Penny, I glanced at the lovely ceiling pictures. This is my favorite era. Wow! What a treat to have seen them in real life. I'm going to opine on the America social dances, merely because I run with a crowd of historic dance fans.
#18 that cute pink flapper could represent most any of the wilder jazz age dances like charleston, black bottom or very early shag. #19 ragtime again, with more elegance - while it looks like waltz, could represent the american born animal trots. The only one we remember anymore is foxtrot, but there were zillions of them, such as the squirrel trot, snake dip, horse trot, camel walk, and grizzly bear. Think Crene & Vernon Castle styling as seen in the original Whirl of Life. This one might also represent the tango, a South American dance, but brought to Paris & then the US by the Castles around 1912. Someone who isnt a dance historian might mistake the ragtime tango for an American innovation. #20 American contradance - again, think 20s dance scholarship. You can hear American called quadrilles & contra on many early recordings. #21 I'm stumped. Mazur, Polka, Waltz, Schottische are all of foreign origin. There are America choreographies for the 1840s thru Civil War, but nothing truly and uniquely American. They seem too well dressed for a hoe down or barn dance. Philadelpia Hop Waltz comes to mind, but these dancers are 50+ years out of fashion, IIRC. The American innovations would be the fretted dulcimer & banjo, but I'm not enough of a music scholar to tell you when these appeared in a posh dance setting. Cant help you with the other folk dances. Not my cup of tea, --cin Message: 8 Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 05:17:48 -0400 From: "Penny Ladnier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [h-cost] Help! Please! Cultural Dancers in Costumes To: "h-costume" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I need help...please! I am so much out of my comfort zone. I have a slideshow online of the ballroom ceiling of the Ringling's Ca d'Zan Mansion in Sarasota, Florida. The ceiling is called "Dancers of the World." There are 17 hand-painted medallions of cultural dancers. I need help with what countries and dances represented in the medallions. These were painted in the 1920s exclusively for the mansion by children's book illustrator / Broadway costume and set designer, William Andrew "Willy" Pogany. He was also a designer for the Zeigfeld Follies. He was friends with John and Mabel Ringling, the mansion's owner. He painted the medallions in his NYC studio and then applied them to the ballroom ceiling in Florida. I also need help with the photos 18-21. The curator said that these were titled "Four Corners of American-born Dances." He told me that photos 18 & 19 dates represented but I can't recall the dances. I am not really sure that I have the dates correct for photos 20 & 21. And again, do not recall the dances. I had one hour to photograph the ballroom ceiling because I was running out of time and had to photograph around tour groups. This is a popular area of the mansion and is one of the first areas that the tour groups access. I didn't even have time to take notes. When I was photographing this room, I had a couple of hours before catching my flight home. I spent a week photographing other areas of the museum. Thankfully the photos turned out good. If you are able to answer my questions, please refer to the photo number on the slideshow headers in your answer. The slideshow can be seen at http://www.costumegallery.info/ . Please make sure to use .INFO and not .COM . When you go to the slideshow, make sure to click on the enlarged view...it looks like the number 7 on the right side of the menu. Many, many thanks in advance for your help. Penny Ladnier, Owner, The Costume Gallery Websites www.costumegallery.com www.costumelibrary.com www.costumeclassroom.com www.costumeencyclopedia.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
