History features

James Finnigan (c) BATD

The story of the Military Two Step begins with one of Manchester’s most important dance instructors, James Finnigan, at the end of the nineteenth century.

Just as the rest of the city was pushing itself to the forefront of the Industrial Age, making advances in technology, building the first cars, planes and phones, and leading the world in trade, James wanted to put Manchester on the dancing map.

He founded a dance academy, Finnigans, in Cheetham Hill in 1877, where he (and subsequently, his daughter and grand-daughter) taught Mancunians to dance right up until it closed in 2005 - but simple tuition wasn’t enough for James.

In 1898, James joined the new British Association Of Teachers of Dancing (it started in 1892), a body formed to encourage the professionals of the day to organise themselves into a society which would improve and develop the art of dancing.

Buoyed by his membership, he became the prime mover in the creation of the Manchester and Salford Association of Teachers of Dancing in 1903.

Dancing the Military Two Step

Alongside the formation of the association, James had also set about devising a dance. Around the time, the term ‘military two step’ referred to a number of dances of a common type and James decided to bring them together in a regimented form.

He was helped with the arrangement of what would become the official Military Two Step by his daughter Ethel. Indeed, though the dance was first arranged by James in 1900, its earliest appearance on a dance programme wasn't until 1917, when it appeared with music by Ethel and a dedication from her to her father.

By this time, it was a combination of James’ original arrangement, which was also known as 'Victoria Cross' and Ethel’s arrangement, the main difference being when the salute – the part of the dance that marks it out as a military two step – comes (in James’ dance, it comes in bar six, while Ethel’s comes later, in bar 12).

In 1950, the Official Board of Ballroom Dancing (which would later become the British Dance Council) standarised many Old Time (a term used to describe things of the late 19th and early 20th centuries) dances, including the Military Two Step, though they changed it very little in the process and the dance that dancers know today is pretty much the same one that Ethel would have done.

Now, the Military Two Step is actually one of the least danced of all the Old Time dances and doesn’t make many appearances on dance programmes. However, when people talk about Old Time, it is always one of the dances that gets mentioned – including, of course, by Morrissey.

The Whitworth Social

Now the Military Two Step is about to revived by artist Lucienne Cole, who is working with The Whitworth Art Gallery on a unique project examining social dance in Manchester, called The Whitworth Social.

The idea of the Social follows the long tradition of dance hall get-togethers where people from all walks of life joined in a unifying experience, with the main aim being to bring a wide community of people together by way of dance and music.

The focal point of the evening's programme will be a communal dance of The Military Two Step and there’ll be an instructor on hand to help anyone with the steps.