As previously noted, European descriptions of American dances like the late nineteenth-century two-step are sometimes more helpful than American ones. Having spent more time than expected this past weekend speaking French in Toronto (with a bunch of folks from Montréal), I’m inspired today to point out a couple of American-influenced descriptions of the two-step from Paris around 1900.
Category: Victorian
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Double Scotch Reel
Double Scotch Reel does not seem to be Scotch and, as I reconstruct it, does not actually include any reels (heys). It is a trio contra (three facing three in long lines own the room) which I have found only in one source: the Gems of the Ball Room Call Book published by E. T. Root & Sons in Chicago in 1896. The Gems call book appears to have been published specifically as dance calls for quadrilles and contra dances to go with the tunes in a series of music books called Gems of the Ball Room also published by Root.
The contra dance figures in Gems have some noticeable variations from those found in New England manuals such as those of Elias Howe, which might indicate regional variations between the northeast and midwest or might be simple carelessness on the part of the editor. The language and format of the different figures makes it obvious that they were pulled from different sources, so I suspect that somewhere there is another source for Double Scotch Reel, and that the collator of dances for Gems copied it exactly.
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Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Polka Dot Waltz
The Polka Dot Waltz was either a sequence dance or waltz variant described by Melvin B. Gilbert in Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and later by [George] Washington Lopp in his translation-plus of Gilbert’s book, La Danse (Paris, 1903), in which it is listed as Polka Dot (Valse). Both Gilbert and Lopp credit it to Herman Strassburg, presumably the same dancing master who was the author of the Call Book of Modern Quadrilles (Detroit, 1889).
The pattern of the Polka Dot, its imaginative name, and the way Lopp formats the title make me suspect that this was not a variation for normal waltzing but instead was intended as a choreographed sequence dance matched to a particular piece of music. I’ve only been able to find one piece of sheet music by that title, “The Polka Dot Waltz”, by Edward A. Abell, (San Francisco, 1873), which is archived on the Library of Congress website. It does not include dance instructions. It is possible that Strassburg wrote this as choreography to go with it, or with a different waltz by the same name, but in the absence of proof one way or the other, it is also possible to dance it to any waltz music with even eight-bar phrases, either by the entire room dancing it in unison or by individual couples using it (carefully!) as a variation.
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Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Double Glide Waltz
The Double Glide Waltz, as described by Melvin B. Gilbert in his compendium Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), is an elaboration on the alternating measures of sliding and waltzing found in variations like the Metropole. In La Danse, by [George] Washington Lopp, published in Paris in 1903, it is called La Double Boston and credited to Lopp himself. Much of La Danse is a direct French translation of Gilbert, so Lopp’s addition of the credit to himself is notable.
Like other late variations such as the Bowdoin and Fascination, the Double Glide Waltz alters the sliding steps, in this case to include in each sideways measure two “slide-closes”, one slow and one fast. The pattern here is “one, two-and-three” or “slow, quick-quick-slow”. It also reverses the Metropole pattern from slide/waltz/slide/waltz to waltz/slide/waltz/slide, a distinction which is not particularly significant when actually dancing.
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New Scotia Quadrille
A while back I discussed the wonderful dance CD Music for Quadrilles, by the English band Green Ginger (with Kevin Smith). At the time, I skimmed over the tracks for five modern Scottish (RSCDS) dances, since I didn’t have any way to check the ones with historical sources against the originals. Since then, I’ve come across a copy of one of the editions of D. (David) Anderson’s Ball-Room Guide, a “New, Enlarged, & Complete Edition”, which the liner notes of Music for Quadrilles cite as the source for one of the historical dances, New Scotia Quadrille.
According to J. P. (Joan) and T. M. Flett in Traditional Dancing in Scotland
(paid link), David Anderson taught in Dundee and in a number of other towns from c1850-1911. His Ball-Room Guide seems to have gone through at least five editions, with the “New, Enlarged” versions appearing between the mid-1880s and late 1890s. Since the one I examined is not dated, and I have no others to compare it to, I cannot date it precisely.
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New York, New York
The New York is another of the myriad “redowa and mazurka” variations given in M. B. Gilbert’s Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890). Along with the Fascination, it is one of only a few variations credited to Indianapolis dancing master D. B. Brenneke. It reappears among the material translated directly from Gilbert in [George] Washington Lopp’s La Danse (Paris, 1903), where it is listed as a mazurka and again credited to Brenneke.
Gilbert gives both this “New York” and another dance called “The New York”, making it unclear whether the name refers to the city or whether it is simply a new version of the York. Lopp lists it as La New York, along with two different dances called La Nouvelle York. Lopp’s translations suggest that the reference is to the city as much as to the popular dance. That might make it something of a pun, since the New York does include the characteristic sliding sequence found in the first measure of the York.
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The Independent York
The Independent York is an interesting variation on the original York, albeit one that was probably rarely danced outside a studio context. I have found it in only two sources. The earlier is Melvin Gilbert’s Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), where it is uncredited, suggesting that Gilbert himself created it. The later source is La Danse, by [George] Washington Lopp, published in Paris in 1903, much of which is simply a French translation of Gilbert. It appears there as L’Indépendant York and is credited to Gilbert. The sequence is identical in both sources. Gilbert classifies it, as he does the York, under “redowa and mazurka”; Lopp lists it as a mazurka.
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Alternating racket waltz patterns
- Era: 1880s into very early 1900s
The last of the racket waltz patterns appears only in Allen Dodworth’s Dancing and its Relation to Education and Social Life (New York, 1885, reprinted 1900) and is thus saddled with his prosaic yet unwieldy title, “Alternating One Slide and Three Slide to Waltz.” That’s more a description of the technique a name, but it’s what we’ve got.
Unlike “Alternating the One Slide and Three Slide to Galop,” more usually known simply as the racket, the waltz-time version does not just combine the two existing racket waltzes (one-slide and two-slide) in a short/short/long short/short/long pattern. That works in waltz time since both the “short” and “long” patterns take only one measure apiece. Instead, this racket actually uses a three-slide racket, as in galop time, stretched in an irregular way from four beats to six, similarly to how the one-slide racket in galop is stretched from two beats to three in waltz time…but more complicated.
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Run, run…a redowa!
To be perfectly specific, that’s a polka redowa, a polka step in slow waltz time. This variation for it, called The Run, was, as far as I can tell, unique to the fifth edition (1892) of William B. De Garmo’s The Dance of Society.
The sequence is simplicity itself:
- In normal closed position, dance polka redowa, turning (six measures)
- Release hands and open up into “military” position, side by side (as described and shown here).
- Run forward six steps (two measures)
- Join hands again to repeat from the start
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Late 19th Century Jig-Time Dances: The Pasadena
The Pasadena, a would-be replacement for the two-step, appears in the 1900 reprint of New York dancing master Allen Dodworth’s 1885 tome, Dancing and its relations to education and social life, but can be dated back to at least 1898. It appears to have been created as a dancing school dance, as Dodworth’s nephew, T. George Dodworth, discussed in his introduction to the new edition of his uncle’s manual:
In order to bring the work up to date, I have been requested
to write an introduction which will include a list of dances that have come into fashion since my uncle’s book was originally published.
As a matter of fact, however, society dances have decreased, rather than increased, during this interval. When this work first appeared most of the round dances described in its pages were fashionable. But Dame Fashion is fickle, and, owing to some unaccountable change in taste, we now have only the Two Step, the Waltz, occasionally a Saratoga Lancers, and the Cotillion. In the dancing-schools the old dances are still taught, but with numerous new combinations, which are composed to improve the pupil and keep alive the interest. From these combinations we have the Tuxedo Lancers, the Amsterdam, Gavotte der Kaiserin, Minuet de la Cour (for four persons), and the Pasedena.
