"This is a very lively figure, as it keeps all the couples occupied and introduces a continual change of partners."-- Dick's Quadrille Call-Book and Ball-Room Prompter, New York, 1878.
I've posted occasionally about promiscuous figures (Basket and Star, Gavotte and Minuet, Flirtation), single quadrille figures which may be substituted for one of the figures of the first set of quadrilles to provide more variety. Another of these, which dates at least to 1848, was known variously as "The Sociable," "Quadrille Sociable," or "Social Quadrille." Its distinctive feature was repeated partner changes. As noted above, it also had the virtue of having very little waiting out for any of the couples. While Charles Durang, writing in Philadelphia in 1856, sniffed at it as one of the "good, but now unfashionable" old figures, it seems to have remained popular right through the middle of the nineteenth century and is even included in a few manuals appearing into the late 19th and very early 20th century.
Different dancing masters disagreed about which figure of the first set this or other promiscuous figures may be substituted for. One 1878 manual stated that substitution is done for the second or fifth figure, while an 1889 one is equally clear that the third and fourth figures are the ones to replace. My personal opinion is that the Sociable is stylistically most like a fifth figure.
Thomas Hillgrove, writing in 1857, seems to have been the first to build an entire quadrille around the Sociable, using it as figure one in a traditional five-figure set called the "Quadrille Sociable." Six years later, he includes it in a later manual as "Social Quadrille No. 1." A similar five-figure quadrille is included in a manual attributed to Elias Howe and published in 1862. Unfortunately, the five-figure version is not particularly interesting, just one of many interchangeable rearrangements of generic quadrille figures. This may explain why it doesn't seem to have been picked up by many other authors.
The Sociable by itself, however, is a fun little figure, easy to teach and fun to do. Here's the basic version:
The Sociable
(32bx4)
16b Heads right & left (across and back); sides repeat
16b Chorus:
4b Ladies balance to the right (corners)
4b Turn corners two hands, ladies progressing
to that gentleman's partner's place
8b All promenade
16b Heads ladies' chain; sides repeat
16b Chorus
16b Heads forward and back, then hands four round to places; sides repeat
16b Chorus
16b Heads right hands across, left hands back; sides repeat
16b Chorus
At the end of the Sociable, all four ladies have gone completely around the set counter-clockwise and returned to their own partners. See "Minor variations" below for a potential full repeat of the dance.
Promenades are performed with the partners joining right hands above and left hands beneath and moving side by side counter-clockwise around the set.
Reconstruction notes
1. Rights and lefts. Hillgrove suggests that rights and lefts should be done giving hands only on the "lefts" part: pass right shoulders, give left hands. Other dancing masters contradict this. I don't feel that it matters much unless one is trying to do a choreography unique to Hillgrove or otherwise follow him specifically over other sources.
2. Ladies balance to corners. How exactly to balance to corners is also open to debate; options include going forward four steps (to right shoulders together) and back or sliding sideways four steps to the right and back. I lean towards the former for most mid-century quadrilles. It is also not entirely clear whether only the ladies should move, as the direction seems to express, or whether both the lady and gentleman should move. Hillgrove's illustration of the move in a different quadrille shows the forward-and-back version with both the lady and gentleman moving, and William DeGarmo (1875) is clear on the subject:
"Balancé -- To move toward a designated person or couple and then back. The person to whom you balancé will also perform the same movement at the same time, toward you and back."
3. Whether to galop in the promenade. In some figures in which all couples promenade at once, Hillgrove suggests that a promenade is not walked: "And all promenade, with a slide or gallop step." I would interpret this not as a lengthy sixteen-slide galop around the set on one foot but as a series of deux temps steps, like a polka without a hop or a gliding version of the modern "skip-change" step, alternating feet. Not all dancing masters suggest this, however, so a walking promenade is perfectly reasonable.
On all three issues, my preference is to follow Hillgrove: rights and lefts performed using left hands only, all dancers moving forward and back on the balances, and a galop step for the promenades. This is primarily because I favor using an optional variation taken from Hillgrove's full Quadrille Sociable, as described below and feel that if I am following Hillgrove on this, I should abide by his other aesthetic preferences as well.
Minor variations for the Sociable
1. Repeating the figure. Some sources call for a repeat of the entire figure. DeGarmo (1865 & 1875) gives only the first half of the figure (the rights and lefts and ladies chain verses) and repeats that much twice. Cartier & Brown and a later Cartier-only edition do the first half twice and then the second half twice.
2. The gentlemen progress. Hillgrove (1857 & 1863) offered a different form of repeat. On the second time through the figures, the gentlemen should balance to the left (corners). In practice, this feels exactly like the ladies balancing to the right: corners are moving forward and back to each other. But then the gentleman are the ones to progress to stand with their corner lady in her partner's place, moving clockwise around the set one place on each balance-and-turn. And rather than having all promenade at the end of each chorus, all eight take hands and circle completely round to the left. Howe also included a note to this effect at the end of his Social Quadrilles No. 1, but it's not clear whether it refers to the Sociable itself (figure 1 of five) or to the Jig figure with which he concluded the quadrille.
3. Choose different verse figures. Sause (1889) gave a different third verse figure, "all hands round to the left and back," rather than a heads/sides repeat like the others, and gives no figure at all for the fourth verse figure. Brooks (1867) gave no fourth figure at all, but offers freedom to the caller: "No positve rule as to what figure shall be called in the Quadrille Sociable. The choice is left entirely to the prompter." DeGarmo (1875) similarly offered that "Prompters often call figures in the 'Sociable' to suit their fancy, introducing the 'Star Figure,' 'Grand Chain,' etc." Any eight-bar figure for facing couples will work (having the heads do it once and the sides do it once), as will in eight-bar figure that involves ladies only or gentlemen only. Any sixteen-bar figure for all, such as the Grand Chain, will also work.
4. "All chassez" at the end. Ferrero (1859), Carpenter (1882), Cartier & Brown (1879), and Cartier (1882) all specified finishing the Sociable with an eight-bar tag figure done only once, at the very end, of "all chassez." Hillgrove suggested that this should always be used to end a full (five-figure) quadrille as well, but does not mention it at the end of his Quadrille Sociable or the incorporated Sociable figure. "All chassez" may be variously done as a full chassé-croisé (chassez across to corners, ladies passing in front of partners, balance, chassez back, balance) or as a four-bar chassé-croisé without the balances followed by four bars of bows and courtesies, as suggested by Hillgrove. This will require having an additional eight bars of music added at the end, which may not be practical if dancing to a recording. Adding this little tag is a charming option if using the Sociable to substitute for the fifth figure.
The Durang version of the Sociable (1848).
This is the oldest source and the only one that does not follow the same general pattern as the others and in fact seems to be twenty-four bars long rather than thirty-two. It makes an interesting short variant, perhaps good for substituting for the second figure (typically twenty-four bars long). The original language:
The leading couples forward and back, half right and left; side couples forward and half right and left; all eight chassé across and take corner partners, promenade half round, thus getting different partners. This whole figure is repeated until all the dancers regain their own partners.
Reconstruction:
8b Heads forward and back, half right and left (end on opposite sides)
8b Sides repeat
4b All chassez across to corners (ladies to left, gentlemen to right) and turn halfway, ladies progressing
4b All promenade half round (gentlemen end in original places with new partner)
The progression actually leaves the women moving clockwise around the set rather than the counter-clockwise of the more common version.
Some sources for the Sociable (chronological order)
Durang, Charles. Terpsichore. Philadelphia, 1848.
Durang, Charles. The Fashionable Dancer's Casket. Philadelphia,
1856.
(reference only)
Hillgrove, Thomas. The Scholars' Companion and Ball-Room Vade Mecum. New York, 1857.
Ferrero, Edward. The Art of Dancing. New York, 1859.
Howe, Elias. American Dancing Master and Ball-Room Prompter.
Boston, 1862.
Hillgrove, Thomas. A Complete Practical Guide to the Art of Dancing. New York, 1863.
De Garmo, William. The Prompter. New York, 1865.
Brookes, L. De G. Brookes on Modern Dancing. New York,
1867.
De Garmo, William. The Dance of Society. New York, 1875.
Anonymous. Dick's Quadrille Call-Book and Ball-Room Prompter.
New York, 1878.
Anonymous. Cartier and Baron's Practical Illustrated Waltz
Instructor, Ball Room Guide, and Call Book. New York, 1879.
Carpenter, Lucien. J.W. Pepper's Universal Dancing Master.
Philadelphia, 1882.
Sause, Judson. The Art of Dancing. Chicago, 1889.
T. Erp. Sichore (pseud). A Treatise on the Elements of Dancing. San Francisco, 1891.
Anonymous. Wehman Bros.' Book on the Way to Dance. New York,
c1900-1905.
Special thanks to Alexia, Nora, Emily, Luke, Eowyn, Juliette, and Beth for helping me dance-test the Sociable.
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