Capering & Kickery

The Swedish Dances, Part Three: Characteristic Setting Figures

(Third in a series of posts discussing and analyzing the Swedish dances.  Links to the full series are at the end.) 

As mentioned in my introductory post in this series, there are distinct sequences of figures involving setting for dances suited only to a majority of one gender or the other and for dances suited to either an equal number of each or a majority.  In this post I'll take a look at the characteristic setting figures for each type of dance.

The Swedish Dances, Part Two: A Trio of Swedish Dances

(Second in a series of posts discussing and analyzing the Swedish dances.  The first post may be found here.)

To introduce some of the typical Swedish dance figures, here are a three simple thirty-two-bar figure combinations, as given by Chivers in his various manuals, which are a nice mix of standard country dance figures with ones that are particularly characteristic of Swedish dances.  For information about the specific sources of these dances, please see the introductory post in this series.

The Swedish Dances, Part One: Introduction

(First in a series of posts discussing and analyzing the Swedish dances.)

I’ve recently spent some time focusing on a trio of early sources for the unusual form of country dance known as “Swedish Dances,” which originated in the very late 1810s or early 1820s and after their early burst of popularity continued to turn up occasionally in dance manuals throughout the nineteenth century.  Their distinguishing feature is that instead of the usual long column of couples, the dancers form a column of trios with either one lady between two gentlemen, one gentleman between two ladies, or a mixture of the two.  The Swedish dances were created in the wake of the quadrille’s introduction into the London ballroom in the mid-1810s, which spurred a great deal of choreographic innovation as dancing masters adopted figures and formations from the quadrille and merged them into the old-fashioned country dances, which had become increasingly formulaic.  Along with the Swedish dances, this burst of creativity resulted in, most notably, the Spanish dances, Mescolanzes, and Circassian circles. 

What did Regency-era dancers dance?

I combine the two as a category because people who are interested in the one are often interested in the other, but what was danced by Jane Austen (1775-1817) and what was danced during the English Regency era (1811-1820) are actually questions with slightly different answers.  Austen's dancing days were more of the late 18th century, and the Regency era was a time of rapid change in social dance, mostly emanating from Paris and London.  Austen would have missed out on much of this by being country gentry and by her death just as things were starting to get really interesting dancewise.

Having addressed dance in Jane Austen's lifetime in my previous post, which I recommend reading first for background, let me now talk a little bit about the 1810s.  What did they dance during the Regency era?  Around 1810, people probably weren't doing much that was different from the previous two or three decades: country dances and reels, with a cotillion perhaps still making an appearance now and then, and occasionally an oddity like the Boulanger, Sir Roger de Coverley, or (in Scotland) the Bumpkin.  But change was coming.  The upper classes and the residents of London would soon find themselves with a much wider set of options.

What Did Jane Austen Dance?

Since early 19th century ("Regency") dance is one of my particular specialties, I get many questions that boil down to either "what did Jane Austen dance?" or "did Jane Austen dance _____?"  So let's see what I can do for a general answer. 

I can divide things loosely into three categories: what we know she danced, what she might have danced, and what she didn't dance.

A Regency "Sir Roger de Coverley"

In honor of the season...

In his Complete System of English Country Dancing, published circa 1815, Regency-era dancing master Thomas Wilson proclaimed of the dance "Sir Roger De Coverley" that it was

composed expressly for a finishing Country Dance, about 100 years ago, and derived its name from Addison's Sir Roger De Coverley; so frequently mentioned by him in his popular Essays in the Spectator, and is the only whole Dance given in this System. The Figures of which it is composed being permanent and unalterable, and thereby differing in its construction from all other Country Dances.

and explained its use as the final dance of the evening (or early morning, given the length of balls of the era):

At all Balls properly regulated, this Dance should be the finishing one, as it is calculated from the sociality of its construction, to promote the good humour of the company, and causing them to separate in evincing a pleasing satisfaction with each other.

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!

"A very old established Figure" -- Reconstructing "Lead outsides"

In the comment thread on an earlier Kickery post, How Do You Cast Off?, Ukrainian reader Oleksiy asked whether I reconstructed the country dance figure, "lead outsides."  I haven't used this figure in my own teaching because I've been hesitant to establish a definitive reconstruction in the absence of definitive source material.  But I've since revisited the figure and more thoroughly reviewed my sources and am now ready to offer a reconstruction which I consider to be fairly solid.

How Do You Cast Off?

Trick question, right?  Everyone who does any form of country dancing knows how to cast off.  But if it were that simple, I wouldn't be writing about it.  Not only did country dances as a whole evolve over time, individual figures also underwent some changes.

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.

Country Dances, Two by Two

In the comments to a previous post of mine on the realities of Austen-era country dancing, alison[sic] asked about a scene in Pride and Prejudice:

...when describing the ball to Mr Bennet, Mrs Bennet refers to the dances by what I assumed were the time signatures: "Then the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifths with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger---"  Or does this indicate some sort of dance configuration?

The short answer is that this is the way dances were organized at that time: with each partner, you would perform two dances in series before taking a rest and changing partners.  Thomas Wilson, a noted dancing master (and prolific author) in London during the first quarter of the 19th century, wrote that:

"When the Ball commences, the company should not leave their places, or rest, till after the second Dance.  Should the sets be short, they may Dance three Dances before they rest." 
-- A Companion to the Ball Room, 1816

Real Regency Dancers Don't Turn Single: Ten Tips for Judging Authenticity

As a specialist in early 19th century dance, I regularly get asked what I think of the dancing in the various films of Jane Austen's novels and how to tell if the dancing in the films or being taught by someone or other is authentic to the Regency era (1810-1820).  Sadly, the answer is usually "no."  Here's a little checklist you can use to judge for yourself, either when watching a film or listening to someone teach "just like it was in the Regency" or "the same way Jane Austen danced":

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”.

How Many Times Do We Play That Tune?

One of those questions I get asked all the time by musicians and others is "how many times through the tune for this dance?"  The reference is to progressive longways country dances, which were the dominant social dance form in Europe and America from the mid-17th century through the early 19th century and are still enjoying widespread popularity in various living tradition and revival forms.

Modern English country dance and contra practice is for all couples to start the dance simultaneously, and the modern answer to the repeats question would be as many times as needed for everyone to enjoy the dance and fewer times than it would take for people to get bored.  Modern Scottish (RSCDS) practice differs in that their dances are generally performed in short sets and have a fixed number of repeats.  But if you truly wish to perform country dances in the historical style, it's a bit more complex!