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Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Waltz

  • 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 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:

    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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  • 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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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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