Capering & Kickery

Caroline Walker's Dream Waltz, 1914

The Dream Waltz appeared in Caroline Walker's book The Modern Dances, three editions of which appeared in the year 1914.  Her Dream Waltz appeared in at least the second and third editions; the latter is available online here.  Another Dream Waltz appeared in both editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's Dance Mad (also both 1914), but it is distinct enough to be considered a separate dance, which I will look at in some future post.

The Dream Waltz is a simple hesitation sequence.  The dancers take normal closed ballroom hold.  The gentleman starts on the left foot, the lady on the right.  Steps below are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.
  

The Dream Waltz (16 bars of fast 3/4 waltz music)
1b    Slide left foot to the side (1), slowly closing right foot to left with weight on (3)
1b    Slide left foot to the side (1), swinging right foot to left (2) and away again (3)
            (making a quarter-turn)

1b    Step onto right foot (1), slowly closing left foot to right with weight on (3)
1b    Slide right foot to the side (1), swinging left foot to right (2) and away again (3)
            (making a quarter-turn)

4b    Four walking steps backward, one step per measure, starting left foot, dipping on fourth step
4b    Three walking steps forward, one step per measure, starting left foot, then shift weight back and dip backward on the fourth measure

4b    Balance forward onto left foot, back onto right, forward onto left, back onto right, rotating counter-clockwise (spin turn)

Repeat from the beginning.

Exeter Waltz

Last year I wrote up Massachusetts dancing master George F. Walters' Exeter Caprice, one of two Walters dances that appeared in the second edition of F. Leslie Clendenen's 1914 compilation, Dance Mad.  The other was the Exeter Waltz, a hesitation waltz sequence which, at sixteen bars, is long enough to function as a standalone sequence dance or, if the surrounding dancers are accustomed to accommodating hesitations, used as a puzzle-piece for improvisation.  There is no choreographic connection between the Exeter Waltz and the Exeter Caprice.

There were some difficulties in reconstructing the Exeter Waltz (see the Reconstruction Notes below); the following version is what I came up with after some experimentation with different possibilities.

Starting position: normal ballroom hold, gentleman's back to line of dance and lady facing line of dance.  Gentleman starts left foot, lady right.  The instructions below are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

The dance consists of sixteen measures of waltz music divided into two eight-bar sections.  Turns to the right are clockwise or natural; turns to the left are counter-clockwise or reverse.

Humming Bird Dance

"Humming Bird Dance" is a hesitation waltz sequence which appeared in the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis; both editions 1914).  It is attributed to "Mr. Menancon", who appears in the list of credits at the end of the second edition as "Elmond Menancon, 909 Elm Street, Manchester, N[ew] H[ampshire]".  I believe the first name ought to be "Edmond", since a dancing master of that name is listed in Manchester city directories from 1906 and 1918.  In the 1906 Manchester Directory, Edmond Menancon is listed separately as an artist, dancing master, and, interestingly, the sexton of a church.  Here's Menancon's advertisement from page 819 of the 1906 directory:

The sexton position seems a somewhat odd fit for an artist-photographer-dance teacher; the triple career doesn't seem to leave much time for a day job.  Perhaps it was his father?

In the 1918 residential directory, as transcribed here, he is listed as an "artist/teacher [of] dancing" having "rms" (presumably "rooms") at 318 Pearl. 

The Humming Bird Dance itself is a sixteen-bar sequence done in "one-step waltz" style, one step (sometimes with embellishments) per bar of waltz music.  The instructions in Dance Mad list it as for "Any waltz music."  Whichever piece is used, it will need to be at a fast hesitation waltz tempo, or the dance will drag.

To start, both dancers face line of dance, the gentleman behind and to the left of the lady.  The lady's right arm makes a semi-circle so that her right hand is over her head, palm up.  The gentleman takes the tips of her fingers with his own right hand.  Left hands are joined and extended in front.  This is referred to as "a la minuet", which would no doubt have startled  dancers of the original minuet in the eighteenth century.  Both dancers begin with the left foot.  

The basic step is onto the toes with a slight dip.  There is also a repeated three-beat sequence of stepping with a stronger dip (1), striking the free foot on the floor as it swings forward (2), and hopping while extending the free foot into fourth position forward (3).  The latter will be listed below as a "step-strike-hop" for brevity.

The Rocker Hesitation Waltz

Montréal dancing master Frank H. Norman was last seen on Kickery when I discussed his description of the Rag-Time Crawl, from his Complete Dance Instructor (Ottawa, 1914).  The Rocker Hesitation, or Rocker Hesitation Waltz, is another easy sequence dance attributed to Norman and taken from the pages of The Two Step, a journal of "Dancing, Acting and Music" that in 1919 was based in Buffalo, New York, and edited by Layton Walker, whose delightful cotillion (German) figures have featured on Kickery several times.  The associate editors were a Who's Who list of American dancing masters with a few international names, including many well-known to dance historians today from their surviving works: F. Leslie Clendenen, Albert W. Newman, Jacob Mahler, Charles d'Albert, George Washington Lopp, Oscar Duryea, and Norman himself.

The Rocker Hesitation was published in Volume XXIX, No. 6, of The Two Step, dated September 1919.  That year, the dancing masters were still struggling with the aftermath of the first World War and the musical and terpsichorean innovations of "jazzification" and the "shimmy" vs. the more respectable waltz, one-step, and foxtrot.  Among the interesting tidbits in the pages of The Two Step that year were that the waltz was coming back at the "slow" tempo of 48 bars (144 beats) per minute, which gives you some idea of how fast they were dancing it before the war! 

In a conveniently self-serving column in the October issue (in which the Rocker Hesitation Waltz instructions were reprinted) Norman stated, while discussing the rebound of dancing after the war, that

...as we are always craving for [sic] something new, England sends us a very pretty and easy new dance, one that will, no doubt, figure on all the programs this season.  It is called the Rocker Hesitation and is an offshoot or a rebound from a dance of somewhat similar name that proved too difficult for the average dancer to master with grace.

He doesn't go into details about the antecedent dance, but a plain "Rocker", attributed to Oscar Duryea, appears on other "latest dances" lists that year and might be the basis for the hesitation version.

It was noted in the November issue that Professor Norman demonstrated the Rocker Hesitation with a Mrs. S. Wyness for the visiting Prince of Wales at the Grand Army Dance on October 30, 1919 (one of two balls the Prince attended that evening) and that the Prince remarked that it was "a dainty and pretty dance."

Ada Rehan Waltz

The Ada Rehan Waltz is a simple and graceful hesitation waltz sequence published in Frank H. Norman's Complete Dance Instructor (Ottawa, 1914), where it is attributed to John Hackett of Hamilton, Ontario.  It is named for the famous Irish-American actress, shown at left in a famous 1895 portrait by John Singer Sargent (click to enlarge).  Quite a few photographs from her theatrical career may be found in the New York Public Library's digital collection.  By 1914 she had long retired from the stage, and I doubt she had any personal or professional connection to this dance.  

Edited 6/6/2019 to add: As recorded in The Director, Volume I, No. 8 (September 1898): a dance called "Ada Rehan" was adopted as one of three new dances by the Western Association Normal School, a meeting of dance teachers which took place that year in Toledo, Ohio, for two weeks starting on June 14th, 1898.  Among the officers of the Association were John Hackett, Second Vice President.  While I have not yet found definitive proof, I think it quite likely that the "Ada Rehan" adopted there was Hackett's "Ada Rehan Waltz" published by Norman sixteen years later.  Rehan was at the height of her fame in the 1890s, so it makes considerably more sense to have a dance named after her in 1898 than in 1914.  And the style of the dance is very much that of the sequence dances of the 1890s-1900s, as noted below.  [end added material]

The starting position for the Ada Rehan Waltz has the gentleman and lady facing each other, his back to the center of the room, both hands joined, and arms extended.  The gentleman starts with the left foot and the lady with the right.  His steps are given below; the lady dances opposite.  The dance follows the classic sequence dance pattern of "go this way, go that way, waltz", similar to the Berlin, the Veleta, the Rye Waltz, and many, many, many other sequence dances.

A St. Louis Hesitation Waltz (1914)

The generically named One Step Hesitation is a short hesitation waltz sequence that appeared in the second edition of the collection Dance Mad, or the dances of the day, compiled by F. Leslie Clendenen and published in St. Louis in late 1914.  It is subtitled "As Recommended by St. Louis Association Dancing Masters", and with no author listed, may have come from the hand of Clendenen himself.

Since the One Step Hesitation is almost entirely in the slowest possible type of hesitation (one step per bar of music), it calls for very fast waltz music or it will drag badly.  I prefer 180 beats per minute and up for this type of hesitation waltz.

The starting position is a normal ballroom hold with both dancers facing the line of dance.  The steps below are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  In general, forward steps are performed with a slight bounce to them: step (1), rise (2), fall (3).  

The full sixteen-bar sequence:

3b    Forward left, right, left; one step per bar
1b    Hop on left and swing right foot forward (1), step forward on right into a dip (2, 3)
4b    Face partner and step left sideways along line of dance, close the trailing foot; repeat step and close
(shift position slightly to the left so steps are entirely outside partner's feet)
3b    Three steps left, right, left around each other, clockwise, right hip to right hip, like a pomander walk
1b    Step strongly back on right foot into a dip (lady steps forward on left)
(shift position to the right)
3b    Three steps left, right, left around each other counter-clockwise, left hip to left hip
(end with the gentleman facing line of dance)
1b    Step strongly back on right foot into a dip (lady steps forward on left)
Repeat from the beginning

The last two dips are called "drop-dips" by Clendenen and are described fully under a different dance, the Dream Waltz, where each dip is referred to as "in reality a profound courtesy" by the gentleman, while the lady makes a "shallow dip" with the toes of her right (trailing) foot touching the floor.

For all three dips, the dancers need to rise again on the last beat of the measure in preparation for the next step.  These are not "hold that pose" moments, but brisk lunges 

The sequence is utterly straightforward to dance; the only real watch point other than coming out of the dips on time is the hop in the fourth measure.  The dancers need to avoid the common pattern of step (1), hop (2), swing foot (3).  In this dance, the hop is on the first beat of the next measure, so the dancers must step-rise-fall and then hop.  The dancers will notice a perceptible pause, but if the music is suitably fast, it won't feel awkward.

As a reconstruction, it is also fairly straightforward.  The only ambiguity is in the second half of the dance, when the dancers walk around each other for three measures.  In Dance Mad, the One Step Hesitation immediately follows the Rye Hesitation, which includes the same move with the dancers walking around each other for three measures then dropping into the dip/courtesy on the fourth, though in the Rye Hesitation, the walk-around does not reverse.  But the Dream Waltz, which follows after the One Step Hesitation, gives a slightly different turn called a "walking turn" in which the dancers shift their weight back and forth, more like a spin turn.  

Since the language in the One Step Hesitation is most like that of the Rye Hesitation (both use the phrases "walk three steps" and "moving around partners"), I've chosen to adopt the same movements for the walk-around part of this sequence.  

The One Step Hesitation can hardly be called a brilliant piece of choreography, but it is good for beginners because it incorporates common elements like the dips and walk-around.  It's not recommended for the social ballroom dancing, given the long stretches where there is no forward motion, unless all the dancers are doing it at the same time.

Cinderella

Cinderella is a short hesitation waltz sequence that appeared in both the first and second editions of the collection Dance Mad, or the dances of the day, compiled by F. Leslie Clendenen and published in St. Louis, with the two editions both coming out during 1914.  

The dance was created by St. Louis dancing master W. T. Clark.  I expect that it was named after the then-brand-new Cinderella Dancing and Skating Palace shown at left (photo from the Pinterest collection of Scott McIntosh; click to enlarge), where Clark was the manager and dancing master.  His role there is mentioned in the December 16, 1913, issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which also noted that Professor Clark would be demonstrating and teaching the Cinderella at the Post-Dispatch Christmas Festival Fund benefit the next evening, and that it would then be included on the evening's dance program, along with the Wave, the tango, the Castle Walk, the Norfolk and the Dream Waltz.

Respect the box step

I've been thinking a lot over the last few years about the underlying skills needed for various forms of social dance.  A critical one is the ability to shift steps between time signatures, as I discussed a couple of months ago.  And one of the best examples of that is what happened with the much-maligned "box step" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The box step doesn't get a lot of respect among historical dancers in America because it is strongly associated with modern ballroom dance studio practices.  That's unfortunate, because I'm increasingly convinced that its historical incarnation, the "new waltz" (in contrast to the older valse à trois temps with its pirouette), is extremely important to know for anyone studying American social dancing of the 1880s-1910s.  Despite this, it often gets pushed aside in favor of the older style, which is usually taught first and thus becomes the default social waltz in modern reenactment.  That's not wrong, exactly; it's not like the older waltz vanished in favor of the new. But I think that we ought to be spending a lot more time on the new waltz, because it appears to be one of the fundamental building blocks of the social dance of the entire late Victorian/Edwardian/ragtime era.

Let's look at how the box step got used historically:

Mr. Faurot's Hesitation Waltz

This hesitation waltz sequence by Seattle dance teacher George G. Faurot (c1879-1954) was published in both editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914).  Faurot himself was a native of Lima, Ohio, where his uncle Ben discovered oil and his brother Lee eventually became mayor.  Faurot Park in Lima was donated by Ben and is named for him.  

According to George's obituary, he fought in the Spanish-American War and then had a career in the oil industry before moving to Seattle, where he ran the Faurot Studio of Dancing with his wife, Nellie, for thirty years.  The Faurots' residence in the late 1930s is now a historical site in Seattle.  The building that housed their dance studio, the Oddfellows Building, still stands and is still home to a dance studio, Century Ballroom, though the Faurot Ballroom itself seems to have been in the first-floor space which is now the Oddfellows Cafe.

Interestingly, Lee, before becoming mayor, also seems to have dabbled in dance teaching before ending up in the insurance business and politics.  A family passion?

Faurot's hesitation waltz consists of two sixteen-bar sections which Faurot noted can be used individually or combined into a single thirty-two-bar sequence.  The first section moves against the line of dance at one point, so it's not a good sequence to do in a crowded ballroom unless the whole room is dancing in unison.  The second section travels only intermittently, with two two-bar sets of in-place hesitations, but is more practical for general use.

Twinkle, Twinkle: Fast and Slow

• Era: 1910s
• Dances: Foxtrot, One-Step, Hesitation Waltz

2014 marks one hundred years since the foxtrot made its first big splash, so it's very timely for me to have come across a copy of Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916).  This is by far the largest single collection of 1910 foxtrot step sequences I've ever found in one place, and many of them are completely new to me.

Lee's sequences were billed as "suitable for the ballroom, gymnasium, or playground, as well as for private exercise at home, either with or without a partner."  While several of them match foxtrot variations that I've previously discussed, they're given a poetic new set of names.  Can anyone guess which common sequences Lee endows with names like the Meditation Glide, Barcarolle, and Viola Dana?

The Rye Hesitation

Five years ago I posted a description of the late nineteenth-century Rye Waltz, a simple sequence dance set to a special version of "Coming Through the Rye" that alternates between duple and triple (waltz) meter. 

In 1914, Oklahoma City dancing master M. W. Cain submitted a new version of the dance, the Rye Hesitation, to F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad.  Cain's version is extremely simple, well-suited to beginning dancers.  It requires no actual waltzing; the waltz music segment is occupied by one-to-the-bar hesitation steps.

(At left, the dancers dip in the final step of the Rye Hesitation.  Click to enlarge.)

The Twinkle Hesitation Waltz

Like the similarly-named Twinkle Hesitation and the Mistletoe Hesitation, the Twinkle Hesitation Waltz is a sixteen-bar hesitation waltz sequence found in F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914) that uses the quick step-change-step known as a "twinkle".  Clendenen attributes it to T. MacDougall.  It can be used as a sequence dance to any fast 1910s waltz music, or the two parts can be used together or separately as variations in a regular hesitation waltz.

The dancers start in a normal ballroom hold, opened out to side by side facing line of dance.  Steps below are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

The waltz step used would be the box-shaped "new waltz" of the era rather than the fast-spinning rotary waltz of the nineteenth century.

Part One
1b    Step forward left
1b    Step forward right
1b    Step back left
1b    Twinkle by stepping back right to close feet on (1) and forward again left (3)
1b    Step forward right
1b    Step forward left
1b    Step back right
1b    Twinkle by stepping back left to close feet on (1) and forward again right (3)
(Turn to face each other, beginning to swing around clockwise to put the gentleman's back to line of dance)

Part Two
1b    Step left backward (lady forward) along line of dance
1b    Half-turn of reverse (counter-clockwise) waltz, right-left-right (back-side-close)
(Gentleman is now facing line of dance; continue the momentum of the reverse turn into the next two bars)
1b    Step left forward, pivoting a half-turn counter-clockwise
(Gentleman now has his back to line of dance, or close to it; the half-turn can be completed on the next step)
1b    Step right backward and dip (lady lunges forward); rise on (3) to prepare for next step
4b    Repeat all of above

Both the reconstruction and the dance itself are very straightforward.  The sequence and its component parts are easy enough to enter and exit from a regular hesitation waltz that no further explanation seems necessary.

The Hesitation Undercut

The hesitation undercut is so short that it seems more a variation for the hesitation waltz than a distinct dance.  F. Leslie Clendenen, in his 1914 collection Dance Mad, attributes it to S. Wallace Cortissoz, who was also credited in Dance Mad with a sixteen-bar sequence called the Twinkle Hesitation.

The eight-bar sequence is begun with the dancers in normal waltz position, the gentleman facing the wall and the lady the center of the room.  Steps are given below for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite. 

The waltz step used would have been the "new" waltz step, with a pattern of step-side-close, much like today's box step, rather than the older rotary-style waltz of the nineteenth century.

Up She Goes!

After the flight of the Wright Brothers in 1903, society was increasingly fascinated with the new aeroplanes.  Dance music and dancers followed the fad, with quite a few "Aeroplane Waltzes" being composed and at least two different dances by that name written.  Philadelphia dance teacher and writer Albert W. Newman published his own Aeroplane Waltz in his 1914 manual, Dances of To-day, suggesting that it be danced to the 1910 song "Come Josephine in my Flying Machine," though any other fast waltz will do.  The chorus to the song begins:

Come Josephine in my flying machine,
Going up, she goes!  up she goes!

I've included a brief snippet of the song for reference; click to play:

Come Josephine Snippet

 

Mr. Newman's dance, which was dedicated to the wealthy Philadelphian William P. Baltz, is a simple sequence dance that was also included in the 1914 compilation Dance Mad published in St. Louis by F. Leslie Clendenen.  Both Newman and Clendenen considered the dance particularly appropriate for children; given how silly the song sounds to modern ears, this is probably still valid advice.  My experience is that few adults can perform it for long without laughing.

The dancers start side by side facing along line of dance, joined hands together in front.  Steps are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

Mr. Newman's Aeroplane Waltz
1b    Glide left foot forward (1); raise right foot in front (2); hop on left foot leaving right foot raised (3)
1b    Repeat same leading on right foot
(dancers face each other in normal closed ballroom position)
1b    Glide left foot to side (1); draw right foot up to it (2,3)
1b    Repeat glide, with a more exaggerated step and a pronounced dip
4b    Turn to the left or the right with the Long Boston or simply waltz

By waltz, Newman means the "new waltz" of the late 19th and early 20th century, with the partners stepping forward-side-close/back-side-close, rather than the older rotary waltz.  The Long Boston, also known as the One Step Boston or Cradle Boston, involves stepping back on one foot with a bend (1), rising up on the ball of that foot (2), and dropping the heel (3), then transferring the weight to the other foot with the same sequence; repeat.  Turning to the right (with the gentleman's left foot back)or left (with the right foot back) is accomplished by shifting the back foot slightly clockwise or counter-clockwise each time the weight is transferred.  This makes for a slow, four-bar pivot turn which doesn't travel, though it's possible to be aggressive about it and make a full turn every two bars.  But it is not a series of traveling pivots.

The dance is intended to simulate the experience of being in an aeroplane, which does nothing to reduce the giggle-factor.  Newman helpfully explains that

"This glide and dip represents the aeroplane going over a mountain top and down into the valley."

Clendenen adds that in the turn,

"the body should sway slightly from side to side, to represent the unsteadiness of the aeroplane."

and that the entire dance should be performed with "an extreme lightness and most gracefully."

The sheet music for "Come Josephine" is available online at the marvelous Lester S. Levy Collection at Johns Hopkins Unversity, for those who would like to match tune and dance.

Two Easy Hesitation Steps

Here are a pair of easy hesitation waltz sequences from Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman's book Dances of To-day, published in 1914.  Newman unimaginatively calls them the "hesitation step" and the "hesitation step to the side."  I like to use these sequences as a short break from the fast regular waltz of the era and turning sequences such as the three-step and five-step Bostons.  They are also useful in a crowded ballroom -- the first to pause temporarily and the second to thread ones way between other couples more compactly than a turn permits.

Steps given are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  The sequences are performed in ballroom position with the gentleman facing out toward the wall of the room and the lady facing in toward the center.

Hesitation Step (two bars/six counts)
1 Step left foot sideways along line of dance, pointing right foot to the side
2 (hold)
3 (hold)
4 Transfer weight back to right foot, bending the right knee slightly
5 Straighten knee
6 Bend right knee slightly

I think of this informally as "step.....boing, boing" because of the springiness of the two little dips backward on the right foot on counts four and six.

Hesitation Step to the Side (two bars/six counts)
1 Step left foot sideways along line of dance, pointing right foot to the side
2 (hold)
3 (hold)
4 Cross right foot behind left (lady crosses left foot in front of right)
5 Step left foot sideways along line of dance
6 Close right foot to left in first position

This step starts with the same hesitation on the first bar, followed by a grapevine-like cross and side-step and a close of the feet.  Newman provides a diagram of the gentleman's steps for reference:

While Newman doesn't specifically pair the two sequences in his book, I find making them into a four-bar combination pleasing, with the first sequence gathering energy before launching into sideways motion on the second.

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.

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.

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.

The Twinkle Hesitation

The Twinkle Hesitation, attributed to S. Wallace Cortissoz, was published in Leslie Clendenen's collection, Dance Mad, in St. Louis in 1914.  I'd been looking at dances in that book that incorporated twinkle steps, and this one caught my eye as fun to dance.  The dance itself is a sixteen-bar, three-part sequence, but each part also makes a nifty independent addition to any hesitation waltz.

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.

The Overlooked Eight Step

• Era: 1910s
• Dances: one-step, tango, half & half, hesitation waltz

Why, in fifteen-plus years of dancing ragtime socially, had I never done the eight step?  It's not an obscure step; it's the first variation world-famous dance couple Vernon and Irene Castle give for the one-step and is also mentioned by them in their descriptions of the tango, half and half, and hesitation waltz.  And yet somehow I'd neither danced it nor reconstructed it until late 2007 when I was looking for interesting one-step moves for some new dance students.