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.
A quick and non-comprehensive survey shows that "lead outsides" turns up regularly in country dances from the 18th and early 19th century, often (but not always) as the final figure in a dance. The five sources I have found that actually describe it in (some) detail are contradictory and confusing, as are the dance sequences in which it appears. It turns up under several different variants: "lead outsides," "lead out each side," "lead out sides and turn," "lead out both sides & turn your Partner," etc. All of these figures are given the same length of time in the music, making it unclear whether the final turn is intended to be part of the figure even when not specifically stated. It is also possible, though there is no way to be certain, that these variants actually refer to slightly different figures rather than just being variations in nomenclature, since there are three significantly different figures listed under similar titles in a single figure manual. I am deliberately restricting myself to the time period of roughly1750-1820, so please do not expect the following to be at all useful when working with Playford or Feuillet or other pre-1750 country dance sources!
Four of the five sources containing actual descriptions are from a single London dancing master, Thomas Wilson, writing in the early years of the nineteenth century.
In his 1808 An Analysis of Country Dancing, Wilson provides a diagram of the figure under the simple title "Lead outsides" and describes it as follows:
Unfortunately, he does not specify the length of time required. The associated diagram is below:
In the 1811 update of Analysis, Wilson names the figure "Lead outsides, or lead across" and provides a slightly different diagram and a revised description with an additional performance note:
N.B. -- This figure may be performed at top, although it very seldom occurs.
The note is helpful in specifying that the figure is performed after the dancers have already progressed one place, but the more important difference in the description and diagam in the revised edition is the addition at the end of the turn and return to places. Wilson classifies this as a "Long Figure," which means it takes eight bars to perform. The diagram for the figure is below; while the route of the figure is basically the same, note the addition of the final turn:
In his Complete System of English Country Dancing (c1820), the increasingly verbose Wilson describes the figure yet again, under the title of "Lead outsides or lead across, or lead to the outsides" and with extensive annotation:
Note: From the former title of this Figure, "Lead outsides," it may be inferred that the movement outsides was performed at the back of the company or set, and not as it is directed, across the Dance, it should more properly have been entitled "Lead to the outsides, or lead across." In the Analysis of Country Dancing, the author did not venture to alter the titles, but gave it as he found it, it being a very old established Figure. The true sense had been perverted by ignorant copyists, as it should properly be termed "Lead to outsides or lead across."
* Had not this Figure been generally used, and to be found in almost every Collection of Country Dances, published within the last century, the author would have omitted it, as being the only Figure that is not uniform in its various parts, as in leading out on the Gentlemen's side, setting should be attached to it, and on leading to the Ladies side, instead of setting, to render the Figure uniform, and to bring the persons to their places in time, turning must be used instead of setting, for if setting was used on the Ladies side, to render the figure uniform at the end of the strain, the persons would both be out of their places.
Below is the diagram from Complete System, identical to the 1811 Analysis diagram except in title:
Wilson describes the figure in one other source, his 1818 The Ecossoise Instructor, in which he describes a "new species" of country dancing and therefore renames every standard figure, causing headaches to both his own contemporaries and to the modern researcher. "Lead outsides" is renamed "Traverse," but from the diagram is clearly the same figure. It is listed as a "Long Figure," which in a normal country dance would mean it requires eight bars of music for performance. The directions for performance are as follows:
The diagram given is the same as the one above except for the different title and having letters D and E switched. The route of the dancers is precisely the same as in the 1811 Analysis and Complete System.
The fifth source, though chronologically the earliest, is the important A Concise & Easy Method of Learning the Figuring Part of Country Dances, written by Nicholas Dukes and published in London in the early 1750s. Dukes offers three different "lead outsides" figure:
The first ("Dukes #1" for purposes of this post) follows directly on a set-and-turn-corners move, and begins with the active couple facing their second corners. The man turns around and the active couple moves between the men of the top and bottom couples, crossing as they go so that the active woman then moves up the outside of the set and the man down. They come in between the top and bottom couples respectively, then lead out between the two women, coming back in between the top and bottom couples once more to turn two hands in the center and end back in progressed places on their own lines. No hands are involved until the final turn, and the diagram more resembles a pair of figure eights than the strong traverse line of Wilson's illustrations. This figure is titled "Lead out Sides and turn in the middle" and does specifically note that the man and woman are to begin "where they left of [sic] on the other side," meaning the previous page in the book.
A second figure ("Dukes #2") merely has neighboring men and women turn, taking inside hands to move outward from the set, then turn again, taking the other hands, to move back to places. This figure is labeled "Lead outsides & in again the two first Men & the two first Wo: & finish in their own places" and does not appear to be related to the "lead outsides" under discussion, since it is not performed by the active couple alone, though it provides another possible interpretation of a bare "lead outsides" figure in a country dance, especially if only four bars of music are given for the figure.
The third figure ("Dukes #3"), entitled "Lead out of the Mans side & foot it, then lead out of the Womans side & foot it, & lead in again and turn both hands & finish of your own sides," begins with the active couple out of places once again, this time in the center of the set with the woman facing down and the man facing up, as they were left on the previous page of the book after a corner turn and partner half-turn. They take inside hands and move out between the top and bottom gentlemen, then reverse direction and hands to do the same on the ladies' side, then turn two hands in the center ending on their own lines. This is the figure which is closest to Wilson's.
At this point, there are two separate issues to be addressed:
- Which figure to select when reconstructing a particular dance
- How to reconstruct and dance the figure(s?) described by Wilson and in Duke's third figure
The first question is primarily a matter for the individual reconstructor's judgment in the context of the amount of music and the flow of the dance, keeping in mind that (1) if the figure includes a final turn, it is probably either Dukes #1 or Dukes #3/Wilson. (2) The Dukes figures are from 1750, and thus appropriately applied to mid- or late 18th-century sources; Wilson is post-1800 and therefore more likely to be correct for early 19th century sources. Dukes #1 and Dukes #2 are both simple, forward-moving patterns for which the only reconstruction work necessary is to determine how much music is allowed and how to gracefully match it to the dancers' route through the figure.
The more difficult questions concern how to dance the Wilson and/or Dukes #3 figures: how the dancers actually travel, which way they face, how they hold hands, what steps they use, and how much music it takes, complicated by the fact that Dukes #3 and Wilson, though close, are not identical, and that Wilson altered his description over time.
Dukes #3 is the simpler because it follows what is today the most intuitively obvious idea of "lead outsides," is symmetrical ("uniform") in its parts, and starts with the dancers already in the center, ready to easily move out one side or the other. The active couple faces the men's line and takes inside hands, dances forward out between the men and "foots it", then reverses direction and hands to do the same on the women's side. The final two-hand turn starts slightly off-center and is a one-and-a-quarter-round turn to put the dancers back on their own lines. Taking the turn as a typical four-bar two-hand turn, the most likely breakdown for this figure seems to me to be:
1b Lead out man's side
1b Foot it (set)
1b Lead out woman's side
1b Foot it
4b Turn two hands to places
The setting steps must be quick, since there is only one bar for (presumably) two steps. I would suggest the Scottish "back step" or Minor Kemkossy, meaning a quick step backward and hop, repeated, for a sequence of "step-hop, step-hop" (1 & 2 &) to fill in a single bar of music. For the leading out and turning, I would use the traveling step-close-step sequence known variously as a chassé, Kemshoole, or (today) skip-change. It is arguable whether in the 1750s active couples would start on the same (right) foot or on mirror-image feet; we simply don't have any mid-18th century English country dance sources that go into that level of detail. Mirror-image feet with the woman starting right and the man starting left would certainly make the reverse of direction after the second bar flow well, as both would be turning toward each other on the nearer foot, but both starting right foot would have been typical later on and is not particularly difficult for dancers accustomed to steps to perform.
While it is possible that the final turn is only two bars -- not much time for once-and-quarter round -- and each instance of "foot it" is given two bars, I think this would be unappealing in practice, since the lead out/foot it pairs would take three bars each and thus cross the music in a way that dancers would find unlovely and unintuitive.
Wilson's figure, for those wishing to use the best possible source for early 19th-century dancing, presents a whole series of problems, the first of which is that the 1808 Analysis version is an outlier in not including the final two-hand turn. I ignore this as a factor and regard it as simply the first (four-bar) half of a longer (eight-bar) figure which incorporates a four-bar turn at the end, as Wilson describes in his three later works. When a dance sequence includes figures like "lead outsides and turn partners," I assume that this calls for the four-bar 1808 version followed by the two-hand turn which is included in the move in later sources rather than a "lead outsides" that ends with a two-hand turn followed, ridiculously, by another two-hand turn.
Next, there is the issue of hands. The 1808 manual clearly calls for a two-hand hold throughout ("takes the hands of the lady;" emphasis mine). The others are more ambiguous, simply using "join hands," though in general I would expect some sort of indication from Wilson of which hand if it was supposed to be only one. This leads directly into the problem of the direction of movement. Are the two dancers side by side and moving forward as in the Dukes figure (perhaps with hands crossed as in a promenade)? That is the modern understanding of the term "lead," but in the early 19th century it is at least as likely to have meant taking two hands and moving sideways while remaining face to face, as in "lead down the middle, up again" which is clearly described by Wilson (and illustrated in an 1818 stick-figure cartoon) as involving two hands and side steps. Do the dancers move along the triangular route shown in the diagrams by dancing straight forward in each direction, or do they face in one direction throughout and dance at whatever angle is required?
When thinking about steps for this move, there are two additional considerations:
In Complete System, which is undated but probably (from internal references) the latest source at c1820, Wilson directs the dancers to "set from E to D," an unusual use of the term "set," which generally means to dance more-or-less in place. He explicitly notes that the figure is asymmetrical, with setting on only one side, in contrast to Dukes' fully-balanced version.
It is also necessary to decide which of the individual moves described are actually discrete moves requiring dedicated steps and which flow together as part of the dancers' overall route through the figure. Referring to the third diagram, do they first come together to meet at C, or do they simply join hands as they start moving towards E? Wilson's diagrams imply that the dancers' route is a linear move straight forward followed by a perfect triangle starting from the center, which has the virtue of being four straight lines of dancing, one of which can be assigned to each bar of music.
Given the lack of any more specific instructions, any reconstruction of Wilson's "Lead outsides" must of necessity be somewhat speculative. My reconstruction is as follows:
1b Active couple dances forward to the center of the set
[take promenade hands (right in right over left in left); dancers now side-by-side]
1b Dance forward at an angle to between the top and bottom men
1b Dance sideways all the way across the set to between the top and bottom women
1b Dance backwards at an angle to the center of the set again
4b Face partner, switch to a normal two-hand turn, and turn to places
For footwork, I would use the following:
- dance forward with one chassé step, both starting right foot
- dance diagonally to the men's line with one chassé step, starting left foot
- dance across the set to the women's line with a Single Kemkossy, starting right foot
- dance diagonally backward to the center with one chassé step, starting left foot
- turn with three chassé and jeté-assemblé to return to places
The Single Kemkossy, which was described by Aberdeen dancing master Francis Peacock as a setting step (fulfilling Wilson's command to "set from E to D"), is performed by crossing the right foot behind, leaping gently to the left with the left foot, crossing the right behind again, and hopping on the right while extending the left to the side, in the rhythm "1 & 2 &." The concluding hop becomes the initiation of the final chassé step. The Single Kemkossy must be performed with enthusiasm to take the dancers all the way across the set! It is somewhat odd to set asymmetrically by moving only in one direction and not back, but this is acknowledged to be an asymmetrical figure. Likewise, combining the Scottish Kemkossy with the French steps Wilson recommends by the time Complete System was written is a bit unusual, but Wilson does use the "back, or Scotch setting step" in other figures (such as Foot corners). While he does not actually specify that he means a Kemkossy, it is a Scottish setting step which involves a step crossing behind (in back) and therefore seems a reasonable guess.
It could be argued that the move forward shouldn't really take any time, and should instead be incorporated into the move to the men's line, while the move across the set takes two full bars (a Double Kemkossy), but that leaves the dancers (assuming they started with a right-foot chassé) on the wrong foot to perform the Kemkossy and ignores Wilson's diagrams, with their clear forward lines. Starting the move on the left foot instead would work, but would be difficult to remember for dancers accustomed to starting everything on the right foot and still ignores the evidence of the diagram.
I have chosen the hands-crossed promenade hold, despite any direct evidence, because it matches the "hands" (two) of the 1808 manual but is less awkward than holding uncrossed hands while moving side by side.
While hardly definitive in the absence of direct period instructions on the direction of movement and the steps, I believe the sequence described above is the best possible reconstruction that fits Wilson's description and is practical for actual dancing.
A final note:
"Lead outsides" appears to have been something of an artifact by the early 19th century. Wilson himself regarded it with aesthetic disfavor by the 1810s, though it continues to appear in his manuals of dance figures. His younger rival, G.M.S. Chivers, used it only rarely and did not bother to describe it, and it does not appear in any figures in Saltator's American dance manuals of the first decade of the 1800s. Nor, after a quick review, have I found "lead outsides" in any manuals from the 1830s onward; it appears to have vanished entirely from the country dance repertoire after the early 1820s.
My thanks to Oleksiy for asking the question that prompted me to finally revisit and fully work through this figure!
Hi Oleksiy,
In response to your comments -
1. No, it's not only sideways motion; lead down the middle and up again clearly is, but the lead through the bottom and top is not. But because there are two options, one can never just assume it means side-by-side with forward motion (which is generally the modern assumption). So I always have to examine the possibility.
2. Yes, setting sometimes travels forward. For forward setting, it's easiest to use the pas de basque, which Wilson uses for setting in a country dance in one of his manuals, and which is easy to make travel forwards. But it's very unusual to set in one direction and not the other; setting is generally symmetrical, and while there might be forward motion, there generally is not any net motion sideways once the full move is complete.
On the instructions:
1. Two Minor Kemkossy steps in one bar is entirely possible; it's not even difficult! Each of them takes half a bar.
2. Yes, one Single Kemkossy is not a lot of travel time, though I can get a good four feet of travel out of it without much trouble, which will do much of the crossing. I don't think the initial move to the right takes the couple fully out of the set, nor does the move across have to take the couple all the way out on the ladies' side. Wilson is emphatic in one of his notes that the figure is done across the dance rather than outside the set.
I don't much like shorting the turn to only three bars; that leaves only two chassé steps for a full turn, which is awkward to accomplish; takes the figure off the music; and makes the first part (before the turn) impossible to accomplish in only four bars, which is important, since the figure sometimes appears that way!
The other obvious way to do the first part of lead outsides would be with four chassé steps - one to move forward, one to move diagonally out on the gentlemen's side, then turning and moving straight forward across the set to the ladies' side, then either turning and moving forwards or simply dancing backwards to the center for the turn. I experimented with this version a few years ago and felt that it was too much the gentleman guiding the lady around inside the set while he hardly got to move at all. It also ignores the "set" direction in Complete System for the crossing move, though since that only appears in one source one could decide it's not critical.
There's no perfect or definitive solution to the Wilson lead outsides, but I still think the one I described is the best to be had unless a more helpful source comes to light.
I'm glad you enjoyed the post; thank you for motivating me to write it!
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | October 13, 2008 at 09:54 AM
to use the pas de basque, which Wilson uses for setting in a country dance in one of his manuals
In which one? I don't remember. He used pas de basque in quadrilles like balancez steps, but setting and balancez are not identical.
Unfortunately, Wilson distinguish between quadrille's and CD's figures and steps.
I asked about pas de basque as setting step for Fabio Mollica (he is Italian historical dance teacher), he wrote me: I think dancers fell free to use the step they want. The RSCDS pas de basque has not historical foundament. It was developed from Miss Milligan and his school in the early XX centuty.
But if you have any information about use this step in CD's, publish it, please!
Posted by: Oleksiy | October 13, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Oleksiy:
Wilson uses the pas de basque as a setting step in a country dance in the manual L'Assemblée, which is from either 1818 or 1819 (I don't have it in front of me).
And Mollica is incorrect; the pas de basque has a firm historical basis. It is described in the Scottish manuscript Contre Danses à Paris, parts of which date to 1818 and the rest to the 1840s. It is extremely close to the modern RSCDS version as well as to descriptions of the pas de basque in the mazurka (which also dates back to the early 1800s). Miss Milligan certainly didn't make it up!
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | October 13, 2008 at 01:12 PM
You don't understand me because of my badly English :( Sorry.
Fabio wrote about the using of pas de basque as setting step in British CDs.
Of course, this is really, indisputably truth XIX cent. step. We know and dance it in mazurkas, quadrilles etc. and have many descriptions of this step.
But even in late scotch manual it proposed like setting step for ladies and heretofore I haven't mentions about using pas de basque in English Regency CDs. If You have some information, it is wonderful news!
Posted by: Oleksiy | October 13, 2008 at 01:50 PM
Oleksiy:
Yes, it is documentable for English Regency country dancing in the late 1810s; see my previous comment. Sorry for the misunderstanding!
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | October 13, 2008 at 02:12 PM
So how did diamonds come to be for women and circles for men?
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | October 13, 2008 at 08:57 PM
Marilee:
It was just Wilson's choice. There were a variety of symbols employed in the various efforts to notate set dances over a couple of centuries.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | October 13, 2008 at 09:55 PM
I'm really interested in this post, sorry for getting here so late!
I've been reading another source, the 1764 "Country Dancing made Plain & Easy" by a London dance master calling himself "A.D.". This work describes two further figures that are relevant to this discussion: "Lead out at the sides" and "Lead out to the Walls". Leading to the sides is similar to the Dukes#1 figure, it starts in a progressed position and involves a figure eight outside between the men, in at the ends, and outside between the women, then home. Leading to the walls is superficially similar to Wilson's "Lead to the Outsides" figure, though it's different in the details. They're likely to share a common ancestry.
I suspect that these two completely different figures have both been shortened to 'Lead Outsides', and then conflated (by Wilson's "ignorant copyists") to the confusion of all.
Cheers,
Paul.
Posted by: Paul | December 02, 2012 at 06:05 AM
Just FYI, I've found another variant of Lead Outsides in a 1779 manuscript by Thomas Straight. He uses it in a dance called "The New Parliament". In this variant it's the first figure of the dance, and used before progression. He describes it as follows:
"1st Lady take hands with the 2nd & 3rd Gent: foot it to the side of the Room; at the same time the 1st Gent take hands with the 2nd & 3rd Ladies & foot it to the opposite side of the Room. Meet in two threes & foot it to each other."
He doesn't actually call it "Lead Outsides", but it's clearly a variant of the Dukes #2 figure: http://library.efdss.org/images/dancebooks/fullsize/2277g0008.jpg .
Posted by: Paul | May 06, 2013 at 02:08 AM
Nicely spotted (though it' "The New Academy" on that link).
The dance figures next to it are equally interesting for the phrasing of "allemande half round to the right and foot it. Ditto to the left and foot it", which is a variant I don't recall seeing before.
Thanks for the link!
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 16, 2013 at 07:26 PM
For the third bar of your reconstruction, you say:
"1b Dance sideways all the way across the set to between the top and bottom women"
"For footwork, I would use the following:" ...
"dance across the set to the women's line with a Single Kemkossy, starting right foot"
Since the dancers are moving sideways in the third bar, I would think that they would need to be facing each other and using mirror-image feet at that point. Is that what you intended?
Posted by: Jacob Bloom | May 07, 2016 at 09:06 PM
Susan, do you have any links to videos demonstrating the Minor Kemkossy, Kemkossy or Double Kemkossy? I have the descriptions, but a visual would be really, really helpful! Thank you!
Posted by: Glenda Jardel | October 12, 2018 at 01:56 PM