Lulu Fado Who?

    The LuLu Fado, a dance few have ever heard of, was the rage in N.Y. for a brief moment in time.  The moment were are referring to is the year 1914 and ballrooms everywhere were cranking out new dances to feed the new social dance crazy.  It was only in the late 19th century that social dancing really began to develop.  Prior to 1900, sequence dances such as the Minuet, Quadrilles, and Lancers were popular. The pinnacle of this social evolution was the Ragtime era 1890-1916 and in particular 1911-1914 radically changed the way the world dances.

     The Lulu Fado served as a social mixer dance and wasreceived well, however, sequence dancing was no longer in vogue and although fun, it was doomed from the start. While the LuLu Fado didn’t survive the cut, it does help illustrate the many different characterizations of dancing that existed in this creative and revolutionary time.

   One interesting aspect of this dance is the timing being described as; Quick Quick, Quick & Quick (counted 1,2,3&4) or  Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick (counted 12, 34, 5,6). The first timing is a fusion of One Step and Two Step timings (. The second timing was much later to become the standardized timing of American Style Fox Trot.  The Fox Trot was first seen in New York in the same year (1914) as the Lulu Fado came into popular culture.

I’ve posted full size scans of the provided period documents.
To download them first click on the above images to enlarge, then right click and save as image.

Please Note: below is an embedded music player with a recording of the Lulu Fado, simply press play to enjoy!

LULU – Fado on Vocalstyle piano roll #11753 originally performed by I. Rodriguez and played on an “Ampico Lexington 88n” replicating piano.

 

1914 Lulu Fado Mixer Ragtime Round Dance