Between our performances during the day on Saturday and the evening ball that night we had down time during which we wanted to escape the public eye and do a little modern relaxing. Lucky for us, the upper floor of the Commandant’s house was made available to us. The entire house is lovely, so I have pictures from various parts of the house, but the bulk of the pictures are from the upper floor.
In the front part of the main floor, an enclosed porch with lovely painted walls.The opposite wall from the last picture. The large windows overlook the Boston Harbor.We had a great view of reenactors and tourists from the windows. It was also a picturesque spot for photos.Inside the main floor at the house.Looking down on the stairs that led to the upper floor. I love this shot!On the second floor the main hallway was nautically themed, as you can see by the change in carpet. There was also a continuation of the stairway which led up to another floor.Unfortunately, that upper upper floor was not available to us and we couldn’t go much past this point.The different rooms on the upper floor had nautical names: Topside, Leeward, Port, Windward, and Starboard.There were also labeled servant bells all around. Unfortunately, the bells were not operational, but the bells still added a fun element of atmosphere.The most exciting room for photographs upstairs was this one.It had this lovely dressing table and mirror set with drawers and cabinets.These sorts of things make excellent props for photos.We all took turns trying out different angles and poses.Across the hall was a library, from which we borrowed a book to use as a prop.Doesn’t this just have that Jane Austen atmosphere?And it helped that this particular chair was quite comfy!Thinking of Mr. Darcy, perhaps? This settee was also in the same room.These wonderfully Regency poses were so easy to think of in this space!In another room (in my head it is “the Green Room”) were more comfortable photo options.It was really lovely!Our randomly chosen prop book: “The Works of Shakes-peare Volume VIII.” I am super amused when I say his hyphenated name aloud.The exterior of the Commandant’s House, looking up from the side with the harbor on it.Just one shot of the lovely hydrangeas that are planted all around the house.The side of the house. See that big stone wall? That’s actually the original front of the house: the original front door is about 4 feet from the wall. And right on the other side of the wall is the modern 4 lane street. So you can see why the back of the house is now what seems to be the front of the house.
And there we are! We have lounged in the Commandant’s House! The last installment of pictures will be a post highlighting the new gown I whipped up!
In this second installment of the Guerriere weekend, we’ll look at pictures relating to the USS Constitution and the USS Constitution Museum. As I mentioned in my first post about the weekend, I sorted the pictures into loose categories to break them up for blog posting purposes. These pictures are all from Sunday, when the USS Constitution was tugged out of Boston harbor and sailed out in the Atlantic under her own power (this is one of the first times this has happened in about the last century! She is tugged and turned around every year or so, I think, but she doesn’t sail under her own power at those times.). From the Charlestown Navy Yard we could see the tugging, but unfortunately the open Atlantic was too far away for us to see her sailing under her own power. Despite that sad fact, it was still exciting to see her move!
Waiting for the Constitution to get under way. If you look really closely you can see her name poking out from behind our heads.There she is, being tugged out of Boston Harbor.Watching her being tugged away.We wanted to be on the opposite side of the wharf for the Constitution’s return, so a few of us ran around (it was maybe 1/4 of a mile)… Along the way was a deserted parking lot we could either go around, or through… Of course we went through, which involved climbing/jumping/falling over the metal barricades… You should know that going around would have been an extra 90 feet or so of walking (ie. not much)…But we made it without injuries! Here is the Constitution being tug pushed back into alignment to return to her docking area. You can see the modern marines furling the sails, so clearly, she actually did use them.The four adventurous ladies who surmounted barricades to get great Constitution shots.As she slowly glided into place we took the opportunity to wave at the reenactors and modern marines aboard. Some of them even waved back!See all the people on the deck? Some of them, with the not modern shaped hats are the reenactors. It’s really cool that they were able to sail on the Constitution!On our way back to join our friends we had time to stop at this large anchor.In the museum. The banner states the whole purpose of the weekend’s celebrations.He’s not a cardboard cut out…Upstairs at the museum is a hand’s on walk through being aboard the Constitution in 1812. At this point, you get to hoist Billy the Goat aboard for food stores (he’s stuffed and makes loud goat sounds as you hoist him!).There were lots of paintings and informational signs to imitate.Then there’s this great spot, where you can stand on a rigging rope and furl a sail. This rope is only about 6″ off the ground, but obviously the real sails are much higher up.Yup. Here’s the real Constitution, with real modern marines in the rigging.There are other interactive things as well. Here, I am scrubbing the deck!In this room, you can climb into hammocks. The floor is super squishy, in case you fall out! The hammocks were actually pretty comfortable. And you see the guy in the corner? He’s another cardboard cut out.
Fun day! It’s so neat to be a part of interesting and exciting things like the sailing of the Constitution. The next post about the weekend is gong to be wonderfully picturesque photos of us Lounging in the Commandant’s House! Stay tuned!
New month = new adventures! This one happened back in August (I did a lot of things that month, so you’ll be hearing about them for awhile) not too long after Newport Vintage Dance Week, the subject of the last… ahem… ten posts on this blog. Anyway, this was another fun filled dancing adventure with the same young people that attended Newport… but in a different period: Regency.
In August, the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers performed in and occupied the Commandant’s House at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston as part of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the USS Constitution‘s defeat of the HMS Guerriere in the War of 1812. The Navy Yard was also host to multiple groups of War of 1812 military reenactors from both the American and British sides who did various exhibitions during the weekend in addition to just hanging around their camps looking stylish in their military uniforms.
I wound up with about 400 of my own pictures from the weekend, a number which I have slimmed down in order to share with you only the best of the bunch; however, it’s still more pictures than is reasonable for one post. Thus, I will be doing four posts about the weekend! I had to sort the pictures somehow, so I’ve created four different focuses for each of the posts. This first post I entitled “Happenings” because it is pictures of CVD members and reenactors doing things of various sorts (as opposed to the content of my next two posts: “The USS Constitution” and “Lounging in the Commandant’s House”). The final post will be about the all new hand sewn 1812 dress I whipped out in the week before the performance! I’ll have to come up with a fun title for that one…
You know us TNG-ers. We like pictures of us running around. In this picture, we’re running up the walk to the Commandant’s House, our hang out for the 1812 weekend.Some CVD performers starting the weekend off with pictures!A little bit of Wilson’s Waltz on Saturday.And some Scotch Reel.It was pretty fabulous that on Saturday we had live music to dance to!Between performances on Saturday we played Regency card games including Palace and… (oh no, my mind is blanking! Someone help me remember the name of that C game! It wasn’t Convergence… or Chance… Eep!)Getting to know a few of the British soldiers while we were preparing for lunch in the dining room.Lunch was a Regency food potluck affair. It looked pretty appetizing and picturesque.I enjoyed looking out of the windows and exclaiming “Look! Dudes are doing drills!”In the afternoon we played Blind Man’s Bluff, which is super fun and works really well on a wooden floor.It’s quite possible that running around and playing this game was more tiring than dancing.The way the game works is that the blindfolded person has to try and catch someone else and then correctly guess who it is. The trouble is that all the un-blindfolded people can either be really quiet or make lots of noise to confuse the blindfolded person.More CVD: this time inside the house in one of the rooms we danced in.British are red. Americans are blue.I think almost everyone had made new clothes for this performance, since Regency isn’t a period CVD usually performs.There was also an unoccupied guard hut in front of the Commandant’s House that begged for pictures.How many people do you think will fit inside?On Saturday evening there was a ball for the reenactors. Sadly, not many of them attended, and even fewer stuck it out until the end of the night. However, the small number of people made for a cosy atmosphere.On Sunday afternoon we had a picnic out on the lawn of the Commandant’s House.And we ran around on the lawn.We also went down to the dock to see the Constitution. The reenactors were also there. Here are the Americans.And here are the British. Isn’t the Boston skyline in the background an interesting contrast to the bayonets?The British soldiers were posing for pictures for the tourists. We took the opportunity to join them, with many cheers from the crowd.British soldiers at ease.There was also this little mini-cannon. Not sure what it was for.This hat beat them all! I love these fur hats! It’s like the guards at Buckingham Palace.The British soldiers certainly made more appearances on my camera. Here they are heading off to create new adventures.
Wow! I am so pleased that you are still here with me to share my copious yet fabulous memories from Newport Vintage Dance Week. The end is near, but not here yet… These pictures are from the last formal event Newport Vintage Dance Week will ever host: the 1890s Soiree at the Roger Williams Park Casino.
Built in 1896, the Casino at Roger Williams Park features a brick exterior and verandas…[in the] Colonial Revival architectural style of the late nineteenth century. The interior walls of the first floor are constructed of hand-finished wood panels, the original maple floors are intact, and details such as beveled mirrors and an emerald green tiled fireplace lend a formal and elegant air to the surroundings. Upstairs, the…grand [ball]room, with it’s birch floors, is painted in warm, rosy tones to evoke a sense of well being, a priority during the “Gay Nineties”. Plaster friezes and frescoes of cherubs and musical instruments adorn the 20-foot ceilings.
We arrived after sunset, due to a lot of last minute sewing, thus I didn’t manage to get pictures of the exterior of the building, but here is one courtesy of one of the catering companies that often does events at the venue (found via google).
The exterior of the Casino.
Now, before we proceed any further, I think we must ponder the definition of the word “casino.” To our modern minds, the word evokes a house of gambling, but that is not the appropriate definition for this particular venue. Here is Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the word: 1-a building or room used for social amusements; specifically: one used for gambling. Clearly, we were going out for social amusements! An example of the word in use (and related to our ball!): “on summer evenings dance bands would perform in the seaside casino.” So fitting!
This is Friday afternoon. The ball was Friday evening…Getting ready to go wound up taking awhile because this decade needed lots of hair teasing and fussing from all of us to compliment the tiaras and bling!Dressed! And blinged!Three all new dresses that were finished the evening of the ball!Another last minute finish.Luckily, everyone made it to the ball wearing clothes!I made an all new 1893 silk ball gown for this event. I received many lovely compliments, including some that expressed the feeling that I had achieved both the silhouette of the period as well as the overall style and that I really looked as though I had stepped out of the past. Yay! Goal successfully reached!Another TNG picture. The bling was borrowed amongst all of us so everyone had sufficient sparkle.Such a great ensemble! Adorable dress, fabulous feathers, and really awesome shoes!A little blurry, but aren’t all the penguin-look-alikes fabulous?Dancers at the ball. This is the upstairs ballroom.More wonderfully dressed dancers.A figured dance, I believe. Isn’t the atmosphere amazing?Directing traffic around a tight turn in the Grand March. This particular Grand March went up and down stairs multiple times!The Cake Walk. It’s a silly dance that where you prance and posture around the room, or, if you are in TNG, you might participate in the “Zombie Cake Walk.”The ceiling of the upstairs ballroom.Some TNG-ers dancing in the downstairs ballroom.The ceiling of the downstairs ballroom.The ballroom grew quite warm, but we discovered air vents in the floor!Then we had people stand on them but didn’t tell them ahead of time about the nice, cool air… (insert sneaky laugh)Preparing to leave. It was a long, fabulous week.
Final tally: 20 pictures out of 468 from this event.
Last post, I left you just at the completion of our young set’s Speed Virginia Reel. This post is going to be a continuation of Ochre Court pictures, because there were too many I wanted to share for just one post. At the end of the ball we decided to get some young people pictures on the fabulous red carpeted stair case in the entry way, so that is where we begin Ochre Court pictures: part II.
Congregating on the stairs. If you look closely, you can see the flower clump casualty on my dress.Such a lovely group of young people.Of course, we’re all very tired after our exertions…But that doesn’t stop us from taking animal pictures!Which made us laugh pretty hard.Bill Cunningham caught us taking photos on the stairs and was very excited. BUT… We caught Bill Cunningham taking pictures of us on the stairs!Halfway up the stairs, pretending to jump!A close up…Another view. It was particularly amusing to us because we were tired and the floor below the stairs is marble, so obviously one would not actually want to jump over the railing…Okay, now we’re trying to be serious and look like we’re having casual conversations.And now we’re being elegant. Look! Bill Cunningham!Descending the stairs with camera flashes going off as though I was a celebrity!But I’m not… I’m just me, missing a flower clump… backed by young men in tails…Momentary relaxation between photos…This was the skirt puddle pose which followed the traditional jellyfish dance… (aka all of us jumping up and down in a clump and moving through the rooms before suddenly plopping and letting our skirts billow around us).While being a jellyfish I lost a second clump of flowers! I didn’t think I had sewn them on so loosely!So sad. You know it’s a good ball when your dress suffers injuries not once, but twice!Oh my! Tartan drawers to match the tartan dress!I was so happy to just BE in Ochre Court. Do you get that feeling from this picture? I’m just soaking it all in.Exuberant might be a better word for me.“I love Ochre Court THIS much!”Posing by the fireplace in the white room. Isn’t it lovely?Don’t we look fabulous???The necessary bum picture, particularly amusing when wearing hoops.One last glimpse of the back lawn before we pack up to leave.I LOVE Ochre Court. I just wanted to drink it in as much as I possibly could.
That was a long one! But you made it! Thanks for sticking with me through all those photos. I sincerely hope that you were able to get a feeling of excitement and unrestrained happiness from the pictures that matched even half of my feelings from that night. It was truly spectacular. Thanks to all my lovely friends for assisting me in having such a marvelous time.
Final tally: 66 pictures from this event between two posts out of 1047 possible Ochre Court pictures… Honestly, I don’t think I did too terribly narrowing them down, considering the possibilities!
As you may already know if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, the 1860s are my favorite period. I get super excited about them–especially the clothes! So you can imagine my absolute joy at being able to attend an 1860s ball during Newport Vintage Dance Week. But to make things even more amazingly wonderful, this particular ball was held in one of the most beautiful places we visited during the week! You can see pictures of last year’s 1860s Ochre Court Newport ball here, in an earlier post. In fact, Ochre Court is my favorite of any Newport venues I have ever entered, except maybe the Breakers… but we didn’t have a ball at the Breakers (because it is no longer open to the public, as far as I know), so for Newport 2012, Ochre Court was my top most favorite place!
Ochre Court was built in 1892 as a summer home for Ogden Goelet, a wealthy New York banker and developer, for $4.5 million. It was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, who also designed the Breakers, which is just down the street. In fact, Ochre Court is the 2nd largest Newport “cottage,” the Breakers being the largest. (All of this information came from the Newport Mansions website, which you can access by clicking the link at the beginning of the paragraph. It also has fantastic pictures, which you should check out if you’re at all interested!)
We came up the side road to enter Ochre Court. This is the side gate.As you walk in the side gate you are greeted by the grand front drive to the right.Looking down the main drive. Directly behind the camera is Ochre Court.The grand main drive is just to the right. To the left is the entry to Ochre Court.Looking up at Ochre Court. The arch at the bottom of the picture is the front entryway from the last picture.This is the grand ballroom: the first room reached upon entering Ochre Court! It is three stories high with arched galleries on the second and third floors, which are reached by means of a fabulous red carpeted staircase (pictures of that are coming soon).Pass through the grand ballroom and you emerge onto the back lawns which slope gently down toward the cliff and the water.
The neat thing about many of the balls at Newport is that multiple rooms on the same level of the mansions are open and available to us, and we are able to dance between rooms during the course of one dance!
This is the library, which is just off of the grand ballroom.The grand ballroom.Another view of dancers in the grand ballroom.One more because it’s pretty!This room wasn’t open last year! In my head it is the white room. It is also just off of the grand ballroom. We are dancing the Newport 2012 quadrille: Les Rats.We’ve just finished a figure of the quadrille! Yay us!Taking a break in the entryway.
Okay, this next bit takes a bit of explaining. Antonia expressed it very well in her post “Speed Virginia Reel at Ochre Court.” You can read the whole description by clicking the link, but here’s the short version: “The Virginia Reel is an interesting dance…there are always people who refuse to wait for the music and push the speed…Speed Virginia Reel doesn’t even try that hard, and instead strives to be insane. It was invented by teenagers a couple of months ago…and it doesn’t even pretend to be dancing to music.” Is your interest peaked?
I hope so, because it was some of the most fun we young people had at this particular ball! It included many sweeping hoop skirts showing scandalous views of ladies’ drawers as well as a slide and fall on her bottom by none other than me! Unfortauntely, there are no pictures of me actually on the floor, so you’ll have to take my word for it (and I’m sure my fellow dancers would back me up!). Lucky for me I had two factors in my favor such that I didn’t hurt myself at all: 1-I wear a pretty hefty bum pad with my 1860s clothes to help my hoop stay paralell to the floor (I’m pretty sure I landed on this, because the floor is marble, and the fall didn’t hurt) and 2-there was so much adrenaline going around that even if it did hurt I didn’t feel it…I remember lying on the floor thinking “Yikes, I am lying on the floor,” and then jumping up again and continuing the dance! This dance was so much fun I really couldn’t rule out very many pictures, so I do hope that you don’t mind seeing a lot of Speed Virginia Reel, the all new 1860s dance craze!
Hoops and tails are flying! This is part of the grand ballroom, looking toward the dining room. We stationed ourselves in an uninhabited section of the room so as not to endanger others…Just look at those hoops flying!The corner people dance (or run…) various things together to begin the dance.Flying tails!Run!!!You can see the momentum in the swinging hoops!This part of the dance is called strip the willow. It involves the top couple turning each of the people below them till they meet at the bottom…The top couple is just beginning to run to the top to start follow the leaders.Scandalous drawers!Even more is showing in this picture. I think this is the highest any skirt went…The top couple runs down the middle of the other four couples, and the other couples have to spring apart to make space!Really, the top couple just goes all out down the middle and hopes for the best (at least in the speedy version of this dance).This picture is pretty awesome. The wind is ruffling my sails (skirt…) and I am clearly running, as I wouldn’t be able to stand at that angle without falling over otherwise…More obvious evidence of running…Look at those hoops sway!Another favorite running picture! I’m sure you can see why!I had to include this, because look at how high my skirt was swinging! It’s pretty epic!Run, run, run!Clearly, there was a lot of running and momentum in this dance.Forward and backward, all while running.Down the middle!Follow the leader!This is what was happening while the top couple circled the people below them.Evidence of my fall! You can see one of my flower clumps on the floor that’s about to be picked up so it is out of danger!Follow the leader around the column…running as fast as possible and missing a flower clump…We made it, corsets, falling and all! I’m obviously excited, because look at how far off the floor I am! I LOVE this picture! Don’t you?
There was nothing sedate about this dance. What else is there to say? I have more fabulous pictures from the end of this event… but I think I’ll do a second installment post about this event to share them. So stay tuned!
As you might recall from my last post, I have more Regency picnic game pictures to share with you! I’m excited! I hope you are as well… We left off with the four of us playing “Graces” and coming up with innovative methods of playing to keep us amused and challenged… let’s just see where that led us! I had a hard time condensing the photos… I hope you’re not overwhelmed!
Lost my bonnet, but I caught a hoop on each arm! Success!Yes! Bonnet still on head and two hoops! Wow!Double hoop-age and a silly looking action shot! What could be better?Reach! Somehow, I think this is much more graceful looking than the last photo…
Okay… now we get silly!
Wand attack pose. Not very Regency-like, but amusing, nonetheless!Strike a pose! Conduct an orchestra! ???
Attempts at being graceful and Regency-like…
Very graceful hoop catching.Waiting to catch the hoops.Gracefully catching the flung hoop.Another graceful pose. Okay, okay, so I wore my sunglasses for much of the picnic. Shhh!
Bloopers?
Graceful, certainly, but I don’t think I caught the hoops that time…This certainly looks like one time when the hoops are going to hit the ground…(More sunglasses… didn’t they have those?)I think I’m confused about why the second hoop is on the ground by my right foot…
Vacationing is lovely while it lasts, but it does seem to make real life a bit overwhelming. I’ve been slow on the posting lately because of my vacationing. And, to be honest, life + vacationing is most likely going to be slowing me down some more over the next month or so. Some of my vacations will generate some really great pictures, though, so stay tuned for those in August!
It’s been roasting-ly hot here in Massachusetts for the last few weeks, but the heat didn’t stop the Massachusetts Costumers from enjoying the annual Regency Picnic. It was toasty, but we tried to spend lots of time in the shade. And despite the heat, we had a marvelous time! Join me in recalling the fun through viewing (just a few of the 300 or so) pictures we snapped that day.
Our idyllic setting at a lovely park in Bridgewater, MA.Okay, so our food and table setting was not historically accurate. But the colors were so nice and summer-y! (And the pink lemonade was quite refreshing.)After eating, we strolled through the park and took pictures (and coerced random passers-by to take photos of us…). Lovely group of ladies, don’t you think?Then we played a Regency game called… “Graces?” (Ack! I can’t remember the name… Jenni, help me!)Basically, each person has two long sticks which they use to fling the be-ribboned hoops at the other player. The second person catches the hoops on their own sticks before flinging them back again.I’ve included pictures where you can see the hoops in midair. Despite the fact that we often seem to be catching the hoops, I also have many pictures where we, um, didn’t catch the hoops…Eventually, we got the hang of it and decided to make it more challenging. In this instance we had two hoops going at once, one flung by each player!It took a little time to get used to the coordination of flinging and catching in quick succession.But we got the hang of it and then we started flinging two hoops at the same time in one direction! That meant the person catching had to catch two at once! Eep!
After that challenge we thought we were finished with the game… but then one of us (I can’t remember who…) had the brilliant idea to attempt to make graceul, Regency-like poses, while playing the game. That kept us going for awhile longer, with some amusing photos and lots of laughs, but you’ll have to wait till my next post for those photos (I don’t want to overload you with too many fun in the sun Regency picnic photos at once, you know!). In the end, the heat wasn’t so bad!
Since I seem to be on a shoe spree, I thought it would be a fitting time to share with you a series of striped shoes from the 19th and early 20th century. The continuity of the adornment over the changing shoe styles on these first three pairs is so interesting.
Striped evening slippers. 1840-1849. The Met.Striped evening slippers. 1860-1870. The Met.Striped evening pumps. 1920. The Met.
Do you have a favorite amongst these? Personally, I like the pair from 1860-1870 best (maybe it’s the rosette that appeals to me in addition to the stripes!). You can also pick from these next few pairs, which I’ve included just for fun.
Striped slippers. 1795-1810. The Met.Striped shoes. 1845-1865. The Met. (These kind of look like Toms?!?)Striped evening shoes. Late 1920s. The Met.
Oh my goodness! This is such a cool and huge collection of photographs and fashion plates! Lauren over at American Duchess has been referencing images from the Bartos Collection for awhile now, but I didn’t get a chance to check it out for myself until just recently. It is WONDERFUL!
The collection focuses on the mid-19th century through the early 20th century. There are fashion plates and mounds of period photographs and pictures of extant clothing… If you love historic clothes and hats and hair you MUST VISIT! Here’s the link, again, because you must go visit and drop your jaw with me!
The Quintessential Clothes Pen 