Capering & Kickery

Doin' the Lambeth Walk, 1937

Long, long ago I published a reconstruction of the Lambeth Walk, from the musical Me and My Girl, as demonstrated on a 1938 newsreel film by British Pathé.  At the time, I mentioned that the newsreel version did not actually match the directions published on the 1937 sheet music (the cover of which is shown at left; click to enlarge) and promised to talk about other versions of the dance at some point.  Having just had the chance to teach the Lambeth Walk last weekend for the first time in ages, it seems a good time to get back to it!

Before reading on or trying the dance, I suggest reading my post on the 1938 version and watching the British Pathé video (the Lambeth Walk starts at about :54) to get an idea of the spirit and style and links to some recordings.  This is not an elegant dance; it's a meant as a jaunty working-class strut.  Oi!

The starting position for the dance is side by side, gentleman on the left and lady on the right.  The starting foot is probably the right foot for both dancers, judging from the poor-quality photos accompanying the instructions, but it doesn't actually matter at any point in the dance.

Dancers should start at the lyrics "Anytime you're Lambeth way..."

Spanish Waltz (sequence dance), 1918

No, not that Spanish Waltz!  This Spanish Waltz is a sixteen-bar sequence dance.  According to a short article published September 19, 1918, in The Lima Times-Democrat (Lima, Ohio), it was introduced at the recent meetings of the Ohio and International Associations of Dancing Teachers in Columbus, Ohio.  Instructions for the dance seem to have been published in full by the Springfield School of Dancing in The Daily Morning Sun of Springfield, Ohio.  I don't have a copy of that publication, but the directions and illustrations were reprinted in The Two Step, Volume XXIX, No. 3, dated March, 1919, with a reference to The Daily Morning Sun publication. 

The Spanish Waltz was credited to W. D. Lynch of Akron, Ohio, head of both the Ohio and international associations, who self-interestedly assured readers of The Times-Democrat article that it was one of three new dances that would be popular during the upcoming season, along with the old standbys the one-step, waltz, and foxtrot.  The Two-Step, which apparently copied the Springfield article verbatim, included a note that the dance would be taught at a lesson series by a Mr. and Mrs. Goodfellow at the Springfield School of Dancing beginning January 8th, 1919, which would not have been the most useful information by the March issue!

The Two-Step/Daily Morning Sun introduction to the dance was:

A Simplified Ballroom Dance Novelty adapted after the Attractive and Beautiful Spanish Dancing which has been and is yet the rage in the larger eastern cities.

The article in The Times-Democrat described it as follows:

"The Spanish waltz is a simplified version of the Spanish dances seen on the stage with partners facing each other.  Any Spanish music, played a trifle fast, may be used.  The dance is somewhat complicated."

Standards vary, and I can't speak to what the stage versions were like, but along with being simplified, I would call the Spanish Waltz simple rather than complicated.  Judge for yourself!

The Bonnie Brae, 1895

In honor of Burns night, here's a simple (and completely American) Scottish-themed "society" dance by Chicago dancing master Robert Alexander Campbell: The Bonnie Brae.  Campbell, also the creator of The Vassar, was credited as both the choreographer of the dance and the composer of the music, though the latter was "harmonized" by Robert Heiss and on the sheet music the dance was co-credited to a Miss Josephine E. Rice.

Interestingly, this time Campbell labeled himself a member of the Western Association Normal School Masters of Dancing rather than the leader of Campbell's Solo Orchestra and apparently no longer felt the need to note that he was the pupil of C. A. Carr.  Also of note: the cover gave not only a Chicago publisher but a London one as well.  Apparently Campbell was moving up in the world!  Though one notes that he did not state on the music that the dance had actually been accepted by the Western Association Normal School, which I discussed briefly here.

"Bonnie Brae" is Gaelic for "pleasant hill", according to this useful article about a street with that name in Los Angeles.  Given his surname, perhaps Campbell came by the Gaelic honestly, or perhaps he just thought the phrase sounded suitably Scottish, a nice match for the tartan-clad dancers on the cover, which may be seen at left (click to enlarge).  The lady at center might be Miss Rice.

Newman Hesitation Boston

Wrapping up my rather drawn-out examination of Albert W. Newman's Boston variations, here is an actual sequence mixing his Long Boston with various hesitations.  As usual, it's not clear how he distinguishes between Boston and hesitation waltz.  The Newman Hesitation Boston was published in Newman's Dances of to-day (Philadelphia, 1914) and later reprinted, with some minor edits, in F. Leslie Clendenen's Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914). 

Newman called his little sequence "one of the most popular dances at the present time", though I doubt that was actually true anywhere outside Newman's own sphere of influence.  In Dance Mad, he edited his claim to "The most popular Hesitation Waltz in Philadelphia at present."  He also described it in his own book as "very easy" and "most restful".  It is not only simple to dance, it's actually quite lovely.

American Boy

Another dance associated with the Mahler family of dancing masters in St. Louis is the American Boy, an easy two-step sequence described by Jacob Mahler in the October 24th, 1909, issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  It is one of two sequences fully described in an article entitled "Five New Dances Now the Delight of Society" on page 65.  It's not clear whether Mahler choreographed it himself, and I've not been able to find any other source for the dance.

The starting position is the dancers side by side, gentleman on the left and lady on the right, holding inside hands as shown in the illustration at left from the Post-Dispatch article, and facing line of dance.  The gentleman starts on the left foot and the lady on the right.

Interestingly, Mahler gave the lady's steps, with the gentleman dancing opposite, so I will do the same.

Russian Militaire

"For children there have been accepted La Veta and the Russian Militaire, the latter a semi-drill and march step, combining simple and graceful poses for the little ones."

-- Marie Petravsky, "New Fads in Dances", The Sunday Morning Call (Lincoln, Nebraska). Sunday, October 25, 1896, p. 5.

The accepting organization referred to was The Western Association and Normal School of Masters of Dancing, which also accepted a number of dances for adults that year.  The newspaper article was timed to the start of the new dancing season in New York, but on the sheet music it is noted that the dance was adopted on June 11, 1896, in Toledo, Ohio.  It is also claimed, apparently inaccurately, that "This Dance was the only Dance adopted out of ten others presented." 

The choreographer of the dance was John A. Mahler, brother of the much better-known St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler.  Both brothers taught children; another of John Mahler's dances, the Two and a Half Step, was inscribed to "the Young Ladies of the Mary Institute and Hosmer Hall", two St. Louis schools.  There is no indication on the sheet music that it was meant for children, which makes one wonder how many of the other simple sequence dances of the period might also have been meant for the younger set!

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.

Gaby Glide

"The Gaby Glide" was a piece of music written as a star turn for dancers Gaby Deslys and Harry Pilcer in the Broadway operetta Vera Violetta, which opened in New York in November, 1911. The famous and popular Deslys was its namesake:

Gaby brought the dance and it's got us all a going
Since she came no other twirl has had any showing
It's a music treat, for your dancing feet
It is flashy but neat

The tune was composed by Louis A. Hirsch, with lyrics attributed to Pilcer himself.  An original 1912 recording may be heard via the Library of Congress archives here, and a lovely modern performance by Mark Nadler may be seen and heard here:

 

 

Sadly, tempo changes and pauses make Nadler's version more difficult to dance to than the original.  If one has live musicians, the sheet music, from which the image at the top was taken, may be found here.

Cadet Waltz

Instructions for The Cadet Valse, by L. W. Vizay, instructor in dancing to the cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, were published in conjunction with sheet music for the dance composed by Frank Mayr.  A copy is available on line at the Chrystelle Trump Bond Dance and Music Collection, Goucher College Archives, from which the beautiful cover image at left (click to enlarge) is taken.  This copy is an English printing and dated 1892, but since the dance instructions appeared in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) under the name Cadet Waltz, the dance and music must be at least a couple of years earlier than that.  The dance instructions also appeared, under the name La Valse Cadet, in George Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903).  All three sets of instructions are essentially identical, allowing for some shifts in terminology.

The Cadet Valse is an excellent example of dance steps specifically matched to music.  In this case, it's rather unusual music which alternates two bars of mazurka music with four bars of waltz.  With that pattern, the sequence is essentially undanceable to any other music.  I've done an electronic version of the first twelve bars, since it's really necessary to hear the musical accenting to understand the dance.

The Rutcher Waltz

In my earlier post on the Ruchter, I mentioned the mixed-tempo version described by William De Garmo in the fifth edition of The Dance of Society (New York, 1892).  This version was called the Rutcher (not Ruchter) Waltz, and was comprised of sixteen measures of 2/4 music, and sixteen measures of 3/4 (waltz) music.  To be precise, that is eight measures, repeated, of each, as may be seen in the music from De Garmo's book at left (click to enlarge).  This dual-time format is similar to that of the Rye Waltz, which shifts from 4/4 to 3/4.  De Garmo claimed that it was an old folk dance, which I find believable from its style, but I haven't found any trace of it under either Rutcher or Ruchter.  It may well be the original version of the dance, with the Gilbert/Lopp Ruchter being a variation created for a particular piece of music.

A quick summary of the dance is that it is a "doubled" version of the Ruchter using waltz music for the second part.  To break that down in more detail:

Baby-Polka (La Badoise)

Despite the instructions for the dance being listed as the Baby Polka in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and La Polka Bébé in George Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903), the first thing to know about the Baby Polka is that it is actually an older folk dance called La Badoise, for which French composer-choreographer François Paul appears to have either written new music or adapted a folk tune (as he did with Sir Roger de Coverley for his "Gigue anglaise croisée") and then credited himself with the choreography.  "Baby-Polka" thus appears to be simply the name of Paul's composition, which over the last century or so has become (or remained) strongly associated with the folk dance in France and elsewhere, though it is not the only tune attached to it.  The name Baby-Polka seems to have merged with Badoise to become the name of the dance as well.

The image at left above (click to enlarge) is from my own copy of Paul's "Baby-Polka" sheet music; it was reproduced exactly in Gilbert, as may be seen here.

The word "badoise" refers to the German region of Baden, or possibly to the spa town Baden-Baden, so it makes perfect sense that French writers attributed the dance's origin to Germany.  Eugène Giraudet, in and early edition of his Traité de la danse (c1890) simply stated "La Badoise est d'origine allemande" (The Badoise is of German origin).  G. Desrat, in his Dictionnaire de la Danse (1895), noted less definitively that it "paraît être d'origine allemande" (would appear to be of German origin), though he also noted its close analogy to a Russian children's dance, "la menace".  In the Lussan-Borel Traité de la Danse (c1900 and c1904 editions), it was given an "origine teutonne".

Lopp, in La Danse, claimed to have researched the origin of the Baby Polka, to no avail:

La polka Bébé, une des premières danses champêtres connues, nous vient de la Bohême; mais à quelle époque remonte son origine? On n'en sait rien, elle se perd dans la nuit des temps. C'est en vain que j'ai fait des recherches, nulle trace; seule une tradition que j'ai pu trouver et d'après laquelle la polka Bébé aurait été composée par une maitresse d'école qui l'aurait fait danser par ses élèves devant un haut personnage pour fêter son passage.

My loose translation:

The baby polka, one of the premier known dances of the countryside, comes to us from Bohemia; but to what era does its origin go back? We do not know, it is lost in the darkness of time. I have searched in vain, no trace; only one tradition that I was able to find, according to which the baby polka was composed by a schoolmistress who would have had it danced by her students dance for an important personage to celebrate his passage.

He settled on it being Bohemian and cited a Mademoiselle Suski, who provided Lopp with some lyrics to sing while dancing.  

I haven't tried to trace the folk dance origins of the Badoise, but its finger-wagging "scolding" element goes back at least as far as Arbeau's sixteenth-century Branle des Lavandières (Washerwomen's Branle). 

Whatever its origins, in late nineteenth century France it was primarily conceived of as a children's dance.  Desrat on the topic:

La badoise, en raison des mouvements des mains coïncidant avec ceux des pieds, ne peut être dansée que dans les matinées enfantines.

My loose translation:

The badoise, because of the coordinated movements of the hands and feet, can be danced only at children's daytime events.

Other writers' similar thoughts will be noted below.

Maxina, 1917

On Thursday, July 26th, 1917, as part of its annual conference, the British Association of Teachers of Dancing held a competition for "round dances", which in this context means couple sequences.  The "first certificate" (winner) was "Maxina", by Madame Low Hurndall of London.  The choreography was published in The Dancing Times in September, 1917 (issue numbered New Series No. 84) as well as with the sheet music for the dance, composed by Marguerite Boissonade and W. F. Hurndall (husband of the choreographer).  The cover of my copy of the sheet music is shown at left; click to enlarge. 

The Maxina spread quickly, and not only within the British Empire; there is also a 1917 French translation of this "nouvelle danse qui fait fureur a Londres" online at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.  Sequence dances, however, were not considered quite as à la mode as regular couple dancing.  In 1919, Gregory D'Egville, in the first edition of How and What to Dance, reported haughtily that "Although not 'fashionable' in the ordinary sense of the word, the Maxina is danced a good deal at small dances outside London."  This did not stop him from publishing a version of the instructions with a slightly different ending. 

The Maxina continues to be danced as a living tradition dance and has acquired several significant variations over the years.  My reconstruction is based on the earliest sources for the dance: the description published in The Dancing Times and the instructions on the sheet music.

Stephanie Gavotte

The Stephanie Gavotte is a short (eight-bar) schottische/gavotte sequence which George Washington Lopp, in La Danse (Paris, 1903), attributed to M. B. Gilbert.  It had previously appeared in Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) without any specific attribution.  

The sequence was almost certainly created for the popular "Stéphanie-Gavotte", op. 312 of Austro-Hungarian composer Alphons Czibulka (1842-1894).  The piece was composed in 1880 in honor of the engagement of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, to Princess Stéphanie of Belgium and apparently became enormously popular.  It's quite easy to find the sheet music; the Library of Congress alone has eighteen copies of it online, including this 1885 edition, from which the image at left was taken.  Performances and recordings of it are likewise easy to find; here's a nice one by the Belgian orchestra Brabelio:

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.

"Tango No. 1"

Continuing on with the tiny traveling tango sequences from 1914, here's one that's a bit less tiny than the Two-Step Tango.  "Tango No. 1" is listed in both editions of Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914) with the note "As taught in our classes.", which presumably meant the classes of F. Leslie Clendenen's own academy.  That means that this is as much a class practice sequence as a social dance.  As I reconstruct it -- and see the reconstruction notes below -- it is a reasonable sixteen bars (thirty-two beats) in length, and suitably easy for a class, as it only involves four basic moves - walking, a spin turn, draw steps, and grapevine.

The starting position is a closed ballroom hold with the gentleman's back to line of dance and the lady facing line of dance.  The gentleman starts on the left foot, the lady on the right.  Steps are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

Tango No. 1 (16 bars/32 beats of tango music)
1234    Walk backward four steps
(half-turn counter-clockwise)
5678    Walk forward four steps 

1234    Fast clockwise spin turn, ending with gentleman facing wall
5678    Draw steps: side-close-side-close

1234    Grapevine: side-cross behind-side-cross in front (lady does opposite cross, not mirror!)
5678    Repeat grapevine

1234    Repeat draw steps
5678    Repeat clockwise fast spin turn, ending with gentleman's back to line of dance

The overall mnemonic: back, forward, spin, draw; grapevine, grapevine, draw, spin.  It would be nice if it were perfectly regular, with each half ending with either spin-draw or draw-spin.  But, alas, it is not, so the dancers must pay attention!

Two-Step Tango

The Two-Step Tango is an anonymous eight-bar sequence published in the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis; both editions 1914).  There are several of these tiny "tango" sequences that travel decorously around the room without much tango feel to them -- see the similar Butterfly Tango and Dixie Swirl.  These short progressive sequences all appeared in the first edition, along with the somewhat better-composed and more tango-like ones (including a "Tango Two-Step") from Albert Newman.  The impression I get from this is that the more authentic tango was still making its way across the country in early 1914, so the authors of these sequences were still interpreting it as "slow one-step to tango music".  The second edition of Dance Mad expanded the tango section enormously, retaining the short sequences but adding twenty-two pages of more authentic Argentinian and Parisian tango steps.

The Two-Step Tango is basically a promenade, performed with both partners facing line of dance, side by side, holding inside hands.  The gentleman begins on the left foot, the lady on the right.  The gentleman's steps are given below; the lady dances opposite.

Two-Step Tango (eight bars/sixteen beats of tango music)
1        Forward left
2        Forward right, turning slightly outward
3        Back left, making a slight dip (against line of dance, back to back with partner)
4        Side right (along line of dance, still back to back with partner)
5        Side left (along line of dance, swinging to face partner)
6        Back right, making a slight dip (against line of dance) 
7        Side left (along line of dance, facing partner again)
8        Forward right

1, 2    Forward left, slowly
3        Close right to left
4        Forward left
5, 6    Forward right, slowly
7        Close left to right
8        Forward right

Le Moulinet du Pas-de-Quatre

Like the Quadrille du Pas de Quatre, le Moulinet du Pas de Quatre is an experiment by French dancing master and author Eugène Giraudet in adapting the standard Pas de Quatre (a version of the schottische popular in Europe in the late nineteenth century) for small sets of dancers.

The Moulinet is a simple sequence dance, alternating between a short figure for two couples (done to schottische music) and waltzing. It involves only half of the standard Pas de Quatre step-sequence, which makes it a gentle and accessible introduction to the schottische for those new to the dance.

Unusually, we know not only the originator of the Moulinet but precisely when it was created: on March 10, 1897.  Giraudet wrote in a later edition of his Traité de la danse (Paris, c1900) that it was

Créée le 10 mars 1897, pendant une récréation de leçon, avec le concours de MM. et Mlles Mourets, ses élèves, qui ont aidé le maître, par leur gracieux dévouement et leur lumière élégante, ce qui a fait de cette danse la plus belle création du siècle et du maître.

My translation:

Created on 10 March, 1897, during a break in a lesson, with the cooperation of the Monsieurs and Mademoiselles Mourets, his pupils, who have helped the master by their graceful devotion and their elegant light, which have made of this dance the most beautiful creation of the century and of the master.

Giraudet also offered his "sincères hommages" to these pupils, from which I would construe that he had as much interest in the family’s continued patronage as in the quality of the dance.  "The most beautiful creation of the century and of the master" is a vast, vast exaggeration.

Was it actually danced after that one lesson?
It’s hard to say how popular any dance like the Moulinet became outside its creator’s own studio, but Giraudet certainly made an effort to promote it over the years. In the July of 1903, the Société internationale des maîtres choréographes held a congress in Westphalie. Giraudet, as president of the Société, was heavily involved, and when the dancing masters had finished making speeches bashing the “grotesque et ridicule” cakewalk and generally lamenting the state of the modern ballroom, they settled on seven more respectable dances to accept for the 1903 season. Fourth of these was the Moulinet. This backward-looking decree was reported with varying degrees of sarcasm in Parisian journals such as Le Temps and Figaro.

Nonetheless, the Moulinet seems to have achieved enough fame, at least in some circles, to be mentioned in a series of jokes about dance in late 1905:

Le Moulinet du Pas de Quatre aura pour prélude le Pas de Trois; celle-ci, sera dit-on, réservée aux mathématiciens.

My translation:

The Moulinet du Pas de Quatre [four] will have for its prelude the Pas de Trois [three]; this one, it will be said, reserved for mathematicians.

And in early 1907, the Moulinet appeared in a list of dances “en vogue” in les salons (as opposed to among “la société c’est-à-dire (la bourgeoisie) et le peuple”).

On to the practical details.

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.

Laces and Graces

Laces and Graces is an American two-step sequence dance described by seminal American folk dance collector, teacher, caller, and historian Lloyd Shaw in his invaluable work, The Round Dance Book (1948).  Shaw gives no specific date for Laces and Graces, so the best I can suggest is early 1940s.  It does not appear in Shaw's earlier work, Cowboy Dances (1939).

Laces and Graces is easy for anyone who knows two-step and, importantly, has available music, including both sheet music and the very recording cited by Shaw in 1948.

Shaw called Laces and Graces a "dance built to fit an old-time piece of popular music", but didn't say anything else about the music, which was originally composed by Gustav(e) Salzer and John W. Bratton and published in 1903.  

Out in Oregon, the Polk County Observer made note of the new hit in a short article entitled "Popular New Music" on November 27, 1903:

"Laces and Graces," an instrumental novelty by Gustav Salzer and John W. Bratton, is just what its title would suggest its being; that is, a dainty, graceful melody, full of the atmosphere of the ball room and reminiscent of frills and flirtations. It is a companion piece to Mr. Bratton's "In Cozy Corner," and while it has none of tho odd little twists and turns of its famous predecessor, it yet possesses an originality and charm which is already making it a great "go," although it has only been out a few months. The title page of this composition, gotten up by the house of M. Witmark & Sons, in the most artistic manner, represents a white lace handkerchief upon a dark back ground, and the design, though simple, is so remarkably striking that it is already a prominent feature of the window displays of most of the prominent dealers.

A scan of the original article may be found at Historic Oregon Newspapers.  "Popular New Music" starts about a third of the way down the third column from the left.  Part of the same text had appeared in the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, New York, on November 15, 1903 (here), suggesting that it was at least partly copied from some major newspaper or syndicated piece.  A little digging turned up a copy of the original sheet music at the Parlor Salon Sheet Music Collection at the University of Maine, from which the image above, complete with its charmingly irrelevant picture of pseudo-1830s dancers practicing their steps, is taken.  The lace handkerchief suggests that "laces" refers to lace in the sense of trim or fabric, not to shoelaces or corset laces.

A L'Avenir

The five-step schottische was not E. Woodworth Masters' only choreographic effort.  

Interestingly, considering its American origin, I first ran across A L'Avenir in the pages of Dancing, a London periodical similar to The Director, Galop, The Two-Step, and other efforts by dancing masters to establish dance journals.  In the December, 1892, issue, the editor notes that the November issue of their "transatlantic contemporary" included the editor's version of the "Waltz Menuet" and that (therefore?) they include in this issue instructions for a new American dance, "L'Avenir", by "Mr. W. Masters, of Boston, United States".  The editor in question was probably R. M. Crompton, creator of one of several late nineteenth-century "waltz minuets".  

I located the sheet music (left; click to enlarge) in the online collection of Goucher College.  It does not have the dance instructions, but it includes some useful background information:

• The music seems also to have been composed by Masters; no one else is credited.
• A L'Avenir (the full name) was adopted by the American National Association of Teachers of Dancing at their convention in Washington, D.C., held from June 10-13, 1890.
• The sheet music is copyright 1891.

A L'Avenir is described as "A New Round Dance, Combination of Dance Movements".  It certainly is that.  The name means "for the future" or "henceforth", which raises the terrifying possibility that this is what Masters thought dancing would or should look like in the future.  The hodgepodge of movements he created is interesting, at least: a twenty-four-bar sequence in schottische (4/4) time.  Twenty-four bars is an unusual length for a sequence dance, but a quick check of the music reveals that it consists of twelve eight-bar strains, with the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth all being the same.  So the dance done four times through would match the sheet music nicely.

Here's how to do it:

The Butterfly Tango

The Butterfly Tango is an anonymous sixteen-bar sequence published in the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad, or the dances of the day (St. Louis; both editions 1914).  It not named after a piece of music or colorful insect, but rather after the position of the dancers.  A rather confusing illustration, shown below, accompanies the dance in the first edition of Dance Mad: 

The only one of these positions which actually appears in the dance is the center one, which is described very precisely:

The partners stand side by side, the gentleman taking the lady's left hand in his left and the fingers of her right hand in his right, over her right shoulder.

This is more usually called sweetheart or varsovienne position.  The dancers also shift to holding only right hands and to waltz position, but never actually take either the left- or right-hand positions in the illustration.  

A "Butterfly Tango No. 2" appears in the index of both editions, but not in the text, so perhaps these illustrations go with some other Butterfly Tango that somehow slipped out of the final version.

The Butterfly Tango is an anonymous sixteen-bar sequence published in the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad, or the dances of the day (St. Louis; both editions 1914).  It not named after a piece of music or colorful insect, but rather after the position of the dancers.  A rather confusing illustration, shown below, accompanies the dance in the first edition of Dance Mad: 

The only one of these positions which actually appears in the dance is the center one, which is described very precisely:

The partners stand side by side, the gentleman taking the lady's left hand in his left and the fingers of her right hand in his right, over her right shoulder.

This is more usually called sweetheart or varsovienne position.  The dancers also shift to holding only right hands and to waltz position, but never actually take either the left- or right-hand positions in the illustration.  

A "Butterfly Tango No. 2" appears in the index of both editions, but not in the text, so perhaps these illustrations go with some other Butterfly Tango that somehow slipped out of the final version.

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.

How's that Rye Waltz revival working out?

I was fishing around in back issues of the Chicago Tribune (temporarily available online for free in beta test mode) and came across an amusing little report on the twenty-fourth annual normal school of the Chicago Association of Dancing Masters.  On Tuesday, August 10, 1937, the Tribune (then known as the Chicago Daily Tribune) duly noted that in between the lessons, the dancing masters were speculating about the future of ballroom dance:

"While some instructors at the dancing school predicted the return of old-fashioned dances, the demise of the fox trot and the rhumba and even the reappearance of the gavotte and minuet on the dance floor, others disagreed."

Yeah, I'd have disagreed too, even without the benefit of hindsight. 

Unsurprisingly, the teachers were all promoting their own particular favorites; in particular, Clement O. Browne, of Akron, Ohio, "described the grace and beauty of the Rye waltz, an old fashioned dance which originated in the nineties."

Image © 1937 Tribune Publishing Company

Now, the nineteenth-century Rye Waltz, which I described several years ago, certainly had a healthy life into the twentieth century (possibly all the way to the present day) in folk dance circles and as part of deliberate revivals of old-fashioned dance forms.  There was even a hesitation waltz version created in the 1910s, which doesn't seem to have caught on.  But I have a hard time imagining it as part of the modern ballroom dance repertoire.  Happily, the paper provided a delightful photomontage, shown at left (click to enlarge) of Mr. Browne performing the first few steps with Betty Harris of Danville, Illinois.  I'm sorry about the poor quality; I suspect it's a scan of a microfilm of newsprint. 

In classic sequence dance style, the first part travels along the line of dance with a point-close, point-close, "chassee" (slide-close-slide) sequence, followed by repeating all of that against the line of dance, then by a second part consisting entirely of waltzing.  The "chassee" depicted above is, not shall we say, typical style of the 1890s.  It looks more like a lunge; one has to wonder if the reporter or editor mislabeled a photo-friendly dramatic pose as an actual part of the dance. 

I'm fairly certain the Tribune also got the photo caption slightly wrong by stating that the Rye Waltz as a whole "used to be known as the old fashioned waltz".  I'm pretty sure that the dance teacher meant the "chassee" only.  The actual report describes that step properly as a "slide, cut, slide, or just the one, two, three", and goes on to note that it actually is:

"...just the same old waltz step, which every good dancer knows without knowing how he does it, one teacher said.  Or, it was explained, it is the polka step without the hop, or the skip step without much of the skip."

Now that is interesting. 

The "same old waltz step" being described here is actually the valse à deux temps, the two-movement or two-step waltz, which spread across ballrooms in the mid-nineteenth century and, with a slight change of accent and time signature, became wildly popular in the 1890s as the two-step.  That's an interesting choice for the "old waltz step"; my first two guesses would have been the earlier valse à trois temps or the leaping "new waltz" of the later nineteenth century which, tamed significantly, was the close ancestor of today's ballroom waltzes.

It's impossible at this distance in time to tell whether the deux-temps form of waltzing was the dominant style in Chicago (or Akron, or the midwest in general) in the late nineteenth century or whether it was just the one that lingered a little longer and survived into living memory.  Or perhaps the teacher was simply not well-informed about the dances of a previous generation.  (Think quickly: what social dances were popular in 1972?)  At the least, it's a little something to keep in mind when looking at midwestern dance manuals and dance cards from the 1890s onward.

Gavotte Mad, 1914

Photo by Herman Mishkin from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery

I'm running a little low on creativity in naming posts on the cute little gavotte sequences of the 1910s if the creators themselves couldn't manage to come up with anything interesting.  This gavotte is called, simply, "Gavotte".  It appeared in the second edition of Dance Mad (F. Leslie Clendenen, ed., St. Louis, 1914) where it was said to be "adapted for the ball room, taken from the Pavlowa Gavotte". 

The Pavlowa Gavotte was a famous stage sequence in which ballerina Anna Pavlowa and her partner wore pseudo-Regency costume, presumably harking back to the famous Vestris Gavotte of that era.  Pavlowa's dance was an enormous hit during her tours and has been immortalized in photography (left), art, and sculpture.  According to the unknown author of this adaptation, Pavlowa's dance was "not suitable for the ball room", but it inspired a number of choreographed ballroom gavottes, including one by Vernon and Irene Castle and Pavlowa's own New Pavlowa Gavotte.

Like Pavlowa's original dance, this Gavotte is to be done to the famous "Glow Worm" tune, a 1914 recording of which may be heard at the Library of Congress National Jukebox.  Modern recordings are available by The National Concert Band of America and by Ian Whitcomb on the album Titanic: Music As Heard On The Fateful Voyage.

Dancing the Bon Ton Gavotte

Having decided that the Bon Ton Gavotte was popular enough to perhaps be worth doing, how does one actually do it?

Let me start by noting that as reconstruction projects go, the Bon Ton Gavotte is a mess: two sources are ambiguous and the other two contradict each other.  Since they cannot all be reconciled, I cannot produce any really definitive reconstruction.  Instead, I'll go through the sources one by one and give my thoughts about the various options.

The Oddly Popular Bon Ton Gavotte

I mentioned the Bon Ton Gavotte briefly and unflatteringly a couple of months ago in the context of its possible appearance on an 1894 dance card.  I haven't changed my opinion of the dance, but in the course of unrelated research I've accidentally accumulated more information on it than I ever would have expected.  I am apparently fated to try to make sense of it.

One of the common questions I get whenever I teach one of these weird little late nineteenth-century dances is whether it was actually done anywhere outside the creator's dance studio, which in this case was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Much to my astonishment, the answer in this case seems to be yes.  Even leaving aside the dance card's ambiguous "Bon Ton", the trail of the Bon Ton Gavotte runs from not only through the northeastern United States but also as far as California, Ontario, Nova Scotia, England, and France. 

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.)

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.

Skibo!

Skibo, "The New Ball Room Dance", is a short sequence dance by Professor R. O. Blackburn set to music by Joseph T. Kane.  It was published in Ohio in 1910.   The cover of the sheet music may be seen at left; click to enlarge.  The music is not labeled a schottische but does have a schottische-like feel and strathspey-like patterns with a sort of Scottish "snap".

The date of the dance and the Scottish flavor of the music suggest that it was named after Skibo Castle, originally built in the 12th century but extensively renovated by the industrialist Andrew Carnegie in the early 20th century, who added a golf course.  Carnegie's renovations were covered in the American press (including articles in The New York Times).  A Carnegie family photo album with pictures of Skibo Castle from 1908-1910 may be found in Georgia's Virtual Vault.  The castle and the surrounding estate, no longer Carnegie-owned, are currently a private country club probably best known for hosting Madonna's wedding to Guy Ritchie in 2000.

I have no evidence that the dance was actually associated with the castle or the Carnegies.  I think it more likely that it was simply an attempt to cash in by association with the famous property of a wealthy family.  I've also never run across any mention of Skibo outside of this sheet music and suspect that calling it "The New Ball Room Dance" was merely ambitious advertising.

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.

Doin' the Lambeth Walk, 1938

The Lambeth Walk was the first of the "romping" sequence dances that became popular in England between the first and second World Wars.  Referring to a particular street in the Lambeth section of London, the song and dance number originated in the successful 1937 musical Me and My Girl.  When Noel Gay's music was published with dance instructions included, a fad was born which remains a living tradition today.  The dance turns up in all sorts of odd places, and the song is still traditional in the Pearly community of charitable organizations.  A quick search on the term "Lambeth walk" will turn up plenty of metaphorical usages along with references to the street, which still exists, though mostly rebuilt after being bombed in during World War II.

The musical itself has been revived several times, though the Broadway choreography of the Lambeth Walk scene in the 1980s revival was only loosely inspired by the original dance.  Follow that link for the wonderful performance by Robert Lindsay and Maryann Plunkett, and to get a a feel for the tune.

A Waltz Minuet

In the late nineteenth century, short dance sequences came into vogue, combining couple dancing with simple figures.  Among these were more than one attempt to merge a romanticized version of the eighteenth-century minuet with the waltz.  These "waltz minuets" bore no particular resemblance to their minuet namesakes, lacking the "Z" pattern of the true minuet or any real attempt at proper steps. 

In 1890, M.B. Gilbert published in his Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) a waltz minuet choreography consisting of a sixteen-bar "minuet" pattern alternating with sixteen bars of waltz.  The sequence is given below.  The first section is quite slow, with only one step or movement per bar of music.  The dancers start with right hands joined and both begin with the right foot.

1b    Slide right foot foward
1b    Close left foot to third position behind, bending the knees
1b    Slide left foot backward
1b    Close right foot to left in third position, bending the knees
2b    Walk around each other two steps (right, left)
2b    Bring feet together, drop hands, and bow/courtesy to partner over both measures
8b    Repeat all of the above joining left hands and beginning with the left foot
16b  Take closed position and waltz

Total: 32 bars of waltz music; repeat dance as needed to fill out music.

The first four bars are noted by Gilbert as being the "Pas minuet," though no baroque dancer would so label them.  The bringing of the feet together is not clearly spelled out, but it would make sense to simply close up the right foot to the left.  The waltz would be that described by Gilbert, the lively turning "leap-slide-cut" of the late nineteenth century.

A lovely little video of dancers Thomas Baird and Cheryl Stafford performing Elizabeth Aldrich's reconstruction of this waltz minuet may be viewed courtesy of the Library of Congress here.

The Palais Glide

Between the two World Wars a fad for easy and often silly "romping" sequence dances swept Britain.  The Lambeth Walk is the best known of these, but many others survive.  Among them is the Palais Glide, which can be done by a couple or by an entire line of dancers side-by-side in a line, arms around each others' waists.  It is a living tradition in the British isles, having been danced continuously since the 1930s, and survives today as a ceilidh and party dance as well as being performed by World War II reenactors.

Most secondary sources consider the Lambeth Walk (1937) the first of the romping sequence dances and date the Palais Glide to 1938, but one of my sheet music sources for it is actually dated 1935.  This might be a misprint, or it might be that it took a few years to catch on or that it was not popularly accepted until after the Lambeth Walk.

The dance requires eight bars of 4/4 music and consists of a thrice-repeated short grapevine sequences in a slow-quick-quick-slow rhythm followed by a series of forward steps.  In 2001, Syd Bruce recalled dancing it during World War II:

I can remember as a teenager during the war, going to socials and dances in the school, attended by soldiers and land girls billeted in the village and sometimes sailors from Point Clear, which were very popular.  Seeing the Palais Glide, Waltz etc and even the Highland Fling performed in army boots was something to behold!

The Rye Waltz

• Era: 1890s-1900s America (Midwest/West)

The Rye Waltz is a simple sequence dance dating to the late 19th century and done to a special arrangement of the tune "Coming Through the Rye" which alternates between duple (schottische) and triple (waltz) time.  The oldest description I have found is in E.H. Kopp's The American Prompter and Guide to Etiquette, which was published by the John Church Company, operating in Cincinnati, New York, and Chicago, in 1896.  Kopp called himself a "compiler" rather than an author, and attributes many of the dances in his book to other dancing masters, often lifting his text directly from their works.  Kopp attributed the Rye Waltz to A.C. Wirth, and his description is virtually identical to that found in Wirth's Complete Quadrille Call Book and Dancing Master, published in Chicago in 1902 and reprinted in 1903.

Andrew Charles Wirth (right) taught dance in the Milwaukee area, and a contemporary biographical entry in the 1897 Men of Progress: Wisconsin (pages 167 & 168) states that he had written a book on dancing, so it is likely that the 1902 book is either a second work or a later edition of an older original.  Wirth and Kopp's books are among several of the 1890s and early 1900s from both America and England containing language which has clearly been copied directly from one to another, though it is not clear which was the original source and none other than Kopp and Wirth include the Rye Waltz.  In the absence of more definitive evidence, it is reasonable to consider Wirth the choreographer of the dance.