Walking Boston

The Walking Boston, sometimes designated the One Step Waltz, is a very simple dance in which many graceful figures may be introduced. It is done to the same music as the Hesitation Waltz and Dream Waltz. The man starts forward with his left foot and the lady backward with her right, simply walking to waltz time, counting one, two, three to each step. At each step the dancers rise on their toes. Four of these steps are taken forward (backward by the lady), then they balance backward and forward. As the dancers balance they make a quarter turn to the man's right to the one, two, three count of the music--four of these quarter turns making the complete revolution. Throughout this turn the man keeps his right foot and the lady her left on the floor, using it as a pivot on which to turn. Now the man steps backward with his left foot and the lady forward with her right, taking four steps. Then balance, and instead of four quarter turns to the one, two, three count of the music, make two half turns in the same time. The dance includes a great deal of "balancing". Indeed, the Walking Boston cannot be performed easily or gracefully unless the balancing is done properly. Balancing means throwing the weight of the body successively on to one foot and then on the other. This is done with one foot well in advance of the other. Good dancers get plenty of swing into their action. Swing forward. Swing backward.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Walking Boston”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Walking Boston is type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶