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 (see update at end of post). 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.
Performing the Royal Gallopade
The gallopade step is not described, but there is no evidence that it is anything other than series of slide-close-slide-close-etc. (1&2&3&..) as in the galops of later in the century (described here). Four bars of gallopade would be 1&2&3&4&5&6&7&8.
The ladies crossing over every four bars is clearly described elsewhere in the source. The dancers start in a normal ballroom hold: gentleman's right arm around lady's waist, her left hand on his right shoulder; joined hands out to the side (low, and with arms curved rather than bent). The dancers commence on their first foot (gentleman's left, lady's right). After four bars, the couples switch to a reverse hold. The lady crosses in front of her partner and puts her right hand on his left shoulder while his left arm is around her. They join the other hands in front and continue traveling the same direction, commencing on the other foot (gent's right, lady's left). To accomplish the cross, the gentleman should guide the lady firmly around him on the final counts 7&8 (slide-close-slide), making his own steps very short to allow her to move in front of and across his path. Reverse to guide her back to the other side.
Le Pantalon and La Poule were well-known quadrille figures and are described briefly at the bottom of this post.
The concluding sauteuse was a lively, leaping waltz in 2/4 time: leap-slide-close, leap-slide-close (counted 1&2, 1&2). Early nineteenth-century London dancing master Thomas Wilson suggested that partners dancing the sauteuse hold each other with the both the gentleman's hands at the lady's waist and both of her hands resting on his shoulders; making this switch is a nice touch, but I don't see it as a requirement fifteen-plus years after Wilson's description.
The formation is two parallel lines of couples, as if forming two sets for a country dance, at the bottom of the room (furthest from the music):
M W M W
M W M W
M W M W
M W M W
M W M W
M W M W
etc.
The sequence works out better musically if you have a long enough room to do sixteen bars of gallopade and a sixteen-bar piece of music. That would mean nine times through the tune for the sequence plus whatever length of time one wishes to sauteuse. Since this length of gallopade takes a rather large room, especially with long sets of dancers, I generally resign myself to shorter gallopades and dancing solely in accordance with eight-bar phrases rather than the entire melody. This version of the dance requires a total of 120 bars of music plus whatever is allowed for the sauteuse. A piece of quadrille music with a 8b+32bx4 structure (such as that for Le Pantalon, La Poule, or La Pastourelle) will work for the entire sequence with sixteen bars of sauteuse at the end. Longer pieces will allow for the longer gallopades (room permitting) and/or a lengthier sauteuse.
4b Gallopade toward top of the room; ladies cross over
4b Continue gallopade; couples open up (see first note below) facing other line
32b Le Pantalon (once)
4b Gallopade to the bottom of the room in normal ballroom hold; ladies cross over
4b Continue gallopade; couples open up (see first note below) facing other line
64b La Poule (twice; led by each lady in turn)
4b Gallopade toward top of the room; ladies cross over
4b Continue gallopade; ladies cross over as needed (see second note below)
Then take partner and sauteuse until the end of the music.
Notes
(1) The couples must open up with the gentleman on the left. This means that each line of couples keeps their joined hands (gentleman's right and lady's left) but opens up differently. In one set, the gentleman crosses ahead to stand at the lady's left; in the other, the lady crosses ahead to stand at the gentleman's right.
(2) Changing formation from two lines of couples into a circle of couples is a challenge; if done at the top of the room with couples from each set alternating to merge into the circle, it can take some time to get everyone really moving. An alternative (more technically challenging but less likely to create a pile-up of dancers next to the musicians) is for the ladies who are already nearer the wall than their partners to stay there, shifting to a sauteuse hold as described above as they conclude their gallopade. The ladies in the other set should cross over one final time at the end of the gallopade, changing to a sauteuse hold in the process. If the two sets bend outwards in the centers as they do the final gallopade, the couples will end up in a rough approximation of a circle. This presumes, of course, that there are only two lines of couples, rather than several.
While I am not going to include a lengthy description of the fine points of dancing quadrilles, here are the calls for the two figures given and a list of step sequences.
Le Pantalon (32b)
8b Chaine anglaise (rights and lefts, with hands) across and back
8b Balance and turn partners
8b Ladies chain across and back
8b Promenade half round; chaine anglaise back
Le Pantalon is performed only once because there would be no difference in the dance in a second repeat.
La Poule (32b x2)
4b First lady and opposite gentleman cross by right hands
4b Cross back by left hands, retaining hands in center of the set; partners step up to face partners and take right hands, forming a line of four across the set
4b Balance right and left twice in the line
4b Promenade half round (lead lady must shift to outside gentleman)
8b Same lead pair advance and retire then dos-à-dos
8b Both couples advance and retire; chaine anglaise to places
(The entire figure is then repeated led by the second lady and opposite gentleman)
Step sequences for the quadrille figures
Chaine anglaise, ladies chain: three chassés, jeté, assemblé; repeat for second half if necessary
Half promenade, cross by right hands, cross by left hands: three chassés, jeté, assemblé
Balance and turn partners: four-bar setting sequence (see here for some possibilities) followed by three chassés, jeté, assemblé
Balance right and left twice in line: four pas de basque (see description here)
Advance and retire: chassé, jeté, assemblé forward; same in reverse (or see here for fancier sequences)
Dos-à-dos: three chassés, jeté, assemblé in various ways
Updated 7/8/2021 to add everything below:
Just to be thorough: quite some time ago, I found a second source for this dance, W. G. Wells' The danciad, or companion to the modern ball room (Montreal, 1832). As discussed in my post on Wells' Swedish dances, parts of The danciad were likely plagiarized wholesale from Pollock, or perhaps both Wells and Pollock plagiarized a previous publication. That definitely includes The Royal Gallopade, which is almost word-for-word the same. Wells' minor tweaks included changing the correct "Le Pantalon" to "La Pantaloon" -- an ironic mistake in a Montreal publication!
THE ROYAL GALLOPADE.
In this dance, the party is formed into two lines, like two columns of Country Dances, all facing the top of the room.
-------------------
Fig.-- Gallopade, as described in the original Gallopade, straight forward to the top of the room, the ladies crossing the gents at the end of each four bars. On arriving at the top, the first couple in No. 1 sett facing the first couple of No. 2. the second couple facing the opposits, and so on till all are so to the bottom of the dance, then each four perform the figure of La Pantaloon; the whole of the party then face the bottom of the room, and gallopade as before, then perform the Fig. of La Poule Gallopade to the top of the room, and finish with the Sauteuse, falling into circle round the room.
I did not include the initial lines about the formation in my original post, but they are also in Pollock, the only difference being that Pollock did not capitalize "Country Dances". Wells also included a diagram of two columns of couples (using X and O for gentlemen and ladies) which was not in Pollock.
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