Several years ago I posted eight easy setting sequences for Regency-era French quadrilles and said in the comments I'd try to post more "soon". That has now stretched to more than five years, but, better late than never, here are a couple of others, this time directly from a trio of French manuals by J. H. Gourdoux (or Gourdoux-Daux):
Principes et Notions Élémentaires sur l’Art de la Danse Pour la Ville (2nd edition, 1811)
Recueil d’un Genre Nouveau de Contredanses et Walses (1819)
De l’Art de la Danse (1823)
Once again, these are easy sequences, but a bit more interesting than the previous set.
Quick descriptions of the steps used in these two sequences are below.
1. (Gourdoux 1811; also appears in an American translation by V. Guillou in 1817)
1b Jeté left before; glissade right, closing behind
1b Jeté right before; jeté L before
1b Jeté right before; glissade left, closing behind
1b Jeté left before; assemblé right before
(count: ONE, and TWO, THREE, FOUR, ONE, and TWO, THREE, FOUR)
This sequence is mildly unusual in initiating with the left foot, bringing it from behind to in front for the first jeté. The following glissade closes with the left foot behind. The next jeté is "front to front", starting before and ending before, followed by another jeté bringing the left foot in front. The entire sequence then repeats to the right, ending with an assemblé rather than a jeté.
In the second and third bars there is a sequence of three jeté in a row. Care must be taken to perform each jeté with a good extension of the active leg to second. Otherwise those three beats can degenerate into a sort of unpleasant jogging in place. With a front-to-front jeté I usually end up extending the active leg on a bit of a forward diagonal.
This sequence was described by Oleksiy in the comments on my previous post.
2. (Gourdoux 1819 & 1823)
1b Glissade right, closing behind; jeté right behind
1b Glissade left, closing behind; jeté left behind
1b Temps levé et chassé right diagonally forward
1b Glissade left diagonally back, closing behind; assemblé left behind
(count: "and ONE, TWO, and THREE, FOUR, and ONE and TWO, and THREE, FOUR)
Most setting sequences are in place or side-to-side. This one is interesting both in having two very different two-bar "pieces" and in the inclusion of significant diagonally-forward motion. The first two bars are very conventional glissade-jeté pairs. But in the third the dancer actually performs a chassé diagonally forward then uses a glissade diagonally backward to return to place. Keeping the forward momentum controlled on the chassé so as to be able to instantly reverse direction of travel for the glissade is important for graceful performance.
Steps
Here are quick summaries (sans the full details of period practice) of the steps used above:
Glissade: sliding one foot to the side and closing the other foot to fifth or third position, either behind or in front ("before"). The slide to the side is performed on the upbeat ("and") with the close coming on the downbeat ("ONE"). The original French terms dessous (behind) and dessus (before) are so similar that I've written the closings out in English to avoid confusion.
Jeté: extend one foot out directly to the side (second position raised) then, bringing it either before or behind the other, leap onto it, raising free foot to point straight down, close along the leg. The motion should be "out-and-in". The step is initiated on the upbeat and lands on the downbeat.
Assemblé: extend one foot out directly to the side (second position raised) then bring it in either behind or before while hopping gently into the air, landing in either third or fifth position with weight equally on both feet. Again, this is an "out-and-in" motion with one foot moving, not two feet changing places. It initiates on the upbeat and lands on the downbeat.
Temps levé et chassé, usually abbreviated to just "chassé": on the upbeat, hop lightly on the back foot, scooting slightly forward and stepping forward onto the front foot in fourth, then close the back foot up and move the front foot forward to fourth again. "Hop, step-close-step" to the rhythm "and ONE and TWO".
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