Capering & Kickery

Ocean Waves, 1914

As I go flying over the ocean waves for my miniature European tour, here's an appropriately-named one-step variation from the pages of Frank H. Norman's Complete Dance Instructor (Ottawa, 1914).  As far as I know, that is the only place "Ocean Waves" was ever published, so I would not consider it a common variation.  But it's kind of wacky fun and provides something besides boat swings to do with both arms outstretched, in case anyone was feeling the lack of such things.

The dance hold is as shown at left: partners facing with arms outstretched and hands joined.  The step itself is very simple.  I'll give the gentleman's feet; reverse for the lady.

Prepare by placing weight on the right foot and freeing the left foot in a raised second position.  It doesn't actually matter which way the dancers are facing, since the step turns on the spot, but since it will cause traffic problems, it's best done in the center of the room rather than right in the line of dance.

Ocean Waves
1&        Chassez: cut left foot to right, displacing right (1) and step to the right (&)
2           Cut: cut left foot to right, displacing right to raised second

1&        Chassez: cut right foot to left, displacing left (1) and step to the left (&)
2           Cut: cut right foot to left, displacing left to raised second

Repeat as many times as desired, turning in place and "allowing the hands to wave up and down at side imitating 'waves' ".  I don't find it graceful to move just the hands or even just the arms in this; I think what is meant, and certainly what I prefer, is something more maxixe-like, keeping the arms extended throughout and tilting the torso so that the left hand/arm/shoulder rises when the dancer is moving to his/her left and vice-versa.

The time signature was listed as "Tempo 3-4" -- tempo is misused this way repeatedly in the book -- but since it was notated in two and specifically said to be a variation that may be introduced in any one-step, I think this was simply a typo for "2-4".

Although Norman directs the dancers to turn, they could actually perform the step without any turn, either on the spot, going back and forth or progressing in a slight zig-zag along the line of dance, similarly to the one-slide racket, of which this is basically an accenting variation.  I don't personally count it as a racket since it lacks the characteristic slide on the strong (first) beat and distinctive fast "cut-cut" pairs, but it's certainly close kin.

The Canteen Canter, 1918

The Canteen Canter was a specialty dance choreographed by Oscar Duryea to the music of Case White and published in 1918 as a "cantonment one-step", a cantonment being a military camp or garrison.  (More information about cantonments in the United States during World War I may be found here.) 

The cover image, shown at left (click to enlarge) makes the association obvious, though there is nothing particularly military or terribly unusual about the dance itself.  Given its name, it is appropriate that it prominently features canter steps.

Rather than a fixed choreography, this is a set of, for want of a better term, figures, short sequences of four bars that can be repeated as often as one likes to fill up the music.  The sequences are simple - walking steps with the occasional cross of the foot, basic box-step and spin turns, and of course the "canter steps", essentially the lame duck.

The original sheet music, with dance instructions, is online here as part of the Lee Schreiner Sheet Music Collection at Northern Illinois University.

I don't have a proper recording of the music, but a computer-generated version of it has been uploaded by Dorian Henry to his YouTube channel (RagtimeDorianHenry), so one can at least get an idea of how the piece, written in 6/8, sounds:

It's a fun piece, and proper musicians could make much more of it.

On to the actual dance!

Early Foxtrot: The Minuet Turn

Keeping with the foxtrot theme, here's one more little sequence for foxtrot or one-step from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916).  Despite its overt simplicity, it actually manages to present a minor reconstruction issue!  As for the name...well, to be perfectly honest, I see absolutely no connection here to the minuet, any more than I do with Newman's Minuet Tango.  There seems to have been some concept of "minuet" in the 1910s which I have completely failed to grasp.

The gentleman's steps are given; the lady dances opposite.  The dancers begin in normal ballroom hold, the gentleman facing forward along line of dance and the lady backward.

One-Step Variations: Picket Fence

Here's an easy little one-step variation taken from Albert Newman's Dances of to-day, (Philadelphia, 1914).  The Picket Fence is loosely related to the grapevine in that it sends the dancers sideways along the line of dance though with much more back-and-forth travel in the process.  Newman's diagram for it is shown at left; click to enlarge.

The Picket Fence is actually taken from a section on Turkey Trot, so Newman had it performed with trotting steps, but the plain walking step of the normal one-step works just as well.

Newman's description:

"...four trots directly to the left rear oblique, then the same number of steps forward left oblique; in this forward movement have the lady to the right side in Yale position.  This backward and forward movement is in V formation, or zigzag, which is repeated several times and which is to represent, in design, the top of a picket fence, hence its name."

Well, that's straightforward enough!  The dancers begin in standard closed hold, facing each other.  The gentleman backs diagonally toward the center of the room, beginning with his left foot.  The lady moves forward, starting on her right foot.  After four steps, they individually turn one-quarter counter-clockwise and take four steps toward the wall on the new diagonal, the lady backing, starting with her right foot, and the gentleman moving forward on his left.  This moves them slowly along the line of dance.  To repeat the variation, they individually turn one quarter clockwise and again move toward the center of the room.

The only element of note is that in the second half (toward the wall), the dancers are in Yale position, right side to right side, as shown and described here.  The shift of position does not require any particular effort; the relative positions of the dancers makes it happen automatically.  If the entire sequence is repeated, the dancers will shift back to facing quite naturally.

At the end of the Picket Fence, however many times it has been repeated (or not), the dancers are situated perfectly to go into a Pomander Walk, to quarter-turn clockwise and back the gentleman more-or-less along the line of dance, or (with a quarter-turn the other way) to transition into a basic one-step backing the lady in Yale position and eventually transitioning smoothly into a Yale grapevine.  If one were feeling radical, or needed to be more toward the center of the room, one might even stop at the halfway point and switch a basic one-step or other variation (there are many others) there instead.

Edited 12/8/22 to add:
The Picket Fence in waltz time was used in the Newman Hesitation Boston, described here, under the name "Stroll".  At one step per measure  is a lovely move in hesitation waltz as well as one-step or turkey trot.

Early Foxtrot: Quick Dips

Ah, June, when one turns one's thoughts (and feet) to...weird little foxtrot variations! 

This time around, let's look at a pair of steps, or rather step-sequences, from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916) that both involve quick dips.  These are actually ever-so-slightly harder to do than the usually run of walks, trots, glides, and two-steps that make up a great deal of the 1910s foxtrot repertoire.  Lee noted that the first of these, The Coney Island Dip, is "very exhilarating and excellent exercise for the lungs."

The gentleman's steps are given; the lady dances opposite.

Rothard's One-Step

This one-step sequence appears in the second edition of F. Leslie Clendenen's 1914 compilation, Dance Mad.  It is titled simply "One Step" with the attribution "by E. Clarence Rothard".  Rothard is listed in the thank-you credits in the back of the second edition, but his location is not given and a cursory search has not turned up any specific information about him.  An "Edna Rothard Passapae" was teaching dance in Newark, New Jersey, by at least 1918 and might have been the daughter of E. Clarence, since it was not unusual for daughters to follow their parents as dance teachers.  But even if she was, that doesn't necessarily mean that E. Clarence Rothard was also based in New Jersey.

Rothard's one-step is quite a lengthy sequence.  There are eight separate sections of the dance, some of which are repeated.  The overall pattern of the dance segments is ABCCDEFGHDH, each letter representing four bars of 2/4 music (eight beats) for a 44-bar (88-beat) dance.

The specified tune is "Hungarian Rag" (left; click to enlarge), a popular 1913 composition by German-American composer Julius Lenzberg adapted from Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies.  The piece is still well-known; period recordings of it may be found here and here, and a modern version here.  The sheet music is available online at the Charles Templeton Sheet Music Collection of Mississippi State University.

The sheet music is notated as 16b (repeated), 16b (repeated), 20b, 16b, and 16b.  How exactly this is supposed match up with a 44b dance is an interesting question, but since the dance is broken into four-bar units, one can make it fit by adding another repeat of one of the 16b strains for a total of 132 bars, which allows for three times through the dance.

One-Step Variations: La Bursco (El Brusco?)

"La Bursco" is a minor variation on the single hesitation in the one-step.  It was described in an undated booklet called Dancing, written by Charles F. Burgess and Virtus R. Scott as part of the King's Booklet series.  This booklet was published by Wehman Bros., though a colophon on the first page gives a copyright and publishing credit to Moses King, Inc.  It was probably published in 1914, as it covered the then-newly-fashionable hesitation waltz and half and half, along with the one-step, tango, and maxixe, but did not include the even newer foxtrot.

The name "La Bursco" is something of a mess.  It is presumably meant to be Spanish, but is not actually a word in that language, and the feminine article with a masculine noun makes no sense.  Spanish was clearly not Burgess and Scott's strong suit, since they managed to misspell rueda as roueda in another variation name.  So I think that this is most likely another error and that bursco is a typo for brusco, meaning brusque, or, in the context of movement, sharp or abrupt.  That seems more-or-less logical for a hesitation in the one-step.  The noun form, el brusco, would literally mean a brusque answer. 

Leaving aside the name, the move described is a single hesitation in which the dancers switch from "tango" position (both walking forward along line of dance) to face-to-face for the duration of the hesitation only.  The sharp switch from forward to facing and back to forward would presumably be the brusco part.  This is a simple way to add an extra fillip of style to the single hesitation I described here.

Quadrille for Two, 1913

Like the little one-step variations I discussed a year ago, the delightfully misnamed Quadrille for Two is drawn from a series of articles published in the Chicago Daily Tribune by actress-writer-producer Elsie Janis.  "Old Steps Made New" appeared on December 14, 1913, and featured Janis being inspired by old-fashioned dances such as the gavotte, minuet, and quadrille. 

The Quadrille for Two is not actually a quadrille.  It's a little one-step sequence for two dancers, with its supposed quadrille style coming from the inclusion of a quick dos-à-dos and a turn by right elbows, as shown at left.  Janis also gives a version for a group of four couples, but it is done in a longways country dance set, not a quadrille set.

Janis claims that she got the idea for this from an elderly dancer:

I was talking to a sweet old lady of about 60 on the subject of the dances of today.  She was an up to date little lady, and the type, only too rare, who believe that life is nice and every one ought to be allowed to enjoy themselves even to the extent of dancing the new dances.  She suggested to me an idea which I at once proceeded to carry out.  She said she did not see why the young dancers of today did not do some of the old quadrille steps in their dances.  I argued with her that in this day the girls liked one partner at a time and that it took too many to dance a quadrille.  She came right back at me by saying that all the dancers seemed to be seeing who could do the fanciest step and she thought some of the quadrille steps done by two would be attractive.

It might even be true, though it gives something of the same impression of false modesty or blame-shifting as dancing masters who claim as an excuse that their students made them do things.

The Rag-Time Crawl

I semi-jokingly call the Rag-Time Crawl "the dance for when I get tired of the Castle Schottische".  It basically fulfills the same function: easy to dance, accessible to beginners, and comforting to people who are not up to leading and following and enjoy the Macarena-like effect of everyone moving all together in the same pattern.

My source for the dance is Frank H. Norman's Complete Dance Instructor (Ottawa, 1914).  The author is J. B. McEwen of Glasgow, Scotland.  I don't know a lot about either of these gentlemen, but I can offer a few bits of trivia:

• There seems to have been considerable back-and-forth between North America and Europe by dancing masters in this era.  Norman's introductory pages note that he was a member, honorary member, or affiliate of dancing organizations in the U.S. and Canada, England, Scotland, and Paris.  

• He had been teaching long enough to include a testimonial from the Countess of Aberdeen (wife of the Governor-General of Canada from 1893-1898) for teaching her children back in 1894, and in 1919, he was the master of ceremonies for a ball in honor of the Prince of Wales in Montréal, as reported in the November, 1919, issue of the Buffalo (New York) dance journal, The Two-Step.

• McEwen published at least one book, The Ball Room Exponent and Guide to Fashionable Dancing (Glasgow, c1902), which I do not have a copy of, and by the 1920s had a dancing school associated with the Norwood Ballroom, as may be seen on The Glasgow Story website.  

• Like Norman, he boasted international connections; he is quoted as listing himself in his book as “the only Teacher of Dancing in Scotland possessing the British, French, and American Badges of Proficiency.”  He turns up in the same November, 1919, issue of The Two-Step in a blurb datelined London, November 5th:

The hesitation waltz is to be the dance of the season in London, in the opinion of J. B. McEwen, dance instructor de luxe, who has just completed his education in the latest dances in Paris and America.  

The hesitation dates back eight or ten years in the States, but McEwen has just discovered it, and he thinks it will be all the rage here in a few weeks.

Entering the Yale grapevine

Now that I've described my preferred grapevine, let's talk about how to get it started.

The way I was taught to enter a Yale grapevine was to go through "tango position", a closed position with both partners opened up slightly so they can both move forward, on opposite feet, along line of dance.  At some point, the gentleman twists himself a bit so that he steps more sideways with the left foot and then crosses the right behind to start the grapevine, the lady continuing her tango position walk, which is, in effect, a cross in front as the gentleman's twist puts them into left Yale position.  He then leads her into the side step and back cross as he crosses forward.

I'm sorry, but by my current standards, that is just not elegant enough.  If the gentleman does all the twisting without the lady mirroring him, it feels like the gentleman is twitching peculiarly while the lady strolls along obliviously.  If they both face each other on the side step, the lady ends up going forward/sideways/forward, an annoying back-and-forth.  And it does not even have the virtue of being easy!

With over two decades of one-step practice behind me, here are four options I like better:

One-Step Variations: the Castles' Jump-Kick

Slowly but surely, I'm trying to cover all of the core repertoire of the one-step.  The little jump-kick flourish that Vernon and Irene often dropped into their one-step is not really a critical or even common part of the dance.  I'm not even sure anyone else ever danced it.  But it's fun and distinctive and worth doing regardless.  It's also dead easy!  

I've never found an actual written description of this flourish, or even a name for it; "jump-kick" is just what I call it.  But it's quite visible in the surviving film of the Castles dancing in The Whirl of Life (1915).  There are also two reasonably reliable later sources: newsreel footage of Irene Castle dancing with a different partner (Vernon having died in 1918) at the 1939 World's Fair, and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing in their Castle biopic, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), for which Irene served as an advisor.

One-Step Variations: Arabesque Turn

A variation for the one-step that is more often seen nowadays in the tango appears in period sources under a few different names: in the second edition of the compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914), it turns up as the "Castle Turn (Arabesque Turn)", while Troy and Margaret Kinney, in Social Dancing of To-day (New York, 1914) termed it the "Murray Anderson Turn".  Both names were flattering references to noted dancers.  The Castles, of course, were Vernon and Irene, the internationally famous dance couple.  John Murray Anderson, who posed for the photos in the Kinneys' book, was a dancer and dance teacher, and eventually an impresario who started the Greenwich Village Follies, which in 1923 featured a young Martha Graham.  

I don't think either Anderson or the Castles invented the move; it's stolen directly from Argentine tango.  So I'll just leave it at "arabesque turn".

One-Step Variations: The Outer Edge

One of the things I do on long bus trips is watch videos, and one of the videos I've been watching recently is clips of the famous 1910s dance couple Vernon and Irene Castle dancing in their quasi-autobiographical 1915 silent film, The Whirl of Life.  

The Castles can be maddeningly unclear writers, but they were unquestionably superb dancers, and their book, Modern Dancing (1914), is not the sort of random compilation of other people's steps that you see in other works of this era.  So I assume that anything that they thought to put in it must be something they considered important, and, when I have time, I try to match up step descriptions with their actual performance to see how what they wrote comports with what they did on the dance floor.

One of the moves that I'd never done much with before is quaintly entitled "The Outer Edge".  Here is the Castles' description, from Modern Dancing:

The man steps out to the right side of the lady with his right foot.  He then steps to side with his left, draws the right up to it, completing the Draw to the left.  The Draw Step is danced in front of the lady.  To do this the man steps to his side, one count -- that is, when he crosses his foot over his left.  Now he brings the lady directly in front of him, continuing the step in that position the three remaining counts.  This step can be combined very easily with any of the other steps, as it is simply a walk.  The lady starts backward by crossing the left foot in back of the right.  She steps out to the right side with the right, draws the left up to it, completing the Draw Step.

I did mention that the Castles were not the clearest writers.

Two little tappers

Following up on my description of Elsie Janis' two little tapping variations from 1913, here's a pair of similar moves from the second edition of Dance Mad, a compilation of dance steps and sequences collected by F. Leslie Clendenen from dancing masters around the United States and published in St. Louis in 1914.

The first is simply called "The Tap" and is a form of hesitation like Janis' three-steps-and-a-tap sequence.  Happily, it does not travel against the line of dance, which makes it a considerably more socially friendly move.  The sequence is very simple.  The dancers start in closed position, the gentleman moving forward and the lady backward along the line of dance.  The gentleman's steps are given below; the lady dances on the opposite foot.

Two little trippers

I'm on the road again this week, hauling my still-jet-lagged self to the library to do research as well as DJing in the evenings, so it's a good week for easy one-step variations!  These two are taken from an article by Elsie Janis published in the Chicago Daily Tribune on November 23, 1913.  Janis (1889-1956) was a vaudeville actress who moved to the stage and later to film, as well as a poet, songwriter, composer, and producer.  Ohio State University has a nice online exhibition on Janis with a biography and related ephemera.

While we tend to think of 1914 as the significant year for the new dances of the ragtime era, since that's when a cluster of major books on the topic came out and the foxtrot made a splash, several of the major dances of the 1910s became popular slightly earlier.  Janis wrote about some of them in a series of breezy newspaper articles in late 1913.  Dances covered included the one-step, Castle walk, hesitation waltz, and tango.

This particular article is misleadingly titled "It's Not What You DO -- It's What You DON'T In The One-Step Variations".  What you don't do, in brief, is move your body in various ways that were considered vulgar.  But Janis' heart wasn't really in this topic.  After one short paragraph, she went on to devote three columns (plus illustrations) to what you do do, meaning variations.

Here are a pair of easy ones that can be generically described as "one-two-three-something".

Yale Positions

I sometimes wonder what it is about Yale that gets its name attached to dance positions as well as dances. 

At left is the Yale position of the 1910s, as illustrated in Albert W. Newman's Dances of To-Day (Philadelphia, 1914).  Click to enlarge the image.  The dancers stand right side to right side, feet not interlaced at all.  It's a perfectly reasonable position for traveling or hesitating in the one-step and a necessity for starting off moves like the Pomander Walk or the various hop-turns in the foxtrot.  Newman also calls this the American position, so I suppose there are some pleasing associations there: Yale, all-American college boys, rah rah, Boola Boola, etc.

I used to make jokes about this position being a reflection of Yale students' dating life (looking right past each other...), but earlier in the century Yale's reputation seems to have been rather the opposite.

Hop, hop, foxtrotters!

Concluding my extended celebration of the foxtrot's centennial year: more about the hop-turn!

A few years ago, I considered hopping in the 1910s foxtrot to be a relatively obscure practice -- I'd only ever found one sequence with a hop in it and had only a brief mention in a newspaper article to reassure me that it was not just a one-couple oddity.  But looking through Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916), there are actually several sequences that include hops, including two that are strikingly similar to the previously described Bassett/Elliott hop-turn.

Here are two more ways to, in the words of the newspaper article, "make our turn with a quick, fast hop" while foxtrotting.

One-Step Variations: Reverse Dip Step

Vernon and Irene Castle's Reverse Dip Step shows up as a one-step variation in two little commercial publications that feature the Castles: Victor Records for Dancing (1916?) and Three Modern Dances (1914), also published by Victor.

The Reverse Dip is a simple little hesitation sequence.  The recontruction is made particularly easy because the Castle were kind enough to include in Three Modern Dances a filmstrip sequence of themselves performing the moves.  I've included a scan of it at left; click to enlarge.  The original is only about 8" x 2.5", so the image quality when enlarged is not going to be great. 

To follow the sequence, start at top left and go down the left-hand column, then down the right-hand one.  Note the product-placement victorla in the background; Three Modern Dances includes ads for eight different victrolas as well as for records.

To perform the Reverse Dip, the dancers should be in "Yale" position, right hip to right hip, with the gentleman facing line of dance.  The gentleman starts with the left foot, the lady with the right.  The sequence is only eight counts:

123    Three walking steps (him forward L-R-L, her back R-L-R)
4        Rock weight onto trailing foot (him back R, her forward L)
123    Three walking steps (him back L-R-L, her forward R-L-R)
4        Dip, bending the knees (him back R, her forward L)

At the end, simply rise to start off on the left foot again and repeat or move on to return to a basic one-step or other variation.

The dip is not a simple rock backward; the dancers keep an upright posture and bend their knees, as can be seen clearly in the slide "D".

The Reverse Dip breaks down on the filmstrip as three walks (A to B), rock and three more walks (B to C), dip (D), and repeat starting with the three walking steps (D to E).  Though the film shows a turn, that is a function of trying to keep the performance in camera range, not an actual part of the move. 

Note that this is what I call an anti-social variation: it not only hesitates, it goes directly against line of dance and thus creates a significant danger of a collision with other dancers.  So it's a poor choice for a crowded room, but a nice move to do on a big floor with few couples dancing, or in the center of the room, a corner, or some other out-of-the-way location.

The Castles' Paul Jones

In 1914, Victor Records made a celebrity-endorsement deal with Vernon and Irene Castle, "the greatest exponents of Modern Dancing who supervise the making of Victor Dance Records".  The company put out a little booklet, Victor Records for Dancing, which included short instructions for various couple dances (including the brand-new foxtrot) plus an enthusiastic note from Vernon Castle about the superiority of Victor records and the indispensibility of the Victrola in teaching classes. 

The instructions for each dance were accompanied by a convenient list of suitable Victor recordings.  Tucked at the end of the book were instructions for a country dance and a Paul Jones circle mixer "as taught at the Castle School of Dancing, New York City".

In the past, I've discussed a very simple 1903 two-step circle mixer and a more complex English Paul Jones from the 1920s.  The Castles' version is quite similar to the 1903 one, but it's physically rather livelier while mentally less taxing; the dancers don't have to count. 

Here's the pattern:

8b    Slipping circle to the right
8b    Slipping circle to the left
??    Grand right and left (starting right hands to partner) until signal given
??    Dance with the person you are facing until signal given
Re-form the circle and repeat all of the above until the music ends.

The Castles helpfully confirm that "As the time for changing is optional, the signal, which is usually the blowing of a whistle, is left to the discretion of the director of the dance."

The reconstruction is fairly straightforward, but there are a few minor issues:

The printed instructions mistakenly list "grand right and left changing to counts of 8 measures", which I believe was more likely intended to be "counts of 8", or four counts per change of hands, which is a typical pace for a grand right and left.  It has to be some sort of error, since there is no exact duration for this figure; it goes until the signal is given.

The circles are described as "all slide to right chassé" and "Repeat to left chassé"; in practice, this is a "sixteen-slide galop" in each direction. That's a lot of slipping, so it wouldn't bother me particularly if it were cut to four measures each direction in practice. 

The slipping is a little tricky to manage when coming back together after dancing with a partner; any laggard dancers cannot easily join in without getting mowed down.  A signal by the director of the dance to tell the dancers when to start slipping is probably going to be required.  Making sure to signal to reform the circle with at least two measures' lead-time before the end of a phrase will help let the dancers get into position ready to start with the musical phrase.  Four might be safer.

The slipping circle starting to the right is weirdly reminiscent of the opening "grand round" change of an 18th-century French cotillion, though in no other respect does this dance resemble "Le Paul Jones", an unexceptional cotillion from the 1770s with no mixer element.

For music, dancer were referred to the lengthy list of "Victor Records for the One Step", but the Castles also noted that "The One-Step is generally used for the Paul Jones...but the Fox-trot, Canter or old-fashioned Waltz may be used."  In practice, an "old-fashioned waltz" would presumably require canter (1...3) rhyhm in the slipping circles, which would make for a much gentler dance.

It being the year for 1914 centennial balls, a Paul Jones is something to consider for a ball program, especially early in the evening, in order to break down social barriers and allow strangers to meet.

Cross Steps in the Early Foxtrot

Rounding out my little miniseries celebrating the centennial of the first burst of popularity for the foxtrot, here's another pair of variations from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916) that each feature a moment when one foot crosses over the other.

The "Side Swing" starts with the usual four walking steps, followed by a pair of quick-quick-slow moves.  The first quick-quick-slow moves diagonally forward to the left (back to the right for the lady), but instead of being a two-step, the sequence is step forward - cross in front - step forward.  The second quick-quick-slow is an actual two-step, done to the right, with my preference being for a slight diagonal angle rather than directly out toward the wall of the room.  Here's the gentleman's step sequence:

1234    Four walking steps (starting left)
1&2     Step diagonally forward left, cross right over left, step forward left
3&4     Two-step (step-close-step, not turning, starting right)

The lady dances opposite, as usual, with one major exception.  Whether she crosss behind or in front on the cross step is not specified by Lee, but experimentation with both options leads me to believe that a front cross, mirroring the gentleman, is the most likely.  While leading her into a back cross is certainly possible, and not particularly difficult in the context of this variation, it makes a full back step after the cross less natural; the tendency is to just close the feet instead.  Having both partners cross in front works more smoothly and provides a nice contrast to the following two-step.

Lee commended this step to dancers as "producing a swaying motion that relieves the monotony of the forward movement".  She also suggested that it could be danced as a variation for the one-step by making the running steps of equal length to the walking steps.  This produces an odd nine-beat sequence that shifts the lead foot relative to the musical beat:

1234    Four walking steps (starting left)
123      Step forward left, cross right over left, step forward left
4&5     Two-step (starting right)

The Side Swing is entirely leadable for good dancers, even if the follower has never previously tried it.

The more romantically named "Chaplin Trot" features a long walk-trot sequence (four slow steps and eight quick steps) followed by a fast cross and side-to-side hesitation as follows:

1234            Four walking steps (starting left)
1&2&3&4  Seven trotting steps (starting left)
&                 Cross right foot over left
1&2             Step side left, side right, and draw left foot to right without weight

Once again the lady dances opposite except on the cross step, where she also crosses in front.  The final quick-quick-slow moves perpendicular to the line of dance, the couple stepping first toward the center of the room and then toward the wall, closing the free foot without weight.  To lead the "without weight" part, the gentleman should simply keep his weight firmly on the right foot, or even sway just slightly toward the right.  A good follower will pick this up without ever having danced the sequence before.

The final side-side-close (effectively a hesitation, since the dancers make no forward progress for two beats) feels vaguely similar to the box step, which is a legitimate move for 1910s foxtrot.  But I would not recommend teaching the Chaplin Trot in combination with the box step to newer dancers.  The close without weight in this sequence will sow confusion, since in the box step dancers close with weight during the final side-close.

Lee described the step as a good one for "young couples desiring plenty of action and a touch of the spectacular" -- evidently her threshhold for spectacle was somewhat lower than mine --  and notes, accurately, that it is "an excellent ground gainer".

Special thanks to Irene for dance-testing the foxtrot variations for this miniseries!

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?

Sorority Glide

Most of the steps in Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914) were collected by "author" F. Leslie Clendenen from other dancing masters, but he gives himself credit for the Sorority Glide, a sixteen-bar one-step sequence that he recommends be danced to "Too Much Mustard" or "any One Step music of a similar swing.  It's a fun little sequence with a very "Castles" feel to it and room for some personal style.  It works as an independent dance or can be plugged into a regular one-step as a variation.

The dancers begin in a ballroom hold, turned out slightly so both face line of dance.  The dancers need to be far enough apart to make a cross step without crowding.  Weight should be shifted onto the forward (outside) foot, the gentleman's left and the lady's right, since the dance starts on the inside foot.

The Sorority Glide
1. Cross-Chassez (four bars/eight counts)
Cross inside foot (his right/her left) over outside foot (1) and use outside foot to make a chassez, closing and pushing the inside foot forward again (&2).  Repeat, counting 1&2&3&4&5&6&7&8, ending on a cross of the inside foot.

2. Point-cross-point-close (two bars/four counts)
Point outside foot (his left/her right) sideways along line of dance (1), cross it over inside foot (2), point inside foot (his right/her left) sideways against line of dance (3), and close it to the other foot with weight (4).

3. Draw steps (two bars/four counts)
Step sideways along line of dance (1), close (2), step sideways (3), close (4).

4. Gallop and half-turn (four bars/eight counts)
Gallop one bar (side-close-side-close, 1&2&) then step side (3) and close (4).  The half-turn is a slow, three-count two-step turn: side, starting to turn (5); close (6); side, completing turn (7).  The dancers are now turned halfway; line of dance is "over elbows".  Point the inside foot (his right/her left) along line of dance without weight (8).

Repeat the gallop and half-turn over elbows, but at the end, put weight on the pointing foot (his left, her right) to set up for a repeat of the sequence.

Dixie Swirl

The Dixie Swirl is a short tango-ish sequence found in F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914).  While it is not actually in the tango section and doesn't really have much of a tango feel, the brief description states that it is to be done to tango music.  It is attributed to Mrs. Nantoinette Ohnmeiss, about whom I've not been able to discover any information.

The sequence appears at first glance to be eight bars, which is really too short to be interesting:

2b    Gallop four times along line of dance (slide-close x4)
2b    Two-step (presumably a full turn)
4b    Swirl (the spin turn described here)
Repeat from the beginning

I've interpreted the "gallop four times" rather literally, as a repeating slide-close, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to interpret it as a four-slide galop, which gives the dance one and a half turns, meaning the repeat starts on the opposite foot and is "over elbows" for the gallop steps.  That makes the pattern of the first half the equivalent of the old Esmeralda or the more contemporary Glide Two-Step (published by Albert Newman in 1903), which seems reasonable. 

That gives us a more interesting sixteen-bar sequence with a typical repeat pattern of altering the lead foot on the repetition.  I've written it out in detail below, giving the steps for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  The dancers start facing each other, joined hands pointing along the line of dance.

Dixie Swirl (sixteen bars of tango music)
2b    Four-slide galop, ending with half-turn (LRLRLRL, 1&2&3&4)
2b    Two-step, full turn (RLR LRL, 1&2 3&4)
4b    Spin turn (R fwd/L back x4, 12345678)
(End with R side toward line of dance)

2b    Four-slide galop "over elbows", ending with half-turn (RLRLRLR, 1&2&3&4)
2b    Two-step, full turn (LRL RLR, 1&2 3&4)
4b    Spin turn (L back/R fwd x4, 12345678)
(End with L side toward line of dance, ready to restart from the beginning)

A note on the "swirl", as the spin turn is generally referred to in Dance Mad: 

The first time, the gentleman's first step is right foot along line of dance, then rock back left to the center of the room, right toward the wall, left back against line of dance, right against line of dance, left back toward the wall, right toward the center of the room, and left back against line of dance.  This leaves the dancers making a quarter turn to the left (or just underturning slightly) to be ready to proceed "over elbows" for the second iteration.

The second time, because the gentleman's left foot is free, it starts with left back against line of dance, right toward wall, left back toward center, right against line of dance, left back along line of dance, right toward center, left back toward the wall, right along line of dance, and making a quarter turn to the right to repeat from the beginning.

It is possible to do two complete spin turns in eight counts with enough momentum, but that doesn't seem to be in keeping with the leisurely feel of the sequence.

The entire sequence would work equally well as a one-step.

The Castle Glide

Despite the name, the Castle Glide is a short one-step sequence which, despite its name, was composed not by Vernon and Irene Castle, but by Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman.  It appeared in Newman's 1914 manual Dances of To-Day.  Newman called it "quite a jolly dance and easy to execute".

The Castle Glide features the galop step I discussed last week in its classic nineteenth-century version of slide-close-slide-close-slide-close-slide, with a half-turn on the final slide, repeated for a full turn overall.  Note that there's no hop, either initiating or on the turn!  It also includes the spin turn (explained here) in Newman's exit-with-a-dip variation.

"Easy to execute" is a bit of an understatement; the Castle Glide is very, very easy and well-suited to beginning dancers.  It makes a particularly good practice sequence for galops and spin turns.  Its only even slightly weird characteristic is that it is ten bars long, which is not terribly musical.  Newman says to repeat it, which makes it a slightly better twenty bars, but it would need a total of four times through to line up nicely on the typical eight-bar musical phrases.

If the Castle Glide is being used as a one-step variation rather than a sequence dance and not immediately repeated, one can simply walk out of it with four more steps to at least get onto a four-bar half-phrase.

The sequence begins with the dancers in a normal closed ballroom hold, the gentleman moving forward along the line of dance and the lady backward.  The gentleman's steps (L=left, R=right) are given below; the lady dances opposite.

The Castle Glide
1234            Forward four steps (L, R, L, R)
1&2&3&4   Four-slide galop with half-turn (LRLRLRL)
1&2&3&4   Four-slide galop "over elbows" with half-turn (RLRLRLR)
1234 1         Five counts of spin turn (back L, forward R, back L, forward R, back L)
234              Dip back on R foot, rise and shift weight forward to L foot, walk forward on R foot

The spin turn, dip, and walk out should between them make up a full rotation, or close to, if the dancers are to continue along the line of dance.  That isn't particularly difficult, but doing the spin turn in a corner of the room will make it even easier.

The most important transition in the dance is from the second galop sequence into the spin turn.

There is no specific music for this dance; Newman suggested only 2/4 ragtime music a bit slower than the peak one-step tempo of the Castle Walk.

Enjoy!

One-Step Variations: Step Out

It looks like this is going to be another one-step miniseries!

Another important, though deceptively simple, variation from the Castles is the "step out."  This is commonly done in social ragtime dancing, but rarely named (most dance manuals don't even mention it as a separate movement) and even more rarely really thought through.  But the Castles use it constantly in their one-step in The Whirl of Life, and it's the starting movement for variations like  the Pomander Walk.  It also comes up in the foxtrot as the setup for the hop-turn.  So let's talk a little about it.

First, the definition, from Vernon Castle in Modern Dancing (1914):

"It is simply stepping out at the side of your partner so that instead of walking in front you are walking a little to the right of each other."

The result of the step out is commonly known today as "Yale position", though the Castles do not use that term.  The dancers end up right hip to right hip, with their feet completely outside their partner's.  Here's Vernon's detailed breakdown:

"The gentleman is walking forward and the lady backward, as in the ordinary One Step.  Now the gentleman holds the lady a little distance away from him and steps out to his left so that, without changing the direction at all, his right foot is at the side of her right foot instead of being between her feet."

You then continue one-stepping along in this position for as long as you like.

One-Step Variations: Spin Turn

In their book Modern Dancing (1914), Vernon and Irene Castle (shown at left; click to enlarge) state that the spin is "the most important step of all, yet there are very few people who do it correctly."  and Albert W. Newman, in Dances of To-day (1914), noted that it was "most advantageous" to use when "there is a congestion of the dancers upon the floor."

The technique for the spin is quite simple.  The dancers simply rock back and forth from one foot to the other, turning as much as they like on each change of weight.  One's two feet should be almost a straight line, not spread widely apart. 

To turn clockwise, both dancers have the right foot forward, their feet very close together, the insides of their legs touching or very close to it.  This is not a move to be shy about body contact on!  The feet should be in almost a straight line; if they are wide apart, the move will look like waddling.   The right foot is the pivot point while the left foot propels the dancers around.  Here is the Castles' description:

"One main point you must bear in mind, and that is only to spin on one foot.  A peg-top could not spin well if it had two pegs, and it is the same with us.  It is absolutely necessary for both lady and gentleman to use the right foot.  Now both these feet must be close together.  With the left foot you propel yourself around -- the gentleman holding his partner closely and bringing her round with a steady pull."

One-Step Variations: Zig Zag

I'll wind up this little mini-series of one-step posts with an easy variation from Vernon and Irene Castle's manual, Modern Dancing, (New York, 1914).  The zig zag is very similar to the snake dip described by Philadelphia dancing master Albert Newman (discussed by me here).  The oscillation from right Yale position (the two dancers' right sides together) to left Yale position (left sides together), with the lady backing up while the gentleman moves forward, is the same, with the differences found only in the starting foot and the placement of the dip.  I have no doubt that these are simply regional variations of the same step, but they do have a slightly different effect when danced.

While the snake dip begins with the gentleman stepping to the left (right Yale position) with his left foot, the zig zag begins a beat later.  After one walking step forward on the left foot (lady backing on the right), the gentleman crosses his right foot in front of the left to step out to right Yale position, taking three steps in that position (right-left-right) before crossing his left foot in front of the right to shift to left Yale position and take three steps (left-right-left) thus.  The lady is dancing opposite, crossing her left foot behind her right to start the move and continuing on the opposite foot from the gentleman, always crossing behind.

The zig zag may be continued indefinitely, exited most easily after any trio of left Yale position steps by the gentleman simply not crossing his right foot over, instead stepping straight forward toward the lady and resuming backing her up for as many steps as needed to round out the musical phrase.

The Castles suggest ornamenting the step with a slight dip:

To make it more effective, the dancers can bend on the first step.  That is when the man crosses the right over the left and when he crosses the left over the right.

This bend is actually on the same foot as in Newman's snake dip -- he places the dip on the second step of every three-step diagonal, which is effectively a crossing step.

Skipping Through the One-Step: Polka Skips and Pony Steps

There's a perception that doing the 1910s one-step is always a matter of stepping precisely once per beat, no more and no less.  As can be seen in the half fade-away, which leaves one foot in the air for a beat, that isn't always strictly true.  And while that sort of pause is unusual, the one-step also incorporates skipping steps of various kinds in moves like the polka skip and pony step, as described by the leading dancers of the era, Vernon and Irene Castle, and other dancing masters in dance manuals published in 1914.

One-Step Variations: Half Fade-Away

It's been quite a while since I got back to the plain old 1910s one-step, so here's a quick and easy sequence from Albert Newman's Dances of to-day, published in Philadelphia in 1914.  It's an interesting little combination of side steps and natural and reverse half-pivots that I've never seen anywhere else.

Ballroom Marsupials

The most popular "animal dances" of the early 1900s appear to have been the Turkey Trot and Grizzly Bear.  But the F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation manual Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914) offers a pair of one-step variations attributed to London dance teacher Walter Humphrey, who apparently found inspiration in the hopping of Australian marsupials.  I've never found these variations in any other source, so it's not clear to me how widespread they ever were.  I would also have placed them a bit earlier, maybe 1908-1910, as by 1914 the animal dance fad was already well past and the smoother, more elegant style of Vernon and Irene Castle was making the one-step acceptable in respectable ballrooms.  It's possible that Mr. Humphrey and/or English dancers in general had not quite caught up with the latest American dance fads, or that Clendenen was not as fussy in compiling his book as its subtitle, "The Dances of the Day," suggests.

For both variations, the dancers both face line of dance.  It's not clear whether they should retain joined hands in front or open up fully.  I find the latter more graceful, but how much of a priority grace should be while hopping around a ballroom imitating a marsupial is debatable.  Those wishing to study wallaby technique in detail may consult this National Geographic video.

Steps below are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

Kangaroo Hop
1    Short step forward left
2    Long hop forward on left foot
3    Short step forward right
4    Long hop forward on right foot

Wallaby Jump
1    Step forward left
2    Hop forward on left foot
3    Hop forward on left foot
4    Hop forward on left foot
5-8: repeat step and three hops on right foot

In both variations, the dancers need to actually travel forward on the hops rather than just bouncing in place.

As William Hamrick noted drily in The Flying Cloud Vintage Dance Handbook, wallabies have a different understanding of rhythm than kangaroos.

One-Step Variations: Traveling Turns

Although the traveling turn (or "pivot," though in period that can refer to a different turn as well) is enormously popular among modern dancers of the one-step, possibly because of the notoriously lengthy string of pivots done in continuous sequence by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), it actually does not seem to have been nearly as popular among dancing masters of the 1910s.  While the traveling turn occasionally appears in other dances, I have found a written description of its use in the one step only in Albert Newman's Dances of to-day, published in Philadelphia in 1914.  Other sources mention "whirls" or "swirls," but exactly what kind of turning these terms refer to is not specified.

Newman's description of the step is brief and uncharacteristically vague:

In order to execute these turns properly it is necessary that the dancers should be most proficient and move perfectly together.

Each foot virtually describes a semicircle (cycloid movement) upon the floor, the dancers really stepping around each other.

This is quite effective, but requires considerable practice together.

The Snake Dip

• Era: 1910s
• Dance: One-Step

Like the Pomander Walk, the Snake Dip is a one-step variation found in Albert Newman's Dances of to-day, published in Philadelphia in 1914, in which the dancers take, alternately, right- and left-side Yale position.  In the Snake Dip, however, the dancers make a continuous zigzag pattern along the line of dance rather than alternating travel with making circles in place. 

Newman somewhat imaginatively suggests of this sequence that "when well done it resembles the movement of the snake."

His diagram of the gentleman's steps is at left.

An Easy One-Step Sequence

F. Leslie Clendenen's 1914 compilation, Dance Mad, is full of sequences of varying levels of difficulty for many of the popular dances of the 1910s.  This one caught my eye as being a short (sixteen beats) and simple introductory one-step suitable for getting beginners dancing quickly and for teaching the lead for rhythm changes between one-step and two-step.  Clendenen gives it no special name or attribution, just "One Step."

Directions are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  Starting foot is left for the gentleman and right for the lady.  Begin in normal ballroom position, with the gentleman facing along the line of dance.

Counts      Steps
1-2-3-4      Back the lady four steps
1&2           Two-step (step-close-step), angling diagonally forward to the left
3&4           Two-step (step-close-step), angling diagonally forward to the right
1-2-3-4      Back the lady four steps
(Turn a quarter clockwise)
1-2-3-4      Slide left foot along line of dance (1) close right to it with weight (2); repeat
(Turn a quarter counter-clockwise so gentleman faces line of dance, ready to repeat)

The angling to the left and right on the two-steps rather than moving straight forward along the line of dance cues the lady to perform a two-step rather than simply walking.  Clendenen describes this as "throwing [the] body slightly to [the] side on the 2 step" and moving "quite freely at left and right of partner."

An interesting variation, not given in the source but compatible with period practice, would be to turn clockwise rather than counter-clockwise at the end so that the sequence is then repeated with the gentleman backing up.  The mid-sequence turn will then be counter-clockwise.  This will not result in full turns, but the dancers could alternate backing the lady and backing the gentleman.

The Pomander Walk

• Era: 1910s
• Dance: One-Step

The Pomander Walk is a one-step variation found in Albert Newman's Dances of to-day, published in Philadelphia in 1914, in which the dancers take, alternately, right- and left-side Yale position and walk around each other in circles.  The full sequence as described by Newman is as follows:

From a normal one-step, backing the lady, the dancers step out to Yale position, right side to right side, and walk in a straight line, the lady moving backward and the gentleman forward.  At some point, they begin to walk around each other in a circle, both moving forward.  Newman's illustration of this is shown at left.  The gentleman eventually makes an about-face -- the lady must as well, though Newman neglects to mention this -- leaving the dancers left side to left side, and they again move in a straight line with the lady going backward.  They make another circle, both dancers moving forward, followed by a position shift to return to facing each other and backing the lady.

Hesitate, Hesitate, Hesitate!

• Era: 1910s
• Dance: One-Step

In his 1914 manual, Dances of To-day, Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman describes three different hesitations suitable for the one-step or Castle walk.  In one description he notes that a hesitation is

...most practical, especially when one finds himself in a decidedly congested position, surrounded on all sides by merry dancers...it is the same as marking the time of the music, as the dancers execute the movement sur la place (on the spot).

Because of this practicality, hesitations are one of the first things I teach new dancers of the one-step.  Here are Newman's three hesitations for your dancing pleasure!

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.