Ending a Grand March

In almost seven years of writing Kickery (has it really been that long?) I think I've only once said anything at all detailed about the Grand March, which was generally performed as the opening dance at American balls in the latter part of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, though occasionally it appears later on the program.  Clearly an overview is overdue!

This isn't it.

While working recently on the ball program for a pair of Civil War-era balls to be held in Gettysburg in November, I started wondering idly how many ways there were to end a Grand March.  So I made a little list.  I won't be using most of these, alas; the Gettysburg balls are insanely crowded and thus do not lend themselves to really interesting Marches.  But I thought it might be fun to share some of the possibilities.

These March endings are primarily from American sources.  The English do not seem to be big on including March figures in their dance manuals.  I'm not sure whether that's because they weren't doing them (one 1877 source hints that they were doing polonaises) or because the English dance manuals I have were all aimed at plain-old-dancers rather than at callers or floor managers and the authors saw no need to discuss Grand Marches.  I deliberately did not go to sources from the European continent to look at polonaises.

Oddly enough, Scottish authors seem to have liked describing Grand Marches just fine, at least at the tail end of the century, so I've included a couple of interesting suggestions from Scottish manuals.

I am assuming some general familiarity with Grand March figures, but I've included brief instructions on how to get into the various formations.

Some ways to end a Grand March

1. In a circle of couples. 

March around the edge of the room and close the gap between the beginning and end of the line.  Once you have achieved that, there are a couple of options:

• go into a waltz or other couple dance
  
  
• flip every other couple around and begin a Sicilian or Circassian Circle-formation contra

These are probably the two most popular suggestions found in dance manuals.  I've done both at various points, often using the very easy contra Soldier's Joy.  I've also occasionally taken the opportunity of being in a circle formation to do the Carillon de Dunkerque.  In a ball of the early twentieth century, one might also try some kind of "Paul Jones" circle mixer.

E. H. Kopp, in The American prompter and guide to etiquette (Cincinnati, 1896) suggests that if the company is so large that single circle would overcrowd the room, proceed as in the platoons figure into lines of four couples and then march four abreast around the room, ending in two concentric circles.

2. In platoons. 

March the couples up the room, send every other couple around the edge in opposite directions, have them meet at the bottom and come up in lines of four.  Repeat with the lines of four (every other line casting off in opposite directions) for lines of eight, sixteen, etc.  This is probably the most common ending for Grand Marches nowadays; it's easy, and you end up with all the dancers facing the band, which provides a nice opportunity to applaud the musicians.  I've done this innumerable times at balls, both as a dancer and as a caller.  But digging around in sources turned up two very interesting suggestions:

• do a Scotch reel for four!  If your final lines are of four dancers, you're all set.  Otherwise, split the lines of eight/sixteen/whatever into lines of four.  Needless to say, this is from a pair of Scottish sources, David Anderson's Ball-Room Guide (Dundee, c1890) and J. Scott Skinner's The People's Ball Room Guide (Dundee, c1905).
  
  
• with lines of eight or sixteen dancers, peel off to each side of the ballroom alternately once more (lines of sixteen splitting in half) and proceed to a convenient place to form sets and dance a quadrille.

I've never tried actually either of these, and I wouldn't use the reel ending at an American ball, only a Scottish one. 

Anderson states that after the reel, the dancers should once again form up and march around the ballroom, followed by the gentlemen escorting the ladies to their chairs.

3. In gender-sorted platoons. 

What, you say?  Gender-sorted platoons?  Oh, yes!  This turns up both in the same Scottish manual by David Anderson and in a very late March source, Charles Coll and Gabrielle Rosiere's Dancing Made Easy, published in New York c1922.  The dancers end in long lines acoss the hall, but this time alternating a line of ladies with a line of gentlemen.  And how does that happen?

Anderson suggests that when the couples are initially dividing and coming around the room to form lines of four, don't form those lines.  Instead, the two ladies move in front and take each other's arms while their partners do the same behind them.  This will end up with a column of two ladies/two gentlemen/two ladies/two gentlemen/etc.  When they reach the top of the room again, the ladies all go to one side and the gentlemen go to the other, so they will come up in lines of four ladies or four gentlemen.  Repeat for lines of eight, sixteen, etc.

Coll and Rosiere set it up slightly differently: when the couples initially split, they shift to single file, gentlemen ahead of ladies (though he notes that it could be the other way around), so that as the two files come around the edge, two gentlemen will meet and proceed up the room, followed by two ladies, etc.  This is really just a minor variation of the previous method; the only difference is when the couples separate.

Once the company is assembled in the gender-sorted platoons, there are a couple of options:

• Anderson suggests proceeding immediately to a country dance.  Each ladies' line turns around and ladies face their partners in the gentleman's line behind them, and -- presto! -- you are in a longways country dance set.
  
  
• Coll and Rosiere also suggest turning to partners, but then recommends beginning a one-step.  Obviously, this is only useful from 1908 or so.  Coming out of the platoon formation fits better with the potentially chaotic travel path of the one-step, as opposed to the relatively decorous circling the ballroom of the nineteenth-century couple dances.

4. In a long column of couples, or possibly multiple parallel columns of couples if the company is particularly large. 

This can be achieved either by simply marching up the room or by the "arbors" figure, with the lead couple at the bottom making an arch of their hands and each couple in turn passing under and forming an arch in turn.  This will leave the column inverted.  Once in a column, there are a couple of options:

• Waltz out.  This doesn't have to literally be a waltz; if there is not a change of music, one could do a polka or two-step to March music.  Each couple in turn waltzes up the set (if from the arbors figure) or down the set and out, either to their seats or to keep waltzing around the room. 
  
  
• Jig!  Occasionally a manual suggests this figure, which I suspect has snuck in from March Quadrilles.  It's not any sort of actual jig, just a more elaborate version of waltzing out done from the top of the column (so not from the arbors).  Each couple balances and turns by two hands halfway.  Then either promenade or waltz down the column.  Note that the half-turn has cleverly placed the gentleman on the left in proper position for either option!  Either proceed to the bottom of the column and join at the end (presumably the dancers move up as each couple goes down, lest the column hit the rear wall of the room) or waltz around the room to seats.

5. In a symbolic formation.

"The forms achieved at the end of the march are usually symbolic of the affair -- some significant form, as the Maltese Cross, triangle, alphabetical arrangements, etc."  (Coll & Rosiere)

I've previously described how to form a letter A, if that feels significant enough to end a March with.  Similar techniques would apply to other letters and shapes.

6. Doing something that sounds like it escaped from a fantasy film.

"Other figures may be introduced at pleasure and terminated in a similar manner; as the Serpentine March, the March from the Enchantress, and Fairy Spectacle of the Naiade Queen."
        -- E. B. Reilley, The amateur's vademecum. A practical treatise on the art of dancing (Philadelphia, 1870)

I have no idea what the March from the Enchantress and the Fairy Spectacle of the Naiade Queen are, but if I ever find out, I plan to attempt them.

Comments

[Steve Tichenor]

We ended one Grand March similar to item #4 above, in one event we did. Of course there were fewer attendess, but we marched up with the lead couple toward the head of the set and wheeled around to the left going instantly into an arbor with all other couples passing underneath heading under the lead couples hands and down to the bottom of the set. As each went through they created an arbor for the next. This does create a line dance setup, but however leaves the couples improper. Thus you have to change sides to get proper. This we achieved by: As soon as the last couple went through, the head couple took two hands and simply gracefully changed places. Then the next couple repeated and so on going down the lines by the "ripple" so-to-speak...It looked very nice.

thus making one line of couples

I guess if you had "many" people you could set up two lines of dance splitting from the center with the #1 couple going to the left and the #2 couple going right and odds and evens splitting to wheel back under each other's arbors. The right wheel (second line of couples group) could do a full round two hand turn ending proper after the arbor is completed.

This would make two long lines of couples

Don't know how you could make three or four lines of dance...

Steve Tichenor
North River Historical Dancers

[Susan de Guardiola]

There are usually several different ways to get into any grand march figure! One idea that comes to mind would be to do platoons of eight coming up the room, then drop hands and each person turns to face their partner. That would leave you with four parallel sets.

[Darlene Hamilton]

What about solutions for large balls where it takes a long time to get 150-250 folks to march around the room...? What has been most successful in those cases in your opinion?

[Susan de Guardiola]

Darlene:
It depends on the skill of your dancers and how many of them are accustomed to different figures, but in general, I keep it very, very simple when I have big groups, especially when space is tight. Zigzagging up and down the room, promenading around the room, maybe platoons and a serpentine, and end in either platoons or a circle of couples around the room to launch directly into a Sicilian circle or other dance of that formation.