Origin of the One-step - Why It Is Popular - Three Variations - Two Exercises for Helping to

Teach Children

The one-step is derived from the two-step, and, to a certain extent, from the Boston. Needless to say, therefore, its origin is American.

All the new dances of recent years - round dances, that is to say - have come from America. We have had the Washington Post, the modified cake-walk, which was worked to death by a certain section of society a few years ago ; the two-step, which is still popular, and the Boston. This dance continues to be invented, changed, and altered to suit the convenience of the dancing public.

The Popular One-step

Last of all, the one-step has arrived. It is a quicker, more jumpy edition of the two-step, with several variations, and is danced with one step taken at a time by successive feet. Throughout all the varieties of the one-step - most of them acquired since it reached England - in no case does the. same foot take two steps directly following each other. The left foot must immediately follow the right, and vice versa ; so it Will be guessed that the steps are not at all complicated. Whether going sideways, forward, round, or backwards, the " one-step walk " continues," like a series of jumping steps, taken as if walking, with a spring, in whatever direction the gentleman chooses to steer.

Of course, teachers have arranged definitely marked variations of the one-step, in which the arms, body, and feet are moved in a certain way at a certain time. But so far as the general army of one-steppers is concerned, this dance consists of a springing step on each foot, alternately, taken in whatever direction is most pleasing at the moment.

The consequence is the one-step is very badly danced, as a rule ; vulgar steps and ugly positions are introduced into it, as they have been into other American dances. Ignorance of the correct steps, and a mistaken belief that the dance is " so easy that it need not be learned " is ruining the one-step, just as it ruined the two-step and the Boston.

American Dances

This is a great pity, for although teachers may deprecate the general adoption of American dances in this country when they are not in reality suited to our methods and temperament, it cannot be denied that, properly . performed, these dances are very charming. The pity is. that they are seldom, indeed never, properly performed, because so few people take the trouble to learn them. If everyone who ever tried to dance a two-step, Boston, or one-step had first taken the trouble to learn the steps, I venture to state that these dances would never have been subjected to ridicule, such as they have occasioned in recent years. Nor would they have been compared so unfavourably to the valse and polka. Actually, they are quite as pretty, graceful, and elegant as the measures of France and Germany ; but we are scarcely ever permitted to see them in their real form.

on right foot, gentleman forward on left

Fig. I. The One-step. Starting position and first step : lady back

Photos, Stephanie Maud

As a teacher I am glad to be able to instruct children and grown-up pupils in the one-step, or any other American dance. If in my heart I am extremely sorry to think that these dances are invading our ballrooms, it is only because I know too well that they are being danced so badly. If they were well danced, there is not a teacher who would not welcome them. As they are seen at every ball in England it is small wonder that the antics of the dancers draw ridicule, calumny, and disrepute on the one-steps and judy walks of to-day. And for that reason alone I should be glad if the one-step could be banished from ball programmes. But as a correctly learned and performed dance for children or grown-ups I must admit that it is quite graceful and far from vulgar. I find it is so popular among my pupils because it is, in reality, very easy to learn and to dance; but, like all dances, it needs learning, and practice to perfect it.

Fig. 2. The One-step. The rock. Gentleman back on right foot, lady forward on left

The one-step is so popular because people imagine that they need not learn it. They see other couples running helter-skelter from side to side, or backwards and forwards, and. by doing the same thing, fondly imagine they are performing a genuine one-step. The absurd figures they present would soon show them their mistake could they only see themselves as others see them.

The relation of the one-step to the two-step comes through the music, which is exactly the same, but played faster, because there are no long, sliding steps in the one-step; also, through the position, in which the dancers stand, side by side, or hip to hip, the greater part of the time, which method of holding first reached this country with the advent of the two-step. From the Boston the one-step borrows its method of steering, employing the erratic, go-as-you-please style first developed in that dance. Special use is made in one variation of the one-step of the zig-zag type of steering, which has become so familiar through the many Bostons which describe a zig-zag from end to end of the ballroom.

The one-step consists of the springing step previously described, taken in every direction. Thus we get the front step, back step, turning step, and crab step (or sideways step). In some of these steps the feet go behind and in front of each other, but the alternate springing movement never ceases. I propose to describe three variations of the one-step: the one-step proper, the dotted one-step, and the crab step.