Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Waltz

  • 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:

    1. In normal closed position, dance polka redowa, turning (six measures)
    2. Release hands and open up into “military” position, side by side (as described and shown here).
    3. Run forward six steps (two measures)
    4. Join hands again to repeat from the start

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  • Galop à Trois Pas (Three-Slide Galop)

    Known variously as the three-slide galop, three step galop, galop à trois pas,  or galop à trois temps, this late-nineteenth-century variation is simply the standard galop step migrated into waltz time.  I’ve previously discussed the galop in 2/4 time in detail; the three-slide version is the same kind of series of slides and “chasing” steps:

    1b    Slide-close-slide-close-slide = 1 & 2 & 3
    2b    Slide-close-slide-close-slide = 1 & 2 & 3

    This could also be described as slide-chassé-chassé, with each chassé being a “close-slide”.

    As is standard for galop, the first half is performed leading with the first foot (gentleman’s left, lady’s right) with the second foot then closing behind in order to again slide with the first foot.  The second half is then performed by sliding with the second foot and closing with the first.  As with the 2/4-time galop, no hop is mentioned.

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  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Fascination

    Fascination is another of the myriad minor waltz variations given by dancing master M. B. Gilbert, in his Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), who includes the dance “by permission of D. B. Brenneke”, presumably the creator.  It is essentially a longer and slightly more complex elaboration on the Gavotte Glide.

    Gilbert’s description reads:

    First Part:–Slide left foot to side (2d), 1, 2; draw right to left, placing weight on right, 3; one measure. Repeat one measure. Slide left to side, 1, 2; draw right to left and slide left to side (chassé), & 3; one measures. Draw right to left and slide left to side, & 1, 3; draw right to left, placing weight on right. 3; one measure.

    Second Part:–Waltz four measures. Recommence at first part.

    Counterpart for lady.

    The dancers are in standard waltz position, the gentleman facing the wall.  The lady dances the same moves on opposite feet.

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  • La Russe

    (Note 6/3/24: I’ve written a follow-up to this post; the link is at the end.  My reconstruction stands.)

    I picked La Russe out some time ago while looking for easy late nineteenth century waltz-time variations.  The name means “the Russian woman”, and I recently had the pleasure of teaching it in Moscow to a very talented group of Russian dancers.

    No specific choreographer is known for La Russe, but we can date it with unusual precision to just over 130 years ago.  Dancing master M. B. Gilbert, in his Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), noted that it was “introduced by the American Society of Professors of Dancing, New York, May 1st, 1882,” and it turns up in a couple of other American dance manuals of the 1880s.  All the descriptions are quite consistent, though the terminology used varies.

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  • The English Liked to Waltz

    A telegraph from London updates Americans on the early twentieth-century dance scene in London:

    Waltz Popular in London

        London, Jan. 2. — The lancers, quadrille, polka, and mazurka, once popular dances, have now almost disappeared from the ball programmes of fashionable London.  The American two-step to some extent has taken the place of the polka, but the dance most in favor is the waltz, which, according to an Italian expert, the English people seem to dance like persons in a dream, so slowly is the time usually taken.

        — The New York Times, January 3, 1909

    English dance teachers felt that this state of affairs called for high-level assistance, as a later article alerts New Yorkers:

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  • The Newport

    A new waltz or redowa variation pops up in a few of the manuals of the very late nineteenth century.  Presumably named after the wealthy resort town, the Newport appears in slightly different versions in different manuals, but the common element appears to be a series of quick sliding steps.

    Apparently the Newport was too new to be included in New York dancing master Allen Dodworth’s Dancing and its relations to education and social life  (New York, 1885).  The earliest and clearest description I have found is in M. B. Gilbert’s Round Dancing, published in Portland, Maine, in 1890.  His version, included “by permission of Russ B. Walker,” is essentially an ornamented version of the standard waltz of the late nineteenth century, with two rapid slides to the side rather than one in each bar for a “step-side-close-side-close” sequence rather than the usual “step, side, close.”  A half-turn is made on each bar, just as in the regular late nineteenth-century waltz, with a complete turn every two bars.

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  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: The Bowdoin

    This is the final post in this month’s little series of easy and useful late nineteenth century waltz variations from M.B. Gilbert’s 1890 manual, Round Dancing.  The first three posts in the series may be found here, here, and here.

    Gilbert notes of the Bowdoin that he “applied these movements to the Waltz during the seasons of 1888-89, and found the application very pleasing.”

    Once again, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding the waltz steps, with my preference being for the smoother transitions allowed by the gliding version.

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  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Le Metropole

    Returning once again to my short series on some of the more useful waltz variations published by M.B. Gilbert in his 1890 manual, Round Dancing, here’s a third simple variation for the late nineteenth century waltz.  The first and second posts in the series may be found here and here.

    Le Metropole uses the same simple sliding and waltzing steps of the Gavotte Glide but mixes them in a different way.  Gilbert attributes it to H. Fletcher Rivers.

    Like the Gavotte Glide, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding.  And as with the Gavotte Glide, its gliding feel makes me lean toward the latter for the sake of smoother transitions.

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  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Gavotte Glide

    This is the second in my short series on some of the more useful waltz variations published by M.B. Gilbert in his 1890 manual, Round Dancing. The first post in the series may be found here.

    Of all of the variations in Gilbert, this simple mix of sliding steps and waltz turns is probably the easiest and the one I use most frequently in teaching new dancers.  Gilbert attributes it to “Constantine Carpenter, Son, and Charles C. Martel.”

    As with the Diagonal Waltz, this variation will work either leaping or simply gliding, though its gliding feel makes me lean toward the latter for smoother transitions within the variation.

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  • Late Victorian Waltz Variations: Diagonal Waltz

    By the end of the nineteenth century, American dancing masters such as M.B. Gilbert were coming up with long lists of little waltz variations of dubious utility and doubtful popularity.  Many of these are minor variations on a few simple themes, often interpolating sideways slides and chassé steps between measures of waltz.  I’m going to do a short series on some of the more useful and leadable of these variations this month, all taken from the pages of Gilbert’s immense manual, Round Dancing, published in Maine in 1890 and incorporating many variations from the 1870s and 1880s.  Calling them “Victorian” is a bit of misnomer, since these are essentially American variations.

    The Diagonal Waltz does not actually involve anything other than the normal step of the “new” waltz (step-side-close pattern) of the late nineteenth century.  It is really just a sequence incorporating natural and reverse turns in such a way as to never make a complete turn in either direction.  This is so basic a waltz skill that similar sequences are incorporated into most twentieth century versions of the box-step or Viennese waltz as well.

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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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  • An Underarm Turn for the Half and Half

    I’m on a bit of a roll lately with variations for the 5/4 time waltz of the mid-1910s known as the half and half.  Here’s another easy one: an underarm turn for the lady, pulled once more from Dance Mad (1914), where it is included in a list taught by the “Castle Assistants” and prosaically labeled “Step 4.” The Castle Assistants are presumably associated with one of Vernon and Irene Castle’s dance studios.

    This is not the only variety of underarm turn in the half and half, but it’s the simplest of the variations I have come across other than the one found in a small 1914 book of sheet music by Malvin Franklin, illustrated at left (click to enlarge), where the gentleman just stands completely still while the lady makes her turn.  That doesn’t flow nearly as well as the Castle Assistants’ version.

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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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  • The Invention of the York?

    A couple of months ago I described the late 19th-century waltz-time move known as the York, which incorporated mazurka-style heel-clicks and was considered a variation of the polka mazurka.  At the time, the earliest source I had located was M.B. Gilbert’s Round Dancing, published in 1890, where the dance was included “by permission of E.W. Masters,” possibly its creator.  An interesting article from The New York Times, dated September 9, 1885, both brings the date of the dance back a few years and provides an amusing anecdote about the dance’s possible origin.

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  • The Yale University York

    • Era: 1890s-very early 1900s

    The Yale University York is one of those dance variations that probably had a short to nonexistent life outside the studio of its creator and a few other dancing masters.  Unlike the original York (described here), it seems to appear only in two sources: Melvin Gilbert’s Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and George Washington Lopp’s La Danse (Paris, 1903), much of which is merely a direct translation of Gilbert.  Both Gilbert and Lopp attribute it to A.M. Loomis.  Despite its obscurity and probable lack of popularity in its own time, I am devoting a post to it primarily because as a Yale alumna I am charmed whenever anyone names a dance after my alma mater.

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  • The Two-Slide Racket

    • Era: 1880s into very early 1900s

    I’m going to wrap up the year at Kickery with a different kind of racket waltz, the two-slide racket.  This variant appears in at least two major and two minor sources in late nineteenth-century America, as listed at the bottom of this post.  In the minor sources, the Cartier and Wehman books, which are compilations of dances from other sources, it is labeled “The Racquet”.

    Both the two major sources, Dodworth and Gilbert, list the two-slide racket as a redowa- or mazurka-time dance, implying a different accent in the 3/4 music than in a regular waltz.

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  • The Racket Waltz, or The Society

    • Era: 1880s into very early 1900s

    The simplest description of the racket waltz is that it is the step of the one-slide racket converted to waltz time, with the extra beat of music per measure added to the initial slide.  Edna Witherspoon, in The Perfect Art of Modern Dancing (1894), gives it the alternate title “The Society” and notes that “if thoughtlessly executed, it is a most ungraceful and unattractive dance.”  Allen Dodworth, in Dancing and its Relation to Education and Social Life (1885), adds that “The racket, in this accent, is that unfortunate dance known as the “Society,” and is the medium through which not a few show an entire absence of good taste in motion.”  Honestly, it’s not that bad!  It does not seem to have been quite as popular or well-known as the galop–time rackets I described earlier this summer, but it is an easy dance that works well to brisk waltz music.

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  • The Three-Step Boston or English Boston

    Concluding a trio of posts on easy hesitation waltzes, here is the simplest hesitation at all: a normal waltz sequence stretched over two bars of music.  Albert Newman succinctly described the dance in his 1914 manual, Dances of To-Day:

    In reality it is our Standard Waltz, but instead of taking two measures this Boston takes four measures.

    What this works out to in practice is that the first step (forward or backward) of each half-turn is held for an entire bar (three counts) and the step to the side and close are done on the first and third counts of the second bar of music, with the overall rhythm being ONE-two-three-FOUR-five-SIX.  The three steps taken over two measures give the variation one of its names; I see nothing especially English about this that would account for the other.

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  • The Pompadour Waltz

    The Pompadour Waltz is a minor but interesting variation on the five-step Boston or five-step waltz described by Albert Newman in 1914 (and by me here).  I have found it only in the collection Dance Mad, or the dances of the day, compiled by F. Leslie Clendenen and published in St. Louis in 1914.

    To perform the Pompadour, the dancers alternate brief hesitating grapevine sequences with the five-step Boston in an eight-bar sequence as described below.  The steps given are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

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  • The Five-Step Boston or Five-Step Waltz, 1914

    In his 1914 manual, Dances of To-day, Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman describes a four-bar waltz variation he calls the Five-Step Boston or Five-Step Waltz.  Unlike the five-step waltz of the mid-19th century or the half-and-half of the 1910s, this waltz is done in the usual 3/4 waltz time, spreading five movements out over the six counts of music.  This is a hesitation waltz movement, well-suited the fast waltzes of the early 20th century.   It is easy to learn and provides a pleasant break from constant fast spinning.

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  • Side by Side in the Half and Half

    The illustration at left is the last of a series of illustrations for the Half and Half taken from a small book of dance music published by Malvin M. Franklin in 1914.  For general information on dancing the Half and Half, an unusual 5/4 time waltz stepped on the first, fourth, and fifth beats, please see my previous post on basic traveling steps for the dance.

    In the illustration, the dancers have moved from a normal ballroom hold into a variant side-by-side position in which the lady’s left arm is stretched across the gentleman’s shoulders to take his left hand at shoulder height, while their right hands are joined behind her back.  In this position they move forward together with a series of “alternating steps then sliding steps” before, presumably, resuming ballroom position to continue the dance.

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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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  • 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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  • The Mistletoe Hesitation

    The Mistletoe Hesitation is a lovely little sixteen-bar hesitation waltz sequence originally published in F. Leslie Clendenen’s Dance Mad, or the dances of the day (St. Louis, 1914), a collection of dances and dance moves borrowed liberally from other dance teachers and manuals.  The Mistletoe is attributed to M.W. Cain and is one of the earliest uses I have found of a twinkle step.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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