Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Cotillions (dance games, Germans)

  • A Holiday Cotillon, 1909

    On Monday, December 27, 1909, an elaborate cotillon, meaning an evening of dance party games, was given by the McGowan family in the yellow and gold third floor ballroom of their turreted Romanesque “chateau” on Delaware Street in Indianapolis, pictured above in an image courtesy of the Indiana Historical Society.

    The house and the McGowan family are extremely well-documented. Hugh McGown (1857-1911) was a first-generation American, the son of Irish immigrants, and a self-made man who made a fortune in electric street rail as President of the Indianapolis Traction and Terminal Co. A brief biography may be found here. He and his wife Kate had four daughters: Marjorie, Louise, Frances, and Isabel, who would have been roughly 21, 20, 16, and 14 in 1909.

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  • Leap Year figure, Washington, D. C., 1892

    Not having any more convenient descriptions of cotillion (dance party game) figures with leap year themes in books of such figures, I have to take them where I find them — in this case, in a description of a society leap year ball attended by no fewer than seven foreign ministers of different nations held in Washington, D. C., on March 24, 1892.  The ball was described briefly in The New York Times on March 25, 1892.  The majority of the short article is taken up by lengthy lists of all the important people who organized and attended the event, but in between, there is a description of a cotillion figure.  Interestingly, it was led by two couples simultaneously, from “opposite ends of the hall”.

    Dancing was general until 9:30 o’clock, when the cotillion began, led from opposite ends of the hall by Miss Richardson with Mr. William Slack and Miss Stout with Mr. Clifford Richardson. In the selection of the favors the greatest ingenuity had been exercised, and the laughter-provoking devices were highly satisfactory.

    Perhaps, sensible of the number of people attending, they were actually running two cotillions in parallel?

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  • “The Leap Year Ball”: a poem, 1896

    Before getting back to detailed newspaper descriptions of leap year balls, here’s a less detailed but still useful description of one in the form of a very mediocre poem.  It was published on page three of the Oakdale Leader, in Oakdale, California, on Friday, February 14th, 1896.

    The leap year elements mentioned specifically in the poem are:

    • the ladies “managing” things and taking the author into the ballroom
    • the “beaux” sitting in a row waiting for partners and the ladies rushing to find one, making sure no one was left out
    • Fannie and Julia as some sort of ball organizers or floor managers, wearing badges and making sure things went smoothly
    • a lady acting as treasurer and, by implication, asking the author to dance

    I admit to cynically feeling that the ladies being concerned that none of the “gints” were slighted was showing more care for their feelings than many gentlemen showed for those of ladies when in conventional roles — the ladies were perhaps deliberately setting an example for the gentlemen of how they wished to be treated.

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  • A Young Mothers’ Reception, 1891

    In honor of Mother's Day in the USA, another specialized (and much smaller) dance event from the pages of the October, 1891, issue of Demorest's Family Magazine:

    A young mothers' reception, with dancing, is the unique entertainment to which only young married couples are invited.  Round dances are tabooed, and what time can be spared from the discussion of the charms and precocious sayings and doings of their little ones is devoted to sedate square dances.  To give a little touch of piquancy to the affair, partners are selected by favors, children's toys being used for the purpose.  The following day the guests call on the hostess, with their children.
                — Demorest's Family Magazine, Volume XXVII, No. 12, October, 1891, p. 756

    This brief description appeared in a "Chat" column which primarily covered the decor of several autumn-themed events (the "Dahlia Tennis Court" was my favorite).

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  • A Pumpkin Party 1890

    A Pumpkin Party may seem misplaced in the calendar at this point, but this is specifically a Thanksgiving pumpkin party, taking place the evening of Thanksgiving Day, so it should be considered more like pumpkin pie and less like a jack-o-lantern, though there's definitely an element of that in the theme as well.  The overall concept is more harvest than Halloween, however, similar to the Red Ear Party except more, err, orange.

    The description of the party — possibly, but not necessarily, fictional — was published in Demorest's Family Magazine, No. CCCXXIX, Vol. XXVII, No. 1, dated November 1890.  Demorest's began as a fashion magazine but expanded to include a wide range of material, including quite a few little dance tidbits.

    The pumpkin theme began from the very start, with the invitations, which were sent on "pumpkin-colored round cards".  The party was held in a "pretty little stone barn and stable" with illuminated "pumpkin lanterns of all shapes and devices, some wearing the old familiar goblin-like 'eyes, nose, and mouth.' while others were cut in stars and flowers and geometrical designs."  This is, quite literally, a barn dance.

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  • Wandering around in the dark, 1912

    Since wandering around with small lanterns in a dark room looking for people to dance with also seems like a suitable spooky, or at least entertaining, activity for Halloween balls and cotillion parties, here are another pair of cotillion figures from H. Layton Walker’s Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912) that feature that very activity!

    These are both simple mixer figures in which pairs of ladies and gentlemen must find their designated match, either by number or by name.

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  • Leap Year Cotillion Figure

    For a change of pace, here’s a leap year-themed cotillion (dance party game) figure from H. Layton Walker’s  Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912).  I think the only “leap year” element in it is that the ladies pursue the gentlemen, rather than the reverse.

    Here’s the original text:

    LEAP YEAR FIGURE
    For this figure you will require one more gentleman than you do ladies.  An extra man is required to put on a paper shroud.  This figure can be used for any number of couples, but it is always necessary to have an extra gentleman up.  Couples up and dance.  When they have danced a little while, form a circle, and grand right and left, the leader getting into the circle and when all dance the leader must secure one of the ladies.  This will leave one of the gents out.  He is “It,” and goes to the centre to receive this paper suit.  The ladies all receive a large ring having a tissue covering over it.  Get another lady who is not in the figure, so that you will also have an odd lady up.  She also receives one of the hoops.  Now ask the ladies to catch a man.  As there are not enough men for all the ladies the one who does not succeed in getting a man will have to contend [sic] herself by dancing with the dummy.

    It took me a moment to sort this out because of how badly written the instructions are.  The first three sentences can be ignored.  Here’s how it works:

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  • A Leap Year Ball, Providence, 1892

    Moving from the American frontier back to the east coast and into increasingly amusing descriptions of leap year events, here’s a very upscale event held in Providence, Rhode Island, on Monday, February 29, 1892, and reported in The Providence News on Tuesday, March 1.  This was a much more glittering affair than the frontier balls in Montana and Wyoming.  According to the article, subscriptions to the ball cost $25 for eight invitations, and the German (cotillion) favors cost an estimated $900.  In today’s terms, that is around $700 for the tickets and an eye-popping $25,000 for the favors, which were always an opportunity for conspicuous consumption among upper-class society.

    The ball was held at the brand-new Trocadero (1891), which, according to Providence’s inventory in 1980 for the National Register of Historic Places, was a restaurant and dancing parlor owned by local businessman Lloyd Tillinghast, who also provided the ball supper, served on “small and beautifully decked tables” by waiters brought in from Boston and New York.  The Trocadero no longer stands, alas.  Two bands were engaged: Reeves’ Band and the “Hungarian band of New York”, who alternated playing.

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  • Heart Figure, 1900

    Continuing the Valentine's Day theme, here's a heart-themed dance game from St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler's 1900 compilation Original Cotillion Figures.  I'll give the full text from Mahler first, then a few notes on the listed music.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Heart Figure
    Jacob Mahler, St. Louis, Mo.

    Music — Waltz — "Just One Girl."

    Properties — White card board hearts about three inches wide and four inches long, tied with baby ribbon four inches long.  These hearts are handed to the ladies; they write their names upon the heart (upon one side only), the leader hangs these hearts upon a curtain at one end of the room, The [sic] written side turned to the curtain.

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  • “La Contre Danse”, cotillion figure (1900)

    There are plenty of cotillions – in the sense of “nineteenth-century dance games”, not “eighteenth-century French square dances” – that are some variation on “form a square or longways set and do a quadrille figure or country dance”.  “La Contre Danse” is an interesting take on this theme from W. Gilbert Newell, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was published in St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler’s compilation, Original Cotillion Figures (St. Louis, 1900).  It caught my eye because of the unusual formation: couple facing couple across a longways set, as in the American contra “The Tempest“, the English “Polka Contre Danse“, or quadrille figures done in columns rather than squares.  I can’t be certain that this is the only cotillion figure using this formation — hundreds of them were published from the early nineteenth into the early twentieth century, and I can’t claim to have looked at them all — but it’s the only one I’ve found so far.

    “La Contre Danse” is relatively complicated as figures done in sets go.  It opens and closes with two-step done in couples, and in between there is a brief march to set up the longways set before the actual contra/country/contre danse figures begin.  Here’s how it works:

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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