A postscript to my mini-series of posts on Regency-era Scotch reels:
There is not an iota of evidence that Regency dancing master Thomas Wilson intended his new reel of four to have any sort of progression (dancers moving from one starting location to another for each iteration of the reel), and, indeed, his lack of inclusion of a progression argues against one. But it turns out to be remarkably easy to progress this reel, and my dance students, who have spent much of the last month patiently working through my experiments with reels, have been enthusiastic about this new variation.
The concept of a progressive reel was not unfamiliar to Wilson; he mentions progression in his description of the classic reel for three and uses it in his new reels for five. Here's how to do it in his new reel of four:
At left is the diagram of Wilson's reel of four, taken from An Analysis of Country Dancing (London, 1811), which I described in detail in my previous post, to which I strongly suggest referring back, as I won't be repeating all the detail. Click the diagram for a larger view.
When progressing this reel, each dancer moves clockwise one place at the end of each iteration, so after four iterations everyone is back in their original positions. This will require 64 bars of music, 16 bars for each time through. The alternation of turning and then reeling remains the same. "Opposite" and "partner" are roles associated with position rather than people in this version, so, using the diagram to label them, top left and top right dancers are always partners and bottom left and bottom right dancers are always partners.
Here are the positions of the dancers at the start and after each of the four times through:
A B C A D C B D A B
-> -> -> ->
C D D B B A A C C D
The dancers advance and turn their opposites and then their partners in the usual way, then use the reel to progress as follows:
In each iteration, the dancers in the top left and bottom right positions, AD in the first diagram, start with the ladies' track of the original reel, as shown above, moving in from their corners to pass left shoulders with each other and then curve around to the right. They then continue in a standard reel of four diagonally across the set, ending in the bottom left and top right positions.
The dancers in the top right and bottom left positions, the gentlemen at BC in the first diagram, start at one corner and reel to the diagonally opposite corner in the usual way. On their return trip, after making the second left shoulder pass in the center, they simply exit the reel and head out to their new position at top left/bottom right.
All the dancers will now be in the positions shown in the my second diagram above.
Continue the reel as usual with the dancers turning their new opposite (D with C and A with B) and then their new partner (D with B and C with A). Dancers B and C then move in on the ladies' track while A and D start on the gentlemen's track and all progress again at the end of the reel. Two more iterations, and all the dancers are home.
This progression is so easy to do that my only instructions to my second group of test dancers were, literally, "Look at your new position. Now do the reel and come out in that position."
Special thanks to my test dancers: Marci, Shelby, Lauren, Jessica, Christina, Nora, and Jeremy!
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.