Dancing the Bon Ton Gavotte

Having decided that the Bon Ton Gavotte was popular enough to perhaps be worth doing, how does one actually do it?

Let me start by noting that as reconstruction projects go, the Bon Ton Gavotte is a mess: two sources are ambiguous and the other two contradict each other.  Since they cannot all be reconciled, I cannot produce any really definitive reconstruction.  Instead, I'll go through the sources one by one and give my thoughts about the various options.

Gilbert
When I first criticized the Bon Ton Gavotte as being not a very good dance, it was on the basis on the information in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), which gives this little sequence:

(Gentleman's feet given; lady dances opposite)

Part 1 (side by side, holding inside hands raised to just below shoulder height)
1b    Point left foot (4th), bring it back to 3rd raised
1b    Polka forward
2b    Repeat above 2b leading with right foot
4b    Turn against line of dance, changing hands, and repeat above 4b in opposite direction

Part 2 (waltz position)
1b    Hop-waltz (step left, hop, step right, hop; makes one full turn)
1b    Polka (half-turn)
6b    Repeat above 2b three more times

Traveling first along and then against line of dance is a classic sequence dance pattern, similar to the Rye Waltz, Veleta, etc.  The alternating 1-2, 1&2 rhythm of Part 1 is likewise common all the way from the old heel-and-toe polka up to later dances like the Berlin and Très Chic.

Aesthetically, I find the Bon Ton Gavote overly-repetitive compared to other such sequence dances; it's really an eight-bar sequence with each part doubled.  And I don't care much for the resultant change of direction when the gentleman's left and lady's right foot are free, which leaves those feet swinging 180 degrees around to start the repeat.

There's also a music problem.  Gilbert classifies the Bon Ton Gavotte as a schottische, which he usually notates at four beats to the measure, each beat being a quarter note, just as in the Wells music.  But Gilbert's Bon Ton Gavotte is notated at two beats to the measure, which for him normally means 2/4 -- polka or galop time.  Is this meant to be sixteen bars of schottische or is it really eight bars of schottische rewritten as sixteen bars of polka?  That makes a substantial difference in tempo.  Gilbert suggests 72 beats per minute for schottische.  If he is actually squeezing twice as much dance into each measure, that means an effective tempo of 144 beats per minute, which seems rather, um, sprightly for a purported schottische.  Even taking it at Gilbert's normal polka tempo of 126 beats per minute would make for a rather lively hop-waltz in particular.  Sixteen bars of schottische is more practical as a dance, but that makes his choice to notate it at two beats per measure seem very odd.

Wells sheet music
My undated copy of the sheet music, probably from around 1895, gives dance instructions which match those at the IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library.  These are probably the instructions written by Wells himself, and if they listed how many measure were needed for each part, presumably counting in the same measures as on the score, it would clarify things nicely and make this a much shorter article.  Unfortunately, they don't:

First Position - Lady should stand on the right of Gent, Lady starting with the right  foot and Gent with the left; the Gent taking Lady’s left hand and extending it above the shoulder.  First Part.  -- The Gent sliding left foot forward and Lady sliding right foot, counting 1, cross left foot back over right, bow, and counting 2.  Three steps forward in double time, counting 1, 2, 3.  Now repeat same movements, and on the last three counts in double time, turn right about face, and repeat same movement from beginning; then take proper Waltz position and jump from right to left, displacing steps, counting 1, 2; 1, 2; and 1, 2, 3.  Repeat four times through.

They do add some performance detail: the very high position of the hands, which matches that shown in the illustration above, which was taken from an advertisement on a different piece of sheet music, and that the active foot is crossed over the inactive one with a "bow" in Part 1.  The first part calls for three quick steps forward ("in double time, counting 1, 2, 3" is a musically incoherent way of saying "1&2"), which may be a way of writing polka (sometimes described thus) or may really be three little steps.  The step-hops are turned into leaps and the turning polka is only implied. 

I suspect Gilbert's instructions are his personal rewrite of the above, but one wonders if he actually saw the music!

De Garmo
William De Garmo, in the fifth edition of The Dance of Society (New York, 1892), is definite that this is a sixteen-bar schottische and is equally definite that the active foot is not crossed in Part 1, but is placed in third position raised with the dancers "bowing".  This separates it from a very similar sequence called the De Garmo in which the foot is crossed over.  He also notes that the polka should be done without the hop in Part 1 (one-two-three-rest) and in the second part specifically says to schottische (one-two-three-hop).  Both the polka and the schottische steps are described by De Garmo as smooth sequences of "glide-close-glide" rather than the slide-cut-leap of other dancing masters.

Lopp
Finally, George Washington Lopp describes it (in French) in La Danse (Paris, 1903).  Much of La Danse is a direct translation of Gilbert into French, but the Bon Ton Gavotte is noticeably different from Gilbert's version.  Lopp gives the tempo as standard schottische time, 72 bpm (half note = one beat).  He instructs the dancers to, with their active foot, "faisant passer devant la jambe" and  "croissant les jambes" (make [the foot] pass in front of the [other] leg, crossing the legs) on the first part while leaning forward and specifies a simple step-close-step (polka simple) for both the polka segments.  He also confuses things completely by rewriting the dance as an eight-bar schottische.  This means he doubles the speed of the first part when compared to De Garmo (point-tuck, polka = four quarter notes = one measure of schottische), though it would match Gilbert if Gilbert were considered to be counting in 2/4 time (quarter notes).  The second part is left at the same speed as De Garmo or of Gilbert counting in 4/4 time (half-notes) (step-hop, step-hop = one measure of schottische), but to fit it into eight bars he simply chops off two repeats, which directly contradicts everyone else.  Ouch!

Reconstruction
These contradictions simply can't be reconciled.  Sixteen bars of polka (Gilbert, maybe) translated into eight bars of schottische (Lopp) would make some sort of sense.  But sixteen bars of schottische (De Garmo and maybe Gilbert) simply can't turn into eight.  The sheet music is unhelpful: two sections of sixteen bars followed by four of eight could work either way.

There are five choices to be made here: (1) to cross the feet or not; (2) bowing or not; (3) steps in Part 1 -- polka with upbeat hop, polka without hop, or simply three little steps; (4) steps in Part II -- polka with upbeat hop, polka without hop, or schottische with hop; and (5) how many bars of schottische is this dance anyway?

And two final details: no one actually mentions it, but the illustration above clearly shows the couple leaning back slighly as they point their feet forward and the lady holding her skirt with her free hand.

Let's start with the easy bits. 

1. To cross or not to cross?  Gilbert and De Garmo want raised third.  The sheet music and Lopp call for crossing the foot (or leg) over the other.  Since De Garmo was clearly trying to differentiate the dance from his own eponymous sequence, I think his motives are suspect here.  I'd go with the cross.

2. Bowing?  Everyone but Gilbert mentions bowing or leaning the body forward as the active foot is brought back (crossed or not) in Part 1.  Do it.  I'd lean back slightly while pointing the foot forward as well, per the illustration.

Jumping to how many measures:  I think the preponderance of evidence is for a sixteen-bar version with four iterations of Part 2, with Gilbert simply having notated it incorrectly.  And Lopp's version of Part 1 is a little too lively for the bowing to work gracefully.

Specific steps: as long as everyone in the room is doing the same length of sequence so that they change direction at the same times, the particular steps are less critical as long as the two partners agree.  Personally, I would choose to follow De Garmo, as having the best balance of coherent description and matching other sources. 

Here's the version with my choices specified:

(Gentleman's feet given; lady dances opposite.  Lady holds skirt with free hand.)

Part 1 (8b of schottische, side by side, holding inside hands raised to above shoulder height)
1b    Point left foot (4th), leaning back slightly; bring it back across right leg, bowing forward
1b    Polka forward (glide-close-glide with no hop)
2b    Repeat above 2b leading with right foot
4b    Turn against line of dance, changing hands, and repeat above 4b in opposite direction

Part 2 (8b of schottische, waltz position)
1b    Hop-waltz (step left, hop, step right, hop; makes one full turn)
1b    Schottische half-turn (glide-close-glide-hop)
6b    Repeat above 2b three more times

The counts for one iteration of each part are:
Part 1: one (pause), three (pause), one-two-three (pause) (four times)
Part 2: one-two, three-four, one-two-three-four (four times)

For comparison, here's the timing of Lopp's eight-bar version:
Part 1: one, two, three-and-four (four times)
Part 2: one-two, three-four, one-two-three (pause) (twice)

I wouldn't have any real problem with simply deciding to dance Lopp's version instead, especially if one were specifically reenacting Parisian dancing.  But make very sure that everyone in the room agrees or Part 1 will be a disaster! 

What about that dance card?
All of this inconclusive reconstruction work still does not quite solve the mystery of which dance was intended on the 1894 dance card that started me off on this research.  Along with the Bon Ton Gavotte, there was also a dance called simply the Bon Ton, another variant schottische which De Garmo, in what seems like a vast overreaction, described as "outré, undignified, and destructive of legitimate dancing." 

I would place my bet on some version of the Bon Ton Gavotte, but we cannot be 100% certain.

Twentieth Century Nova Scotia
A final note on the Bon Ton Gavotte: apparently the little sequence dance from Pittsburgh caught on so well in eastern Canada that by the mid-20th century a much-simplified form was actually considered a traditional Nova Scotian folk dance!  In March, 1958, the noted folk dance historian and caller Ralph Page published an article on four Nova Scotian dances collected by Maurice Hennigar in Volume 3, Number 6 of his folklife magazine, Northern Junket, and included a description of the Bon Ton Gavotte along with a four-figure waltz quadrille, a schottische sequence, and the Rye Waltz. 

Hennigar was part of the Physical Fitness Branch of the Nova Scotia Department of Education and noted that the Bon Ton Gavotte was "still done all over N[ova] S[cotia]."  He mentioned in his introductory remarks that traditional eastern Canadian dance culture was then being blended with that of the United States and of Western Canada, seemingly unaware that the Bon Ton Gavotte was from an earlier generation of such cross-border blending.

The version Hennigar found to be current in Nova Scotia in the 1950s, given below, had lost the travel against line of dance and all the complexity of the second part.  I've rearranged the description format to match those given above.  The instructions are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  They are in a closed dance hold throughout, opening up slightly to face forward on the walking steps in Part 1.

Part 1
Touch left toe out to the side, then across in front of right
Three walking steps forward left-right-left, and hold
Repeat all of the above three more times, alternating lead foot.

Part 2
Sixteen turning two-steps, clockwise eight full turns

The music Hennigar collected does absolutely nothing to sort out the musical issues of the nineteenth-century version.  It is a two-part tune, with sixteen bars of 4/4 time followed by eight bars of 2/4 time repeated.  The first part does not seem to obviously match any part of the Wells tune, but the second is a minor variation on the beginning of the original piece, rewritten to split the 4/4 bars into 2/4 bars. 

It's not entirely clear how to correlate the music with the dance.  The second part of the music nicely fits the second part of the dance -- a total of sixteen bars of 2/4 time for sixteen two-steps.  But sixteen bars of 4/4 for the first part seems like about twice as much music as needed; is each touch of the toe really given four beats?  But I don't see any alternative.

Some quick digging has not turned up any good information on the current status of traditional Nova Scotian dance, but I'd be idly curious to know if the Bon Ton Gavotte survives there as a living tradition to this day.

Comments

[Melanie Marshall James]

"Bon Ton Gavotte" was written by my great-grandfather George Wells. He wrote many operettas for Lillian Russell. They did work with Gilbert and Sullivan during their musical careers.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Melanie, how lovely that you've found this family connection!

I credit your great-grandfather for the music "Bon Ton Gavotte" in my earlier post on it, which you may find here. The dance was choreographed by J. S. Christy.