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Posted by Walter at 10:04 PM

In order to take advantage of the capabilities offered by Drupal, this blog is moving to a new location.

The New Blog

Selected content will be moved over there, and this blog will stay in place, but no longer be added to.

Walter

Posted by Walter at 11:02 AM

One of the more interesting features of a "Fan Page" on Facebook is the ability to gather demographic information on your fans. The demographics shown below were derived from the Social Daunce Irregulars Victorian Grand Ball Facebook Page, which currently has about 450 fans. These statistics are, of course, not necessarily indicative of all Victorian dance groups, or vintage dance groups everywhere, but they seem to be, from what I have seen, fairly typical.

Continue reading "Victorian Dance Demographics" »

Posted by Walter at 08:33 AM

I am constantly being bombarded with questions from folks new to the vintage dance scene about "Where can I rent stuff". I have generally dodged the question, since I have seldom been impressed with what is available from retail costume rental places, and the movie shops are expensive and intimidating for the uninitiated. I worry that any recommendation will be perceived as an endorsement, and in my limited experience, I have yet to find a rental place I could give my unqualified endorsement.

However, the fact remains that there are countless newbees out there who want to join in the fun, don't have the time or skills to make stuff themselves, and either can't afford a costumer or can't afford to wait for a costumer.

Continue reading "Some Places to Rent a Costume" »

Posted by Walter at 07:24 PM | Comments (1)

This video is too splendid not to share. It is a leisurely cruise down Market Street in 1905, a year before the earthquake destroyed it all. Look for the wonderful interplay of streetcars, horse carts, carriages, automobiles and pedestrians - especially the kids playing dodge-the-streetcar and hanging on the back of an automobile. Having grown up in the Bay Area, I also loved the sense of familiar but different I got seeing this street I have visited countless times.

Continue reading "San Francisco - Market Street - 1905" »

Posted by Walter at 07:15 AM

The Pasadena Museum of History has asked me to work with them putting together programs in the coming year. One of the ideas we floated was a program devoted to bizarre popular pseudo-science of the early 20th Century.

I, for example, have a schtick as a phrenologist. However, we could certainly use people like a magnetic healer, a patent medicine huckster, a spiritualist, an elctrotherapist, a specialist in "female complaints" or anything else you can think of that would be historically appropriate, interesting and shed light on popular conceptions and misconceptions about science in the early 20th Century. There would even be room for people who want to present valid science and technology of the day.

Continue reading "Help Wanted - Quacks, Mountebanks, Frauds & Flim-Flam Men" »

Posted by Walter at 04:28 PM | Comments (1)

In trying to recreate historical dance, or any other historical performance art form where sound or film recordings are not available, you constantly run into the question of "what is authentic"?

With social dancing, this is a rather acute question, as the sources for these dances are generally dance manuals. These dance manuals are often very specific on the proper way to perform the dances in question (except when they're not, and assume that everyone already knows the fundamentals of the dances performed - but that's another issue).

Certainly. to dance the dance exactly as described in the book is more than likely correct for some portion of the dancing population of the time, but what if you dance that dance some other way -- is that wrong? Is that unhistorical? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.

Continue reading "Dancing Badly is Not Historically Incorrect" »

Posted by Walter at 03:02 PM | Comments (1)