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.
Category: Waltz
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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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The Half & Half: Basic Traveling Steps
- Era: 1910s
The half and half, a hesitation waltz danced in 5/4 time, was one of those novelties that appeared and vanished quickly in 1914. There may be as many people alive now who know how to dance it as ever danced it in its own era! It is also handicapped by having very few surviving pieces of music in the right time signature. Today’s experienced historical social dancers can probably hum the eponymous “Half and Half” from memory. Sources describing the dance are equally difficult to come by; I have only three in my collection, though one of them, Dance Mad, generously provides four separate descriptions.
Click here to listen to a half and half tune in 5/4 time.
