- Era: late 1850s-1860s, America (New England)
Down East Breakdown is an unusual Civil War-era American contra dance: unlike most of them, it is done in "mescolanze," or four-facing-four, formation. I have directions for it only in two manuals by Boston musician Elias Howe: Howe's Complete Ballroom Handbook (Boston, 1858), and American Dancing Master and Ball-Room Prompter (Boston, 1862). Unlike many contra dances of the mid-century, it does not seem to have been picked up by later writers.
The name of the dance is rather interesting. "Down east," in a New England context, refers to eastern Maine. A "breakdown" in this era was a type of solo dance, like clogging, which was particularly associated with slave dancing and minstrelsy, as may be seen in works like Jig, Clog, and Breakdown Dancing Made Easy (New York, 1873). An illustration at the American Antiquarian Society website, taken from the January 31, 1863, edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, shows "contraband children" dancing a breakdown. The dance itself does not incorporate any kind of stepping or anything other than perfectly typical figures, however.
Howe's original instructions for Down East Breakdown are as follows:
Form as for Spanish Dance, except two couples face each other up and down the room.
Eight hands round, all right and left--ladies chain--all forward and back, forward again and pass on to next couples (every other couple raise their hands while the others stoop and pass through) (turn around at each end of the set.)
The formation looks like two duple minor improper sets stuck together side by side, two couples in a line facing two more couples in a line followed by two more facing lines, and so on:
L G L G
G L G L
L G L G
G L G L
L G L G
G L G L
Howe generally describes his improper dances, whether in normal couple-facing-couple or trio-facing-trio or as "the same down the room" or "all the way round," meaning that all the dancers start in facing lines and begin the dance simultaneously, rather than the "snowball" progression described here. At the ends of the set, the dancers turn as couples (so that each gentleman stays to the left of his lady), wait out once, and come back into the dance as a new line approaches them.
As with the Spanish Dance, it is possible to dance Down East Breakdown in either a longways set or a circle. But unless the circle is very large, the figures become somewhat awkward, with either the couples nearer the center too crowded or the outside couples too widely spaced. This problem is exacerbated by the dimensions of the ladies' skirts in this era. A longways set will generally be more pleasant for the dancers, even at the cost of waiting out once at each end of the set.
Reconstruction (32 bars)
8b All eight take hands and circle completely around to the left
8b Facing couples, right and left (two parallel figures)
8b Facing couples, ladies' chain (ditto)
8b All forward and back, forward again and top couples pass under bottom couples' raised arms
Reconstruction notes
There are two major ambiguities in the directions:
(1) Whether the two middle figures are done by the eight dancers as a whole: a grand right and left, or grand chain, round the set and a double ladies' chain involving all eight dancers, or each call being for two side-by-side figures of four dancers each. I've chosen the separate figures because (a) Howe was perfectly capable of writing "grand chain" or "double ladies' chain" if that was what he meant, as he does elsewhere in his books, and (b) a grand chain of eight dancers in eight measures in mescolanze formation is such a rushed move as to be near-impossible, especially given that the women would be in hoop skirts.
(2) Who raises their hands when the lines progress at the end. Since there is no hint as to which couple it should be, and there really needs to be a decision in order to avoid collisions, I've arbitrarily chosen to have the dancers facing up the set hold their arms up, purely because that is easy to explain and remember.
Performance notes
In normal proper contras, I advocate taking both right hands and left in the "right and left" figure, as I have previously discussed. But the duple minor improper, "couple facing couple" formation is a descendant of the quadrille, and, technically, the "right and left" of couple-facing-couple is not the same figure as the "right and left" of two couples in standard proper country dance formation. In the quadrille version of the figure in mid-century America, the dancers do not take right hands, only left hands, and they "reset" side by side at the end, the gentlemen turning to face in at the halfway point so that both couples are briefly face to face before crossing back to their original places. Here's how Howe described it in his American Dancing Master and Ball-Room Prompter, one of the same sources in which Down East Breakdown is found:
The first and second couples forward and pass to opposite places, each lady passing between the opposite couple; the gentlemen then present their left hands to the left hands of their partners, and turn them half round, and then turn themselves, so that each couple may face the opposite couple, having only exchanged places.
That is how I would recommend performing the "right and left" figure in Down East Breakdown.
The ladies' chain would not include modern courtesy turns; the gentlemen and ladies turn each other by the left hand, both moving forward, and the gentlemen spin around at the halfway point and at the end to face inward again, just as in Howe's description of the right and left figure.
When the lines pass through at the end of each figure, they must be careful not to go too far and end up nose-to-nose with the next line of dancers.
Music
I have not found any tune called "Down East Breakdown," but one source for the dance, the American Dancing Master and Ball-Room Prompter, includes the note "(Music: Clog Dance)," which is especially interesting in light of the connection of the term "breakdown" with clogging. A tune called "Clog Dance" appears (with no attached figures) among the contra dance tunes in Elias Howe’s Improved Edition of the Musician’s Omnibus (Boston, 1861):
Click the image to enlarge it. Played AABB, this tune will work for Down East Breakdown.
In the absence of live musicians or a recording of the tune, any thirty-two bar tune will also work for the dance.
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