- Era: 1830s, England
This dance is one of a pair of country dance gallopades published in London dancing master J. S. Pollock's c1830 manual, A Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne (Second Edition). They have no names or specific music, just numbers. I've previously discussed the second one; now here's the first. It's a very straightforward reconstruction.
Here are the original instructions:No. 1. (4 parts)
The whole of the party arranged in the same way as for a country dance stand facing the top of the room, and chassez croise all with partners -- then facing your partners, all advance, retire, and back to back -- first and second couples hands across and back again -- first lady pass outside the ladies to the bottom of the dance, the first gent. at the same time going down outside of the gents. and turn partner with both hands, remaining at bottom.
The formation, as noted, is a line of couples ("longways set"), gentlemen on one side and ladies on the other. The dancers all stand facing the top of the room. The gentlemen's line should be on the left and the ladies' on the right.
The dance:
8b All chassé-croisé
4b All face partners; advance and retire
4b All dos-à-dos with partners
8b First two couples cross right hands (moulinet) and go round; cross left hands and return
4b First couple galop sideways down the outside of the set to the bottom
4b First couple (now at bottom of set) turn by two hands
The dance would be repeated until all the couples have gone down the dance and returned to their original places.
Performance notes
The only real choices here are regarding footwork. Since this is an English dance of the 1830s, I would continue to use the fancier dance steps of the Regency era rather than the walking steps found in set dances later in the century. I'm not going to describe all those steps here, but basic descriptions may be found in the linked posts below.
The dance will be more visually attractive to spectators if all are using the same step-sequences, which is relevant because this is one of the rare set dances of the early nineteenth century which has the set periodically all facing one direction and thus is friendlier for performance purposes.
The chassé-croisé is the full version: cross partners, set, cross back, set. I've previously described several possible sequences.
For the advance and retire, the simplest sequence is chassé, jeté, assemblé forward and the same in reverse (initiating with the left foot), though there are certainly more elaborate options.
For the dos-à-dos, there are likewise quite a few possibilities. Some simple ones are described here, but for dancers who have moved beyond the absolute basics, I favor the sequence described in Strathy, which looks particularly beautiful with a whole line of dancers moving in unison.
For the moulinet, three chassés, jeté, assemblé in each direction. The same sequence works for the final two-hand turn.
The galop down the outside of the set requires an "eight-slide" galop, a series of step-closes ending with a final step (no close) and counted 1&2&3&4&5&6&7&8. The turning version is described here, though in this dance no turn is needed.
For the lady, this works out nicely, leaving her right foot free to begin the first chassé of the two-hand turn. The gentlemen ends with his left foot free; he can simply initiate the first chassé with his left foot (unusual but not unheard of) and make the final assemblé a behind-to-behind move to end with his right foot in front ready to restart the dance. There are possible kludges to get the gentleman's right foot free for the final turn, but I don't feel they're really worth the trouble.
Note that the set needs to be of a suitable length for an eight-slide galop to take a dancer from the top to the bottom of the set. A too-short set will leave the dancers taking uncomfortably small steps so as not to arrive early and a too-long one will not leave them enough time for the two-hand turn at the end, though that is not nearly as problematic as the consequences of a late arrival in the second country dance gallopade or the later Gothic Dance!
Music
Any lively thirty-two-bar dance tune of the era will work.
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