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Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: 1910s

  • Half & Half: Varying the Promenade

    An easy way to liven up the half & half, the 5/4 waltz of the mid-1910s, is to vary the promenade. 

    In the basic half & half promenade (previously described here), the dancers take ballroom hold and both face line of dance, gliding forward side by side with half & half step patterns (1…4-5, 1…4-5). 

    The second edition of the 1914 compilation Dance Mad offer two easy ways to vary this promenade:

    In the Quinlan Twins' description of the half & half, the eighth figure is a more elaborate promenade that alternates dips and foot lifts:

    123    Step forward (gent's left/lady's right) and dip to the floor
    45      Walk forward two steps
    123    Step forward (gent's right/lady's left) and raise free foot to 4th position forward
    45      Walk forward two steps

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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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  • 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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  • Foxes in Boxes

    Among the moves described by Vernon and Irene Castle in their Victor Records for Dancing mini-manual (1914) are a trio of moves that are essentially box steps or fragments thereof: a so-called cortez (a.k.a. sentado or syncopated step), a double cortez, and a left-turning waltz.  The rhythm is specified as QQS: three steps and hold.  These make a nice set of variations to throw into basic walking-trotting sequences and two-step sequences when dancing a 1910s-style foxtrot.

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  • Sliding Along in the Foxtrot

    Over a year ago I discussed some of the earliest walking and trotting patterns found in the earliest sources describing the foxtrot.  Among other moves,  I touched on the gliding series of chassé steps given in the two sequences in F. L. Clendenen’s Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914).  The sideways glides were done in quick-quick rhythm for each slide-close.  The two sequences were:

    1. SS-SS-QQQQ-QQQQ twice, followed by four glides (step-closes) QQQQ-QQQQ

    2. SS-QQQQ, followed by four glides QQQQ-QQQQ.

    The man turns his left side toward the line of dance and the dancers execute a series of four sideways “step-closes” (QQ) along the line of dance.  No turn is involved; the first part of the sequence (walking and trotting) restarts on the first foot moving along the line of dance as usual.

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  • Another Note on the Early Foxtrot

    While searching through a periodicals index I came across an interesting little article that neatly summarizes my previous three foxtrot posts.  “How to Dance the Fox Trot” was published in the Los Angeles Times on October 18, 1914.  It commends the dance as

    the most simple of all the new dances.  If you were discouraged when you tackled the tango or maxixe, here is a dance that every one can dance and enjoy with practically no mental exertion.

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  • Fancy Little Foxtrot

    This is a nifty little move from the short Bassett/Elliott film, “The Much Talked About ‘Fox Trot’ ” (dated 1916) and is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in a 1910s foxtrot: it actually has a hop.  A hop in the foxtrot!  That should startle anyone watching you.  The sequence isn’t terribly difficult and should be accessible once a dancer is past the complete-novice stage.

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  • Quick-Quick-Slow: The Two-Step Infiltrates the Foxtrot

    In my previous foxtrot post I covered the basic walking and trotting patterns of the early foxtrot of the 1910s.  These patterns are characterized by alternating series of slow (S) or quick (Q) steps, simple traveling interspersed with occasional sideways glides or half-turns, and consistently starting on the same foot (gentleman’s left, lady’s right).  This simple foxtrot was complicated almost immediately by variations of rhythm, most notably the “quick-quick-slow” (QQS, or “one-and-two (pause)”) rhythm of the 19th-century two-step and polka.  This post will discuss some of the variations introduced in the pre-1920 foxtrot as described by dancing masters Maurice Mouvet (1915) and Charles Coll (1919) and demonstrated by Clay Bassett and Catherine Elliott on film (1916).

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  • Basic Walking & Trotting Patterns in the 1910s Foxtrot

    “What particular resemblance does the gait of a fox have to this dance?”
    — spectator watching trotters, as quoted in Maurice’s Art of Dancing, 1915

    It’s a reasonable question.  The foxtrot evolved so rapidly after its debut in 1913-1914 that it can be difficult to sort out the earliest versions of the dance and derive an accurate picture of the foxtrot as danced in the 1910s.

    Directions for dancing the foxtrot first began appearing in print in
    1914.  While it did not appear in Vernon and Irene Castle’s 1914 work, Modern Dancing, the Castles did include it that year in the booklet Victor Records for Dancing.  Two brief descriptions were also published in F. L. Clenenden’s compendium, Dance Mad, also published in 1914, in St. Louis.  In 1915, Maurice Mouvet published his description of the foxtrot in Maurice’s Art of Dancing, followed in 1919 by Charles Coll in Dancing Made Easy (link is to the 1922 reprint).

    In addition to these written sources, a brief silent film clip dated 1916 shows dance instructors Clay Bassett and Catherine Elliott demonstrating “The Much Talked About ‘Fox Trot’.”

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  • The Half & Half: Basic Traveling Steps

    • Era: 1910s

    The half and half, a hesitation waltz danced in 5/4 time, was one of those novelties that appeared and vanished quickly in 1914.  There may be as many people alive now who know how to dance it as ever danced it in its own era!  It is also handicapped by having very few surviving pieces of music in the right time signature.  Today’s experienced historical social dancers can probably hum the eponymous “Half and Half” from memory.  Sources describing the dance are equally difficult to come by; I have only three in my collection, though one of them, Dance Mad, generously provides four separate descriptions.

    Click here to listen to a half and half tune in 5/4 time.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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