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Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Cotillions (dance games, Germans)

  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • Scotch, Hungarian, whatever (cotillion figure)

    H. Layton Walker’s Grand Scotch Chain, published in Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), is only moderately interesting as a figure, but tracing its progress from a figure that was neither “grand” nor “Scotch” when it started out is an interesting illustration of how cotillion figures were transmitted across time and international borders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

    The figure itself is quite simple:

    • Two couples separate and select new partners
    • They form a four-couple quadrille set
    • Head gentlemen turn by right elbows once and a half round, then give left elbows to opposite ladies and turn to place with her
    • Side gentlemen repeat
    • Head ladies repeat
    • Side ladies repeat
    • All take partners and waltz

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  • Double Quadrille (cotillion figure)

    Double Quadrille is a cotillion (dance party game) figure from H. Layton Walker’s Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), though the “game” element is extremely limited.  The original setup is not even a standard cotillion opening with couples dancing and then separating to find new partners; instead, each couple seeks another couple.

    The language and timing of the figure are ambiguous, and I’ve found no other source to clarify things.  So I’ve had to make some guesses and minor tweaks in order to create something that actually works.

    Here’s the original language from Walker:

    DOUBLE QUADRILLE.
    Four couples perform a tour de valse. Each couple selects another couple and they form a double quadrille; the head couples right and left; half sides the same. Ladies chain; all the ladies forward four steps, turn and face partners; gentlemen take the right hand of partners and left hand of lady on their left; all balance; the ladies facing outward, gentlemen inward; turn partners to places. The figure is danced over to regain places. Signal for all to waltz to places.

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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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  • 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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  • A Valentine Cotillion

    I return once more, in honor of Valentine’s Day, to H. Layton Walker’s delightful Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), which is always guaranteed to provide me some interesting figures for imaginative dancers.  Christmas was a bit disappointing, as holiday cotillion themes go.  Valentine’s Day seems much more promising, since both cotillions and valentines have the goal of matching up people and thus ought to combine nicely!

    Starting from the top of an evening’s program, Walker does provide a couple of useful suggestions for the grand march.  I noted a few years ago that good leaders could get their marching dancers into formations such as the letters of the alphabet, or other geometric figures.  Hearts, for example, lend themselves easily to being both created and escaped from by lines of dancers.  Walker provided the diagrams at left for what he called a “Heart March Cotillion”, though the shape is so basic that one hardly needs the help.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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