Capering & Kickery

The Royal Gallopade

The Royal Gallopade is an interesting mix of popular 1830s dances, with elements borrowed from country dances, galopades, and quadrilles, plus a concluding sauteuse waltz.  My only source for it is the Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne (Second Edition) by J. S. Pollock, London.  It is undated, but the mix of dances and a textual reference to an 1829 event suggests the early 1830s.  Pollock claims that gallopades "appear" to be of Russian origin.  Among those he credits with their introduction is the sixth Duke of Devonshire, who was a close friend of both the Prince Regent (later George IV) and Czar Nicholas I and had traveled to the Russian court.

Pollock depicts the original gallopade as a choreographed sequence dance for a circle of couples with gallop interspersed with short dance figures and gives not only this original but gallopades in country dance and quadrille form.  Fittingly, the Royal Gallopade is given a separate section of its own between the quadrille and country dance gallopades.

My photocopy of the Pollock book is at least third-generation and extremely blurry, but as best I can make it out (I make no guarantees on the punctuation) the description of the dance sequence is as follows:

Gallopade (as described in the original Gallopade) straight forward to the top of the room the lady crossing the gent at the end of each four bars; on arriving at the top, the first couple in one set, faces the first couple of the other set; the second couples faces the second, and so on to the bottom of the dance, then each four perform the figure of Le Pantalon -- the whole of the party then face the bottom of the room, and gallopade as before -- then perform La Poule -- gallopade to the top of the room, and finish with the sauteuse round the room.

While given as a social dance, this makes a spectacular performance piece as well.

A Fancy Medley (1893)

Throughout the mid- and late 19th century, dancing masters had mixed quadrille figures and couple dances such as the waltz, polka, schottische, and galop into single figures or entire quadrilles.  A popular variation on this idea was a "varieties" or medley quadrille in which each figure used a different kind of music and incorporated a different couple dance.  Such a one is this Fancy Medley, published in Boston in 1893 in The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French.  The three figures of the quadrille include a polka figure, a schottische figure, and a waltz figure.  The original instructions may be seen here (page one) and here (page two).  The individual figures are quite similar to some of French's single-figure quadrilles, such as the Waltz Quadrille and Polka Quadrille discussed in earlier posts here (waltz) and here (polka) and bear a close family resemblance to other single-figure quadrilles of the era.

A Polka Quadrille (1893)

By the end of the 19th century,  many quadrilles were being published that didn't follow the earlier form of having multiple separate figures.  Although this short dance does have two distinct parts, they are treated as one long figure.  The source of the dance is The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French, published in Boston in 1893.  The original instructions may be seen here.  There are significant similarities in the figures to the Waltz Quadrille from the same source, which I described in an earlier post, as well a a generic similarity to other one-figure quadrilles of the late 19th century, which typically involve a mix of very simple figures interspersed with the entire set dancing in couples (waltz, polka, galop, etc., depending on the type of quadrille).

The Regency-Era Pas de Basque

In his 1818 dance manual, The Quadrille and Cotillion Panorama, Thomas Wilson provides a list of the ten essential steps for quadrilles (image at left from the second edition, 1822).  The last of these is the "PAS DE BASQUÉ."  Almack's orchestra leader James Paine (or his ghostwriter), in Paine of Almack's Quadrilles, Set I (n.d., probably late 1810s), agrees that:

"Every Lady and Gentleman desirous of Dancing Quadrilles should be Acquainted with the following Steps, which are but few in Quantity and Extremely facile in their performance."

Last on the list given is "Pas des Basques et Emboité en àrriere." 

Advancing & Retiring Sequences for Regency-Era French Quadilles

For the fourth in my series of posts (previously: setting, crossing over, and chassez-dechassez) on the step-sequences usable for various Regency-era French quadrille figures, I've pulled together three easy sequences which may be used for the figure En avant et en arrière (advance and retire or, more colloquially, forward and back), in which some number of dancers move forward to the halfway point of the quadrille set and then backward to places.  It is an extremely common figure; in the first set alone, it appears in multiple figures: L'Été, La Poule, La Trenise, La Pastourelle, and the many versions of the Finale figure which incorporate L'Été.  The move is sometimes written simply as En avant deux (trois, quatre, etc.); the return backwards is implied unless otherwise specified.

Chassez-Dechassez Sequences for Regency-Era French Quadrilles

Chassez, or Move to the Right and Left.
Are terms generally used in Quadrille and Cotillion Dancing, and signify a Movement or Figure made sideways in a straight line, either to the right hand or left of the situation from whence it is performed.
        -- Thomas Wilson in The quadrille and cotillion panorama, 2nd edition, 1822

Continuing on with my series of posts (previously: setting and crossing over) on the step-sequences usable for various Regency-era French quadrille figures, I've pulled together a few sequences suitable for the sideways move known variously as A droite et à gauche (dance or move to the right and to the left) or Chassez-dechassez, in which two dancers opposite each other dance as described: to the right and back to the left.  This figure appears in L'Été, the second figure of the first set of French quadrilles, and in the many versions of the Finale figure which incorporate L'Été.  Wilson, ever the perfectionist, complained to no avail that the figure was wrongly named,

...as they both move to the right and back again to their places, instead of to the left, as described in the title of the Figure. The Movement should be named from the situation in which it is performed, as, to the right or left of the situation from which they move...
        -- Ibid.

Crossing Over Sequences for Regency-Era French Quadrilles

As with setting, there are a number of different step sequences available for dancers to use in the Regency-era quadrille figure Traversez (cross over), in which a lady and the gentleman opposite her exchange places.  Traversez appears most notably in L'Été, the second figure of the first set of French quadrilles, and in the many versions of the Finale figure which incorporate L'Été.  Below I will give a sample of five of the easier step sequences that may be used to dance Traversez.  This is not an exhaustive list of all the period sequences I have for this move, but it should suffice for most dancers.

Eight Easy Setting Sequences for Regency-Era French Quadrilles

I rarely have the opportunity to teach a wide range of Regency-era setting sequences, but there are dozens of them extant and suitable for use in French quadrilles such as the first set.  Using variant setting sequences when setting to one's partner is one of three ways to jazz up the oft-danced first set (the other two being using more exotic sequences for the other figures and changing the figures themselves) as well as in other French quadrilles for the setting part of the omnipresent "Balancez et un tour de mains" (set and turn your partners) figure.

The following selection of eight four-bar setting sequences is drawn from two sources in particular: the Scottish manuscript Contre Danses à Paris 1818 and the useful Elements of the Art of Dancing by Alexander Strathy (Edinburgh, 1822).  Curiously, the best sources for quadrille steps other than the actual French manuals come from Scotland -- the Auld Alliance revived in dance!

An 1860s Schottische Quadrille

Here's a first for Kickery: a reconstruction of an entire quadrille!  The Original Set of Schottische Quadrille [sic] was published in Boston in 1862 in a compilation manual attributed to Elias Howe.  I have found no other sources for this particular quadrille.

I'm going to work through the entire dance figure by figure with a bit of discussion about the choices I made in this reconstruction.  Those who just want to print out the calls and take them off to teach it without having to sort through my reconstructive nattering, despair not: there's a link at the bottom of this post to a PDF handout you can download.

The Lady's Courtesy in the Victorian Ballroom

After discussing the correct performance of the gentleman's bow in the ballroom, it seems appropriate to tackle the movements necessary for ladies to properly perform a courtesy.  In 1875, William De Garmo explained the major difference between the two moves:

In courtesying the knees bend and the body sinks; in bowing the knees do not bend and the upper part of the body is projected forward.  In courtesying, as well as in bowing, the slightest possible inclination of the head forward is admissible.

Ten years later, Allen Dodworth noted that

[The courtesy] is a combination of motions, of no little difficulty, requiring repeated practice for its accomplishment with the necessary ease.  It is singularly artificial and unnatural, and yet is of great beauty when executed by a well-trained lady.

How to perform these unnatural motions?  The sources, unfortunately, are somewhat inconsistent.

The Gentleman's Bow in the Victorian Ballroom

Mid-19th century dance teacher Edward Ferrero writes of the bow and courtesy that they

"...are among the most important rudiments of the Terpsichorean art.  A proper knowledge of them is indispensable to both sexes.  There is no movement so awkward as a stiff bow or courtesy...We have lately been more fully impressed with the necessity of a greater attention, among dancers, to this branch of the art."

It thus seems useful to the modern social dancer or performer to examine the details of the gentleman's bow as performed in the mid- to late 19th century ballroom.  Several dancing masters address the topic in their writing.  Interestingly, all that I have found are American authors; European writers seem not to have felt it necessary to describe the bow.  I suspect this reflects the middle-class audience of the American manuals.

Wrestling with Belle Brandon

Recently my English friend and fellow dance teacher/reconstructor Colin Hume asked on the English Country Dance mailing list for help on some American dances he plans to teach later this month at a festival.  He posted his notes (the final version is now up here) and asked for advice, since he's not a specialist on historical American dance.  I do a lot with quadrilles (French, American, English, Spanish, etc.) so I pounced on the challenge of the 1858 set he proposed to use, the Belle Brandon Set.  This five-figure quadrille is drawn from Howe's Ball-Room Handbook, attributed to Elias Howe (Boston, 1858). 

The first four figures were fairly straightforward, with the first three being pretty much the usual figures of the "First Set" of quadrilles that had been popular for nearly half a century when the manual was published.  Interestingly, they were a more old-fashioned version than those which were popular in the mid-century and which Howe prints elsewhere in the same manual.  Tell-tales include the use of "balance and turn partners" instead of a long balance figure and, in Figure 3, two people crossing back and forth and forming a line rather than four crossing back and forth and going into a basket formation.  It had been common practice from the 1810s onward to use three of the standard figures and then vary the last two, so this set is well within the quadrille tradition.  But the fifth figure proved a real challenge to reconstruct.

More Promiscuous Figures: Gavotte and Minuet

• Era: 1840s to early 1900s, America

Continuing on from my earlier post on promiscuous or fancy quadrille figures, which may be substituted for individual figures in the first set of quadrilles or other well-known sets, here are two more particularly interesting figures.  Both make use of an unusual figure known as "Sides Four," in which the dancers form diagonal lines across the set and then trade partners and reform the lines.  The Gavotte Figure is a lengthy one with one couple per repetition having a sequence of solo moves while the other six dancers watch.  The Minuet Figure is a shortened and simplified version which keeps more of the dancers moving throughout.  Once the essential Sides Four figure is mastered, the figures are easy to call and perform and can be used today as they were then, to add variety to a familiar quadrille, generally as a replacement for either the second or fifth figure.

Neither figure has any choreographic relationship to the gavottes and minuets of previous centuries.

Promiscuous Figures: Basket and Star

• Era: 1840s to early 1900s, America

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the five figures of the first set of quadrilles had grown drearily familiar, and several lively, standardized figures had developed which could be substituted in for one or more of its figures.  These replacement figures were known as "fancy figures" or "promiscuous figures" and could be used to enliven any quadrille.  Two popular ones were the Basket Figure and the Star Figure, with the Basket being slightly more common in period sources.  The Star appeared in dance manuals from the late 1850s all the way into the early 20th century.  The Basket is even earlier, appearing as far back as 1841.  The figures are equally useful today as a way to spice up a well-known quadrille without going to the bother of learning an entire new set of five figures.

A Waltz Quadrille (1893)

By the end of the 19th century, quite a number of quadrilles were being published that didn't follow the earlier form of having multiple separate figures.  Although this dance does have two distinct dance parts, the original instructions (which may be seen here) are clear that they should be treated as one long figure:

Play an ordinary waltz and do not stop between the numbers.

The source of the dance is The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French, published in Boston in 1893.  I haven't looked for any other sources for this particular set of figures - it's a trivial little quadrille which I reconstructed in order to have a late-evening set dance that was easy and provided an excuse for plenty of waltzing.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

One of the difficulties in reconstructing 19th century quadrilles lies in the frequent inadequacy of the instructions for the figures.  This might include the lack of information on the amount of music occupied by a particular figure, unspoken assumptions about what is included in a figure, completely omitting a necessary figure or instruction, and the use of unconventional figures or timing.  One might simply ignore such dances, as there is hardly a shortage of quadrilles which lend themselves to straightforward reconstructions.  But for the dance historian it is an intriguing mental challenge to wrestle with these quadrilles and come up with workable reconstructions, even if at times this involves some creativity in the interpretation of the instructions.

Among these reconstruction challenges is the quadrille described in the notable mid-19th century source, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll, 1865).  Popularly known as the Lobster-Quadrille, it is notable both for its specific geographic requirements (it is impossible to perform the figures anywhere other than the seashore), its unusual partnering (every couple must include a lobster), and its unique figures, such as the swimming somersault.

Rhymes with Terpsichore

This post is dedicated to Tania, with thanks for the unexpected shout-out that made my day!

Giving this blog a name was quite the challenge.  I wanted something memorable and dance-related, but not obviously specific to any one era, since I post about dance across several centuries.  I found the phrase "capering & kickery" in the chorus of a Regency-era song on the quadrille fad hitting London in the late 1810s.  How could I resist any phrase that rhymes with “flirting with Terpsichore”?

The song is "Quadrilling", published in Birmingham in 1820.  I am reproducing the complete lyrics below; you can see them reprinted (fairly legibly) here in the 1834 collection The Universal Songster, courtesy of Google Book Search, and can also see a facsimile of the original handwritten lithograph edition (with the music and hilarious illustrations!) at the wonderful Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music at Johns Hopkins University, which has webbed it here.  There are minor variations, primarily in punctuation and capitalization, between the two editions which I have not bothered to mark; I have generally followed the 1834 printed edition below.  I have also gone through and annotated the dance terms and other period references for your amusement and/or edification.  The overall theme of the song is the wide range of people infatuated with the quadrille, referenced both in the chorus (lines 5-7) and in almost every stanza as noted below.

Star Light, Star Bright: Reconstructing the "Star" Quadrille Figure

In his manual on quadrilles, early 19th-century (“Regency”) London dancing master Thomas Wilson wrote hopefully that his diagrams,

... together with the printed Directions appended, will enable any person, by marking the Figures on a floor, to perform them correctly without the aid of a Master.
    Thomas Wilson, The quadrille and cotillion panorama, 2nd ed., London, 1822

Quadrilles, the ancestors of the modern square dance, were popular in England from the 1810s onward, displacing the longways country dance from its former preeminence in the ballroom.  Wilson’s diagrams and directions are in fact quite helpful in deciphering many of the figures needed for the Regency-era quadrille, but he does have occasional failures, as in the figure “L’Etoile” or “The Star”.