How to dance ragtime
Ragtime Dance | Western Social Dance: An Overview of the Collection | Articles and Essays | An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490-1920 | Digital Collections
At the end of the nineteenth century, the growing influence of a new kind of popular music substantially changed the nature of dance. Ragtime had become a popular American style of music, chiefly composed for the piano, that flourished between 1890 and World War I. The sparkling and intoxicating rhythms of ragtime, with music by composers such as Scott Joplin, ushered in an era of expressive ballroom dancing, with dances that did not need formal training but which encouraged individualism. The first of these, the cakewalk--a strutting dance of African-American origins--with its imagined scandalous rhythms, was never performed by middle and upper class ballroom dancers in its original, vibrantly competitive form. Yet it did find its way into the stately quadrille and was, therefore, performed in some variation by a new generation of dancers.
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By the turn of the twentieth century, key elements of society were also beginning to change, especially the roles of women. No longer the shrinking violets of the romantic era, women were becoming more physically active. Women joined men in playing tennis, bicycling, and mountain climbing. As early as the 1850s, a few brave writers such as Mrs. Alfred Webster (Dancing, as a means of physical education, 1851) had encouraged women to exercise. In the 1870s, numerous manuals were dedicated to "physical culture," for example Coulon's Coulon's hand-book (1873), which contained exercises with poles, dumbbells, and elastics. Charbonnel's 1899 La danse also encouraged exercise. Frank Leslie Clendenen's 1919 The art of dancing placed great emphasis on physical fitness and included exercises, along with many alternative suggestions for healthy bodies, including pantomime, dramatic posture dances, Italian body exercises, and rhythmic dancing.
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Freed from the binding constraints of tight corsets and the large puffed sleeves and long skirts that characterized dress during the late Victorian era, a new generation of dancers was swaying, hugging, and grinding to the new rhythms in dances, such as the Turkey Trot, Bunny Hug, and Grizzly Bear, shown in a photograph from P. Gavina's 1922 Balli di ieri e balli d'oggi.
In contrast, exhibition dancers Irene and Vernon Castle were everything society considered elegant and sophisticated, and they soon helped revolutionize ballroom dancing, by example, in their own dancing and by teaching private lessons. Their book, Modern dancing, was published in New York in 1914. Lavishly illustrated with photographs of the famous couple, the book provided descriptions of many of the popular ragtime dances including the tango (See Video Clip 80, Video Clip 81, and Video Clip 82),one-step (See Video Clip 74), Castle Walk (See Video Clip 75), hesitation waltz (See Video Clip 76), and the maxixe (See Video Clip 77).
In attempting to bring civility back into the ballroom and in acknowledging the format of earlier dance manuals, the Castles also included chapters on "Grace and Elegance," "Proper Dancing-Costumes for Women," "Modern Dances as Fashion Reformers," and "Proper Dance Music." What the Castles had found was a dancing mania but a society that did not know how to dance. Suddenly, just as it had been one hundred years earlier, going to a dance teacher became the thing "to do."
The Castles were not alone, and dancing schools, tea dansants, and numerous publications proliferated during the early teens, giving a wide audience a chance to learn the latest steps. However, unlike the nineteenth century, where it was possible to read several manuals and find the same step description for the basic steps, in the early twentieth century every dance teacher had his or her own variations. In addition to the Castle's book, this online collection contains five additional manuals that were published in 1914.
Albert W. Newman's Dances of to-day, published in Philadelphia, utilized text, drawings, a notation system, and photographs to explain the one-step, waltz, tango, and maxixe, as well as many variations for each dance.
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Troy and Margaret Kinney's Social dancing of to-day, published in New York, also described ragtime dances through text, a notation system, and photographs. Caroline Walker's The modern dances, published in Chicago covered the tango (or, one-step, according to Walker), the Castle Walk, the Walking Boston, the hesitation waltz, the dream waltz, and the Argentine tango. J. S. Hopkins's The tango and other up-to-date dances, described the one-step, tango, Brazilian maxixe, and waltz. In The tango and the new dances, Bales O'Donnell published a series of articles written by the well-known exhibition ballroom dancers Maurice and his partner, Florence Walden.
As well as the standard ragtime dances, the manual contained nineteen figures for two exhibition dances, "Nights of Gladness" waltz and a dance called "La Habanera.") Taking advantage of the popularity of the tango, Eileen Swepstone published, also in 1914 The tango, a pamphlet that promised to present tango steps "shorn of crudities which caused it to be criticized."
This online collection concludes with several manuals published from 1920 to 1922 that do not reflect the popular, animated dances of the jazz era of post-World War I ballrooms. Instead, these authors wrote about "proper" dances, long since out of style. Aubrey McMahon Cree's 1920 Handbook of ball-room dancing asserted that the most popular dances were the Lame Duck Valse, one-step, foxtrot, and the Lancers (a quadrille). Charles J. Coll's 1922 Dancing made easy stated that the fashionable dances included the Carter Waltz and Schottisch Espagnole. In a series of pamphlets edited by Charles Julius Frank and published in 1922 under the title The latest method, home instruction by mail, instructions for the waltz, fox trot, and one-step were presented with diagrams, exercises, and a few simple steps.
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Fancy dances. While adults were flocking to studios to learn the latest popular dances, writers were encouraging parents to start their children early. H. N. Grant's 1893 How to become successful teachers of the art of dancing, published in Buffalo, was written to assist teachers in setting up schools. Grant covered such areas as how to open the class and how to conduct a private lesson, and he provided diagrams to be used in teaching. Mrs. H.A. Foreman's 1894 A few sketches of the interior and work done at Foreman Hall-1894 was a series of photographs depicting her students in poses from various dances taught at her school.
To answer the demand for fancy dances as well as for tableaux, dances appropriate as home entertainment or as recital pieces, a number of manuals appeared. H.N. Grant published a series of pamphlets including the 1892 The highland fling; the 1895 Irine skipping rope; and the 1895 The double sword dance.
Each pamphlet contained preliminary exercises and steps, as well as choreographies for the dances that were either solos or duets.
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F. C. Nott's Stage and fancy dancing, published in Cincinnati in 1896, provided instructions for thirty steps and more than twenty fancy dances, such as "Skirt Dance," "Cloak Dance," "Minuet," and "Witches Dance." Clendenen's treatise on elementary and classical dancing, published in 1903 in Davenport, Iowa, is a comprehensive manual with photographs and drawings that covered positions, technical terms, exercises, bows and curtseys, and a section on how to teach fancy dances including the "Highland Fling," "Sailor's Hornpipe," and "20th Century Skirt Dance." Published in 1906 by a leading fashion-pattern house, the Butterick Publishing Company, Masquerades, tableaux and drills provided suggestions for costumes and hair styles, as well as instructions for conducting tableaux, poses plastiques, and the so-called living pictures; a large section was also devoted to choreographies for fancy drills.
(For further reading on Ragtime dance, see the bibliography.)
Ragtime Era Dance
Ragtime Era Dance
Social Dances of the Ragtime Era
Music: During the 19th century, most of America's music, dances and fashions were imported from
Europe, as composers and dance masters emulated the
latest styles from Paris and London. At the same time, African Americans were combining their native
music with European forms, resulting in their spirituals and "Ethiopian Melodies"
that were adopted by minstrel shows and American composers like Foster, Christy and Gottschalk.
During the 1890s and early 1900s this unique African American music developed into a new sound – syncopated Ragtime music.
Dance: At the end of the 19th century, many Americans were becoming bored with the old music and dances, which were
essentially those of their grandparents. The Twentieth Century was seen as a time to make great changes,
so most people were ready for innovations, probably with the expectation that the changes would come from society's
cultural leaders. But instead, many Americans began to find it "modern" to dance their Two-Step to the new Ragtime music
from the rural South and Midwest. Some high society ballrooms embraced the African American Cake Walk
as "the popular fad of popular society." In the early 1900s, Ragtime music gained a wider acceptance
and was soon accompanying the new Four-Step (soon to be re-named the One-Step) and a spontaneous
menagerie of "animal dances" such as the Grizzly Bear, Turkey Trot, Bunny Hug and Camel Walk, especially among the
lower classes. By 1910, the popular phrase was, "Everybody's Doin' It Now," but in fact most of middle and
upper class society was only talking about it.
Many could not yet accept the new ragtime dances because of
lower-class associations.
In 1911 the newlyweds Irene and Vernon Castle found themselves in the right place at the right time, exhibiting
their versions of the new American dances in a Parisian dinner club. They became immensely popular in Paris,
and their fame spread through Europe. When the Castles returned to Irene's New York home in 1912, their
dancing set a new prototype for Americans to follow. The Castles were a young, elegant, attractive, wholesome,
married couple who had become the rage of Parisian high society. In a word, they had class. If they could
dance the new ragtime dances with propriety, then all levels of society could, and did. The Castles were joined by other
exemplars, such as Joan Sawyer, Maurice Mouvet and Florence Walton, all becoming catalysts in an explosive new dance mania.
And after two centuries of Americans dancing in the European manner, Europe was now importing the latest music and
dances from America.
During the ragtime dance craze, the ballrooms were dominated by the One-Step, a dance where a couple merely walked one step
to each beat of the music. Its immense popularity was due primarily to its simplicity, so that even novices could
be modern. Those who were especially fond of the new dancing had a wide variety of other steps and styles to choose
from. The Argentine Tango, which had been received with great acclaim in Paris, was renowned for its
flirtations with sensuality, previously forbidden in public dancing. In contrast, the Hesitation Waltz was
characterized by an elegant, almost balletic grace. The
Maxixe was a swaying Brazilian two-step (polka) that
was thought of as a Brazilian Tango. Vernon and Irene danced the One-Step in a unique style that became known as
the Castle Walk. The Half-and Half was an unusual hesitation waltz in 5/4 time, accompanied by even more obscure
experiments in 7/4 time.
Lastly, the Fox-Trot, which combined slow and quick steps in a wide variety of patterns,
was introduced in the last months before "The Great War."
See this page on
Ragtime Era Dance Fashions.
World War I brought an end to the ragtime era dance craze in 1914-15. Dance floors thinned as men in Europe and
then America left for war. Vernon Castle joined the Royal Flying Corps. (Click here for a page on Vernon Castle's exploits in aerial combat.) But for a brief four years,
the "modern dancing" craze redefined social dancing for the new 20th century, while also changing prototypes for personal relationships,
both on and off the dance floor.
— Richard Powers
Ragtime dance school - reviews, photos, prices, telephone and address - Courses - Petrozavodsk
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Free and aesthetic dance anyone is capable and at the Ragtime dance school (ranking on Zoon.ru - 4.5) Everyone is invited to check it out for themselves! Those who practice improve different combinations (steps, body movements, change of position), work on the rhythmic component, speed and coordination of movements. In continuing dancers teachers try to develop an understanding of choreography, so that they can convey correctly the mood of the music and live a little story in dance.
Entry open here for flamenco classes. Phone: 78142636043.
Dancing school is located at Republic of Karelia, Rovio, 3a. Working hours: Mon-Sun: 09:00 - 23:00; by appointment: Mon-Sun.
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This organization is located at Russia, Republic of Karelia, Petrozavodsk, Rovio, 3a.
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You may call at +7 (8142) 63-60-43.
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The doors of the organization are open in the following mode: Mon-Sun: 09:00 - 23:00; by appointment: Mon-Sun.
