain by obsolescence or by my own lack of time.  And nowadays blogs are quite out of fashion, displaced by social media platforms.  But, somehow, Kickery has endured, and from that first short article it has grown a collection of hundreds covering a potpourri of historical dance topics from the sixteenth century to 1970s disco, though with a primary focus on my current interests in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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  • January 2018 Gig Calendar

    I'll be starting off 2018 with a quick trip to London, where I'll attempt to hit several libraries and pick up a couple of sources relevant to some small projects I've been working on.  I will not have time to teach on this trip.  Afterward, it's back to Moscow and my waltz classes and a couple of Russian balls to attend as I attempt to keep warm through the worst of the Russian winter!

    Other than the London trip, I am not planning to travel out of Moscow for the remainder of January, but I will continue teaching regular waltz classes on Tuesday evenings.  For the latest information on those, join my VK community (Russian).

    Any groups in Moscow or elsewhere in Russia or Europe that might be interested in workshops from February through May should contact me directly. 

    (Edited to add: my waltz classes have spawned a party!  See below for a small waltz event on January 20th!)

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  • Half & Half: Seven Steps

    “Seven steps” is actually something of a misnomer for this variation, which actually involves eight steps taken over two measures of half and half (5/4) time.  Its original source, Frank H. Norman’s Complete Dance Instructor (Ottawa, 1914) lists it only as step “No. 2” (out of two) for the half and half.  The Half and Half section of Norman’s book is credited to George E Rutherford.

    The basic principle of the step is to take a single slow hesitating step, lasting three counts as usual (1-2-3), and then take seven quick steps on the last two beats of the first measure and all five beats of the second (4-5-1-2-3-4-5).  Like the five-step variation, this is a very “busy” step that is best done to a very gentle tempo of half and half music.

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  • Half & Half: Pivot Turns

    “If you wish to spin you must do so on the slow step, continuing forward on the last two counts.”        — from Modern Dancing by Vernon & Irene Castle, 1914

    One of the basic half and half steps which I did not cover in my long-ago post on basic traveling steps for the dance was the pivot turn, as distinct from turning waltz in half and half time.  There aren’t all that many sources for half and half, so it’s mildly (very mildly) significant that this step is mentioned three different times.  There’s the Castles’ succinct description quoted above.  There’s a mention of it in a list of steps, or possibly a choreography, where it is given without any detail as “No. 3. pivot turn, right and left, 8 measures.”  (from “Half and Half” by J. E. Miles, in Dance Mad or the Dances of the Day, 2nd edition, F. Leslie Clendenen (editor), 1914.)  And there’s a full description as part of a mini-sequence which doesn’t actually work.  Here’s the relevant part:

    THE PIVOT TURN is made by stepping L. to side.  C. 1.
    Pivot 1/2 on ball of L.  C. 2. 3.  Walk forward. 4. 5.

    (from “Half and Half” as taught by Castle Assistants, in Dance Mad or the Dances of the Day, 2nd edition, F. Leslie Clendenen (editor), 1914.)

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  • Green Mountain Volunteers

    Green Mountain Volunteers is currently fourth on my list of go-to contra dances for the 1910s, after the Circle; Hull’s Victory; and Lady of the Lake.  It really ought to be sixth, after Boston Fancy and Portland Fancy as well, but the former is too much like Lady of the Lake, and the latter I’m still thinking about.

    Unlike the five dances listed above, which appear on a pair of Maine dance cards from 1918-1919, I do not have dance card evidence for this one.  The only pre-1937 source for it, in fact, is Elizabeth Burchenal’s American Country-Dances, Volume I (New York & Boston, 1918), in which she lists it among the dances “half-forgotten or less used” by the late 1910s:

    Some of the most widely used of the contra-dances to-day in New England are The Circle, Lady of the Lake, Boston Fancy, Portland Fancy, Hull’s Victory, Soldier’s Joy, and Old Zip Coon (or, the Morning Star); while among the half-forgotten or less used ones are Chorus Jig, Green Mountain Volunteers, and Fisher’s Hornpipe.

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  • December 2017 Gig Calendar

    Living this binational life keeps me insanely busy, but I'm thrilled to be teaching a higher-level waltz series this month in Moscow, plus private classes and a return to beautiful Vladimir for a weekend of master-classes there!  

    I do not have much more availability for December, so the classes below are probably all I'll do this month.  Any groups in Moscow or elsewhere in Russia or Europe that might be interested in workshops in 2018 should contact me directly.  I'm also interested in exploring the Moscow blues community and maybe seeing about some DJing while I'm here.

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  • Double Grand Chain (a march or cotillion figure)

    I first came across Double Grand Chain when flipping through Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by H. Layton Walker (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912) for interesting cotillion (dance party game) figures.  Like Winthrope, Double Grand Chain is not terribly game-like beyond the basic cotillion setup of dancing with one person and then finding a new partner, but it would make an interesting addition to a grand march for a group of reasonably skilled dancers.

    Double Grand Chain was not original to Walker; it also appeared in all the editions of Allen Dodworth’s Dancing and its relations to education and social life running from 1885 to 1913 (the link is to the 1900 edition), which puts it firmly in the “late Victorian” category.  Since it did reappear in 1912 separately from the Dodworth reprints, I’d still consider it legitimate for a ragtime-era event, and it is sufficiently innocuous in style that I wouldn’t be bothered by its use at a mid-nineteenth-century event either.

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  • Aladdin Quadrille

    Like the New Scotia Quadrille, the Aladdin Quadrille is one of several single-figure quadrilles found in the “New, Enlarged, & Complete Edition” of D. (David) Anderson’s Ball-Room Guide (Dundee, this edition undated but probably c1886).  This is a simple, fun figure that would fit easily into a Scottish-themed ball.

    Despite there being various quadrille sets called the Aladdin Quadrilles, Anderson doesn’t seem to have had any specific music in mind.  He notes only that it can be danced in 2/4 or 6/8.

    Aladdin Quadrille (8 bars introduction + 64 bars x4)
    8b   Introduction/honors (not repeated)
    8b   All promenade round
    4b   Ladies advance to the center and retire
    4b   Gentlemen advance to the center and retire
    8b   All set to partners and turn by the right hand
    8b   Head couples advance and retire, then half right and left
    8b   Side couples advance and retire, then half right and left
    8b   Grand chain half round to places
    16b All waltz (in duple time) around (see performance notes below)

    The figure is danced four times, with the head couples leading on the first and third iterations and the side couples leading on the second and fourth.

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  • November 2017 Gig Calendar

    I'm fully settled in Moscow now, and my November teaching schedule here is a pleasant mix of modern waltz and early twentieth century dance, continuing my work with Studio "Танец весны"  and teaching advanced waltz classes on my own.  I'll also be making a lightning trip back to the USA on Remembrance Day weekend to return to my long-running engagement leading 1860s dancing at The President's Remembrance Day Ball in Gettysburg!

    I do not have much availability for the rest of 2017, but groups in Moscow or elsewhere in Russia or Europe that might be interested in workshops should contact me directly.

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  • Who is Your Partner?

    What would Halloween be without masks?  And what would a cotillion be without at least one figure where people blunder around blindly crashing into each other?

    “Who is Your Partner?” is from St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler and appeared in Original Cotillion Figures (St. Louis, 1900), his collection of figures from himself and other dancing masters.  It is easy enough to run, but it does require props:

    A number of black masks, like those used in lodges, viz: those that have no eyes, in order to completely blindfold the wearer.

    Here’s how it goes:

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  • Un jeu d’échecs (a game of chess), 1810

    Another themed quadrille described by Laure Junot, the Duchess of Abrantès, was the “game of chess” danced, or at least presented, at a masked ball in Paris in the February of 1810.  The quadrille was also described in her Memoires de Madame la duchesse d’Abrantes, which were published and republished in multiple volumes in a variety of editions.  The French text below was taken from an 1837 fourth edition published in Brussels, which may be found online here.  A contemporary (1833) English translation is online here, but it is not a close enough translation and omits some lines, so I’ve done my own, with reference to it.

    Junot spent more time in her memoirs complaining about the costumes and rehearsal time required for this quadrille than she did on the actual performance, but from her description, it seems like very few of the pieces (dancers) actually got to do much, unless perhaps they danced as they entered the board.  But what little she describes does mention steps, and the costume descriptions give us a fairly good idea of how the dancers must have appeared: vaguely Egyptian pawns with tightly-wrapped skirts and sleeves like mummies and sphinx-like hairstyles, knights like centaurs with horse rumps made from wicker, rooks wearing wicker towers, and fools (bishops) in caps with bells.

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  • A Fancy Dress Ball, Saratoga, 1847

    Another costume-heavy description of a fancy dress ball was published in The New York Herald on August 17, 1847, in the social column “The Watering Places” on page two.  The ball was held at Congress Hall of the United States Hotel in the summer resort town of Saratoga Springs, New York, on August 14, 1847.

    Sadly, no information is given about the dancing, though the writer does mention the generous size of the hall, one hundred and fifty by fifty feet, and the beautiful decorations, featuring flowers and greenery plus “miniature flags of every nation which supports a navy” hanging “just above the heads” of the dancers.

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  • A Fancy Dress Ball, Roxbury, 1827

    It’s October, and time once again to devote some attention to masquerade and fancy dress balls and other excuses to wear unusual costumes in historical ballrooms!

    On January 3, 1828, The New York Mirror: A Weekly Gazette of Literature and the Fine Arts, published a description of what was supposedly the first fancy-dress ball ever held in New England, held at Norfolk House in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on “Wednesday last”.

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  • October 2017 Gig Calendar

    As of October I am back in teaching mode in Moscow!  This will be a light month as I get myself settled, but I will be teaching a six-week class series on a variety of twentieth century American dances and am actively working on setting up a few more things — check back for possible additions later in the month.  (10/29/17: schedule is now complete.)  Moscow groups interested in workshops should  contact me directly.

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  • Exeter Caprice

    The Exeter Caprice is one of a small number of schottisches and schottische-like dances included in the second edition of F. Leslie Clendenen’s 1914 compilation, Dance Mad, for which Clendenen solicited dances from dancing masters across the United States and in Europe and South America.  One of those who responded was George F. Walters.  The Dance Mad index of dancing masters lists him as based in Waltham, Massachusetts, about sixty miles south of Exeter, New Hampshire, and the famous Phillips Exeter Academy, more commonly known just as “Exeter”.  I suspect that Walters’ Exeter Caprice and Exeter Waltz might be named for the school, either because he taught dance there or because he hoped to.

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  • CD Review: Ragtime Dance Party

    Ragtime Dance Party Cover Ragtime Dance Party is the one and only album released by the Crown Syncopators, a San Francisco-based trio that performs at ragtime music festivals on the West Coast.  I’ve never had the pleasure of dancing to their music in person, which this album makes me very much regret.  Per the title, every single tune is danceable as well as a joy to listen to.  I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys American music and dance of the 1890-1920 era.

    The Crown Syncopators consist of Frederick Hodges (piano), Victoria Tichenor (drums), and Marty Eggers (tuba).  They don’t seem to have a website. but their appearances are listed on Hodges’ event schedule here.  (Updated 12/30/25 because the schedule no longer exists.)

    The CD comes with ten pages of liner notes that contain the background on each piece and reproductions of the original sheet music covers.  Along with familiar favorites like Scott Joplin, James Reese Europe, and James Scott, I was especially pleased to see in the mix a couple of less-familiar female composers, Grace Marie Bolen and Adeline (or Adaline) Shepherd, both of whose careers were cut short by marriage.

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  • September 2017 Gig Calendar

    This is my last month of mostly-hibernation!  As of September 24th, I will once more be taking residency in Moscow (Russia, not Idaho) and doing my teaching primarily there and elsewhere in Europe for eight months, with occasional brief excursions to the USA for special events.    

    In the three weeks before I leave, I'll be in Chicago for a ball, the Boston area to DJ blues, and home in Connecticut for an informal Regency dance.  I'll also be in and out of New York City a couple of times.  Catch me if you can!

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  • CD Review: The Robert E. Lee

    The Robert E. Lee cover art The Robert E. Lee (1997) is a neat little album of solo piano played by the famous musician Bob Milne, who is not only a top-notch ragtime pianist, music historian, and “national treasure” who performed at The Library of Congress in 2004, but also has the astonishing ability to “play” multiple tunes at once in his head, meaning that he can do incredible tricks like playing music in 3/4, 4/4, and 5/4 simultaneously.  There’s a fascinating article about his abilities at Mlive.com.

    The CD title and the famous tune “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee” both refer to the famous steamship which won a race from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1870.

    I have had The Robert E. Lee sitting around for over a decade but only ever used one track, “Trouble in Mind”, regularly, as an interesting change of style for when I DJ for modern blues dancers.  Until I started teaching ragtime more often than usual this year I hadn’t really gone through the rest of the album carefully.  The CD wasn’t recorded specifically for dancing, so some of the pieces don’t have the regular rhythm one would desire, but about half of them are quite good for dancing, a few others are workable, and the piano playing is invariably a joy to listen to even for the less danceable tunes.

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  • Two Easy Mixer Games, 1912

    I recently had a request to teach 1910s-era dance games, so I went digging through early twentieth-century books of cotillion (or “German”) figures looking for some easy mixers that could be explained in a few sentences.  I found two that fit the bill in Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by H. Layton Walker (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912).  That book is one of my favorite sources for the silliest and most extreme figures, but it has plenty of simpler ones as well.

    Neither of these figures require any props or preparation, and they can be taught in moments on the dance floor, a practice actually recommended in the description of the second.

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  • August 2017 Gig Calendar

    This month is mostly about writing and non-dance-related travel, but I will emerge briefly to teach a couple of classes in Moscow (Russia) and a Regency dance class in Connecticut.  Otherwise, see you in September!

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  • Reminiscences, 1865

    I have what seems like an endless collection of works of nineteenth-century women’s fiction that I plow through for the dance references whenever I have the chance.  Most of them are overly sentimental and laden with heavy-handed moral messages.  “Reminiscences”, which was serialized in the American women’s periodical Godey’s Lady’s Book from February to June, 1865, was no exception to this, alas, but at least it was relatively short.

    The background of the piece is a bit of a mystery.  The author is the same “Ethelstone” credited with “Dancing the Schottische” (Godey’s, July 1862), which I discussed a few years ago.  I’ve never been able to locate any information about this author.  And “Reminiscences” adds a new element of confusion because it is written in first person and purports to be the story of one Ethel Stone.  Was “Ethelstone” actually a woman named Ethel Stone?  Is this fiction masquerading as memoir?  Or part of an actual memoir of a life that oh-so-conveniently included the elements of a mid-nineteenth-century morality tale?  That seems unlikely, so I assume that it’s fiction.  But I may never know for certain.

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  • Professor Sheldon’s Presidential Polka Quadrille

    Professor Sheldon’s Presidential Polka Quadrille was created by Washington, D. C., dancing master George T. Sheldon, who had a lengthy career as a dancing master to both children and adults and was the author of at least a couple of other quadrilles.  In May, 1898, Sheldon was discussed briefly in M. B. Gilbert’s dance journal, The Director, in which it was said that he was then 72 and had been teaching for 57 years.  His most famous pupil was probably Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant.  This quadrille was said in several sources to be dedicated to her.

    Professor Sheldon’s Presidential Polka Quadrille seems to have first been published around 1893, possibly by H. N. Grant, and thereafter turns up in a number of midwestern dance manuals running through the early years of the new century.  It is referred to variously by its full name, by the shorter Sheldon’s Presidential Polka Quadrille or Sheldon’s Polka Quadrille, and, in one manual, as Williams’ Presidential Polka Quadrille.  I have no idea who Williams was or why he was credited with a quadrille well documented as having been authored by Sheldon.

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  • July 2017 Gig Calendar

    Still in catchup/hibernation mode this month, but I will emerge briefly for a long-awaited return to DJing at Bluesy Tuesy, my blues and fusion dance home, and a Regency dance class.  Otherwise, find me online or not at all!

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    Tuesday, July 18th ~ Cambridge, Massachusetts (Boston area)
    Bluesy Tuesy (Facebook event)
    7:30-11:00pm (lesson then dancing).  DJing blues for the second set, 9:45-11:00pm.

    Wednesday, July 26th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
    Jane Austen Era Dancing (Facebook event)
    Beginner-friendly lesson 7:00-8:30pm.  Informal dancing, no costume needed.  

    Friday, July 28th ~ Boston area
    Private event. 

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  • Political Dance Jokes: The Italian Quadrille, 1859

    1859-06-04 Punch - Italian QuadrilleThe humor piece at left, “The Italian Quadrille” (click to enlarge), appeared in the June 4, 1859, issue of the famous British humor magazine, Punch.  It’s obvious from the timing that it’s satirizing the brief Franco-Austrian War of 1859, also known as the Second Italian War of Independence.  I love it when dance terms get used this way.  This one isn’t as clever overall as the near-contemporaneous Quadrille Nautically Described (1856), but what it lacks in clever figures it makes up for in real-world meaning.

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  • Early Foxtrot: Catch Steps

    I spent a lot of time teaching foxtrot this spring, and after going through my usual repertoire of easy foxtrot variations with several different groups, I feel I need to add a few new steps.  Nothing complicated, just something to spice up my standard set.  Both of these steps are taken from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916).

    The basic catch step is just a simple way to change the lead foot, either because it's needed for a variation or just for fun.  It's so easy I can explain it without a little numbered chart: 

    Gentleman starts left forward.  Walk for awhile.  When you want to change lead foot, make a single two-step.  Keep walking with the lead (odd count; the strong beat of the music) on the other foot.  The lady does the same thing, but backward and starting on the right foot.

    More formally:

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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