Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Victorian

  • Introducing the racket

    The racket, or racquet, is one of the major new couple dances that began appearing in American dance manuals in the early 1880s and lingered into the beginning of the twentieth century.  It spread to France in the mid- to late 1890s.  I have found no information on its origins or reference to any creator.

    The racket is a lively dance that combines sideways slides and quick cuts of the feet back and forth.  It can be danced in both galop (2/4) and waltz (3/4) time, though galop time appears to be the default.  It was one of the few of the myriad couple dance variations of the last quarter of the nineteenth century to make it into manuals like Allen Dodworth’s Dancing and its Relation to Education and Social Life (New York, 1885, reprinted 1900), which for the most part included only the most commonly-found couple dances.  (He did include one of his own invention, the Knickerbocker, and the up-and-coming Boston.)

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  • Five Step Schottische

    • Era: 1870s(?)-1890s (America)

    The Five Step Schottische, as described by prominent late 19th-century dancing master M.B. Gilbert in his tome of couple dances, Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and later by Marguerite Wilson in her oft-reprinted Dancing (Philadelphia, 1899),  squeezes five movements, rather than the standard four, into each bar of schottische for an interesting variation which alternates sideways slides and half-turns for a sequence similar to that of waltz variations such as the contemporary Le Metropole (also included in Gilbert’s manual) or the later Five-Step Boston described by Philadelphian Albert Newman in 1914.  Putting this combination into schottische rhythm makes for an interesting but not overly complicated dance worth resurrecting by the modern late-19th-century dance reenactor.

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  • Lamb’s Waltz Two Step

    Here’s an easy waltz variation from English dance teacher William Lamb’s Everybody’s Guide to Ball-Room Dancing (London c1898-1900).  The Waltz Two Step is a short sequence of two-step done in waltz time which can be used as a variation in a late 19th-century waltz or as a short standalone sequence dance.  Because the movements are quite slow-paced, it is best suited to extremely fast music.

    This sequence represents the an early form of “hesitation waltz” from before that term came into use in the 1910s.  In this case the normal two-step movement (briefly described in a previous post here) rather than being counted “1&2” in 2/4 rhythm, as is more typical in this era, is danced in 3/4 rhythm with each two-step stretched over two full bars of music, so that the slide-close-slide happens on the first, third, and fourth of the six beats.

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  • Waltz Step, Galop Time

    • Era: 1880s-1890s (America)

    In his sizable manual of couple dance variations, Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), late 19th-century dancing master M.B. Gilbert describes the Waltz-Galop succinctly as:

    Waltz step, Galop time

    While no other dancing master that I have found includes the waltz-galop by name, the accenting of a waltz step done in duple rather than triple time is discussed by Allen Dodworth in Dancing and its relations to education and social life (1885, reprinted several times through 1900) and is included in dances such as the turn-of-the-century Pasadena, and the idea that waltz steps can be transposed from triple to duple and vice-versa dates back as far as the sauteuse waltz of the first quarter of the 19th century.

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  • Lamb’s American Schottische

    English dance teacher William Lamb, in his Everybody's Guide to Ball-Room Dancing (London c1898-1900), published quite a few short dance sequences, most of limited interest to the average dancer.  His American Schottische has more potential than most of these because it does not involve any reverse-line-of-dance movement and thus can be easily used as a simple variation when dancing a late 19th-century schottische. 

    Despite the name, there is nothing specifically American about this particular sequence, and it does not seem to have been taken up by other writers/compilers of dance manuals, even those who otherwise plagiarized Lamb quite freely.  I suspect it was not a particular hit, perhaps never having any life in period outside the pages of Lamb's book.  Nonetheless, I find it quite danceable and an interesting break from more typical schottische patterns.

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  • Tantivy: The New Hunt Dance

    • Era: late 1890s-1900 England/France

    “Tantivy: The New Hunt Dance,” was invented by English dancing master R. M. Crompton, later to become the first president of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing and a part of the early 20th-century movement to keep ballroom dance out of the hands of the “wrong” people, which primarily meant American, and especially African-American, influences.  That was all in the future in the 1890s, however, when this dance first appeared.  It may have first been published in Crompton’s own book, Theory and Practice of Modern Dancing (London, c1891).  Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of Crompton’s work.  The dance, however, can be found in at least three other works of the late 19th century, attributed in each case to Crompton.

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  • The Très-Chic

    • Era: late 1890s-early 1900s
    “The Très-Chic is a dance for couples in six-eight time, and is of very animated and lively character.”

    With these words, William Lamb introduces “A new Round Dance for the Ball-Room.”  Lamb was a noted English dance teacher and writer who served as president of the British Association of Teachers of Dancing.  The Très-Chic appeared in his book Saxon’s Everybody’s Guide to Ball-Room Dancing (London, c1898-1900; it is listed in the 1901 English Catalogue of Books for those years), from which it was blatantly plagiarized by two dance writers publishing in the American Midwest in the first few years of the twentieth century, including A.C. Wirth in his Complete Quadrille Call Book (Chicago, 1902) and D.F. Jay in his ABC Guide to Ballroom Dancing (Chicago, c1900), both using Lamb’s language to describe the dance.  (Some biographical information about Wirth may be found in my earlier post on the Rye Waltz.)

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  • Mr. Newman’s Two-Step Variations

    • Era: circa 1900

    Given the popularity of the two-step in the early years of the 20th century, it is surprising how few variations were recorded for the dance.  But in his 1903 dance manual, A Complete Practical Guide to Modern Society Dancing, Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman included two short and easy two-step sequences, the “Glide Two Step” and the “Military Two Step.”

    The basic turn of the century two-step (not the same as either today’s country western “Texas Two-Step” or today’s “Nightclub Two-Step”) is a slide-close-slide, similar to the polka but performed smoothly with no hop, turning to the left or right as desired.  Newman specified that the “close” of the feet should be to third rear position, which happens fairly naturally if the leading foot is turned so that the toe points along the line of dance.  The steps are described below for the gentleman; the lady dances on opposite feet.

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  • The Union Dance

    • Era: 1860s-1880s

    The Union Dance is a short, schottische-like dance sequence which I have found in only two sources: Thomas Hillgrove’s 1863 A Complete Practical Guide to the Art of Dancing (pp. 170-171) and the 1883 Professor M.J. Koncen’s Quadrille Call Book and Ball Room Guide (p. 89)  The latter is a compilation of numerous other sources and the instructions therein are nearly identical to the earlier ones, so Hillgrove may be regarded as the preferred source for dating this dance.  Given the timing and Hillgrove’s location in New York, it is possible that the name of the dance was meant as a political statement, though it is also possible that it was simply the name of a tune to which it was danced or a completely random title.

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  • A Fancy Medley (1893)

    Throughout the mid- and late 19th century, dancing masters had mixed quadrille figures and couple dances such as the waltz, polka, schottische, and galop into single figures or entire quadrilles.  A popular variation on this idea was a “varieties” or medley quadrille in which each figure used a different kind of music and incorporated a different couple dance.  Such a one is this Fancy Medley, published in Boston in 1893 in The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French.  The three figures of the quadrille include a polka figure, a schottische figure, and a waltz figure.  The original instructions may be seen here (page one) and here (page two).  The individual figures are quite similar to some of French’s single-figure quadrilles, such as the Waltz Quadrille and Polka Quadrille discussed in earlier posts here (waltz) and here (polka) and bear a close family resemblance to other single-figure quadrilles of the era.

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  • Light Dragoon

    • Era: 1850s-1860s America

    “Light Dragoon” is an easy mid-19th century American country (contra) dance, one of a lengthy list of contra/country dances given in two manuals written by Elias Howe.  In one of the two, it is cryptically labeled “Pinkerton;” possibly this is the name of the choreographer of the dance.  It is performed in a longways set of any length, though four to six couples is easiest.  All couples are “proper,” with the men standing to the left of their partners when all are facing the top of the room.

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  • A Polka Quadrille (1893)

    By the end of the 19th century,  many quadrilles were being published that didn’t follow the earlier form of having multiple separate figures.  Although this short dance does have two distinct parts, they are treated as one long figure.  The source of the dance is The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French, published in Boston in 1893.  The original instructions may be seen here.  There are significant similarities in the figures to the Waltz Quadrille from the same source, which I described in an earlier post, as well a a generic similarity to other one-figure quadrilles of the late 19th century, which typically involve a mix of very simple figures interspersed with the entire set dancing in couples (waltz, polka, galop, etc., depending on the type of quadrille).

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  • Holly Berry

    • Era: late 1850s onward

    “Mrs. Henderson has introduced this dance in compliance with the request of pupils and friends, who were at a loss for a cheerful country dance in which all might join without previous instruction in the fashionable dances.”

    Holly Berry is a short set dance apparently composed by London dance teacher Mrs. Nicholas Henderson in the 1850s.  Its first known appearance is in the second edition of her Etiquette for Dancing, published in the 1850s.  The dance was also included in Elias Howe’s American dancing master and ball-room prompter, published in Boston in 1862, which appears on the Library of Congress website here.  Howe’s manual, unusually, includes a specific credit to Mrs. Henderson.

    The dance is reminiscent of the galopade country dances of the 1830s and was perhaps seen as too old-fashioned in style by the mid-19th century.  It does not appear to have been commonly reprinted and probably was not wildly popular.  But it makes an interesting change of pace in a Victorian or American Civil War-era reenactment ballroom.  (Edited 10/17/25 to add: Despite its inclusion in Howe’s book, I’ve no real evidence of it being danced in America and would not include it at a specifically American-themed ball.)

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  • Wrestling with Belle Brandon

    (Note: since this post was written, I’ve expanded my research on this figure and written a follow-up post, Revisiting Chassé Out, which discusses further sources and slightly alters my conclusion about the performance of the chassé out figure.)

    Recently my English friend and fellow dance teacher/reconstructor Colin Hume asked on the English Country Dance mailing list for help on some American dances he plans to teach later this month at a festival.  He posted his notes (the final version is now up here) and asked for advice, since he’s not a specialist on historical American dance.  I do a lot with quadrilles (French, American, English, Spanish, etc.) so I pounced on the challenge of the 1858 set he proposed to use, the Belle Brandon Set.  This five-figure quadrille is drawn from Howe’s Ball-Room Handbook (Boston, 1858) by Massachusetts dancing master and music publisher Elias Howe.

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  • A Waltz Quadrille (1893)

    By the end of the 19th century, quite a number of quadrilles were being published that didn’t follow the earlier form of having multiple separate figures.  Although this dance does have two distinct dance parts, the original instructions (which may be seen here) are clear that they should be treated as one long figure:

    Play an ordinary waltz and do not stop between the numbers.

    The source of the dance is The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French, published in Boston in 1893.  I haven’t looked for any other sources for this particular set of figures – it’s a trivial little quadrille which I reconstructed in order to have a late-evening set dance that was easy and provided an excuse for plenty of waltzing.

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  • Bits of Bijou: The Missing Middle of Durang’s 1848 Manual

    Research on social dance history does not always involve direct work on specific dances, and occasionally I get diverted to detective work on related historical mysteries in different fields – music, language, biography, etiquette, publishing history, and more.  Over the last few weeks, I have pursued a successful quest for some pages missing from an 1840s work by Charles Durang.  The process of locating these pages illustrates some of the frustrations of working with 19th century sources and the care needed in studying them.

    In her delightful overview of 19th-century dance and etiquette, From the Ballroom to Hell (paid link), Elizabeth Aldrich states that Durang (1796-1870) was a dancer at the Bowery Theatre who later taught dance in Philadelphia with his daughter Caroline and published at least four dance manuals.  I started looking for a copy of Durang’s The Ball-Room Bijou and Art of Dancing as part of the research for a particular set of quadrilles and rapidly found myself in the midst of a publication puzzle.

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  • How to Dance the Early Schottische

    • Era: 1850s-1870s

    A short, performance-oriented summary for those who want to skip the background and just go out and schottische.  This is intended as a summary for those already generally familiar with couple dancing, not as a way for new dancers to learn from scratch; a live teacher is always to be preferred to a written description.

    A fuller discussion of and list of sources for the schottische may be found in The Early Schottische.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

Email Susan

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