Snowball fight!

In honor of tonight's incoming blizzard, and because I've been thinking lately about cotillion figures that scale up well for large groups, let's talk about Les Boules de Neige.  For those who don't speak French, that would be...The Snowballs!

Les Boules de Neige is, of course, a cotillion figure in the nineteenth-century sense of "dance party game" rather than an eighteenth century French square dance.  It is taken from François Paul's Le Cotillon et les Quadrilles Actuels (Paris, 1877).  Paul was the author of quite a few dances, most notably Le Polo (the Polo Quadrille), Le Triangle, and the infamous Baby Polka.  There's some nice information (in French) about Paul's life and some of his works here. 

Sadly, I have found no other descriptions of this figure, though it is listed as one of the many figures requiring props in Eugène Giraudet's roughly contemporary Traité de la danse.

This is a "general figure" (figure générale) involving all the dancers in the cotillion.  Here's Paul's original description:

Toutes les dames se placent au milieu du salon; tous les cavaliers forment autour d'elles un grand cercle, le plus large possible; alors chaque dame prend une boule de neige dans sa main, la déchire et la lance au cavalier avec lequel elle veut danser, de sorte que le danseur qui la reçoit se trouve inondé de neige; les messieurs qui se trouvent sans dame forment au milieu du salon, à la place des valseuses, le rond des frileux, c'est-à-dire qu'ils croisent tous les bras sur les épaules de leur voisin, et font une valse sauteuse en parcourant leur rond sur la gauche; dans cette valse, on doit porter la jambe qu'on lève dans le milieu du rond, comme si l'on voulait battre la semelle; au signal du conducteur chacun retourne à sa place.

My loose English translation:

All the ladies place themselves in the center of the room; all the gentlemen form a large circle around them, the largest possible; then each lady takes a snowball in her hand, tears it [open], and throws it at the gentleman with whom she wants to dance, so that the dancer who receives it finds himself inundated with snow; the gentlemen who find themselves without ladies form in the middle of the room, in the place of the waltzing ladies, a circle of the "chilly"^*, that is to say that they cross their arms on the shoulders of their neighbor, and do a leap [or hop?] waltz running in their circle to the left; in this waltz, one must carry the leg which one raises in the center of the circle as if one wanted to stamp one's foot^**; at the signal of the conductor, each [dancer] returns to his or her place.

^*The word frileux doesn't translate easily; it means sensitive to cold.  ^**Literally, "beat the sole".

A turning leap or hop waltz wouldn't work too well in a linked circle like that, but the raising of the foot suggests something like the leap-hop of the second part of the schottische; perhaps something like this?

1    Run counter-clockwise with a step the right foot
2    And another step on the left foot
3    Hop on the left foot, raising the right toward the center of the circle
      Repeat indefinitely.

The way the gentlemen are linked together would make the first step more of a crossing step, but this would at least keep them more-or-less running around the circle and include the raising of the foot.

Now, about those snowballs...

My first, wonderful, vision of this figure involved about a hundred couples, actual snowballs flying everywhere, gentlemen covered with melting snow, and a real mess to clean up.

Sadly, I think that the "snowballs" in question are more like little balls full of white confetti, as is implied by the ladies tearing them before tossing them.  The Parisian party-favor store Au Paradis des Enfants advertised "boules de neige" in sets of a dozen in the late nineteenth century.  A floor covered with confetti could be quickly dealt with between figures by discreet servants with brooms, and the gentlemen (and the ladies' gloves) would not suffer nearly as much.

When actually running this figure, the snowballs could be distributed as the ladies move to the center, or there could be a container of snowballs in the center of the ballroom, which would allow for resupply for any ladies who miss on their first throw.  Or perhaps those ladies who fail to hit a partner should have to make a walk of shame to their seats?  Or stay in the center of the circling gentlemen?  There's room for some creativity here.

This post is for Sergey, who wants cotillion figures that work for large parties of dancers!

Comments

[bodhi]

This figure can be founded in russian sources, for example, Stukolkin L., "Prepodavatel i Rasporyaditel balnyh tancev", 1890 p.149, figure 13.

I know, you understand russian language :) Russian text here:

"Игра в снежки", которая обязательно должна быть последней, так как проиходящий от нее беспорядок затрудняет танцы. Есть в продаже, преимущественно в иностранных магазинах, так называемые boules de neige (снежные шарики), мячики из тончайшей папиросной бумаги, плотно наполненные мельчайшей, крошечной, такой же бумагой, - это-то и будет в данном случае изображать снежки, в которые играют участвующие в танце и, расшибая их, устилают пол как бы снегом. Фигура эта устраивается так: несколько человек раздают мячики по две, по три штуки, каждому из участвующих. Все дамы делают круг dos-a-dos, лицом к своим кавалерам, которые остаются на своих местах. Затем начинают перебрасывать мячики, прежде все дамы, одновременно, потом кавалеры. Не поймавший мячика оборачивается спиной к кругу и следующий мяч летит ему в спину, отчего рассыпается и бумажки обсыпают с ног до головы провинившегося. Если мяч пойман, то пара идет promenade и по окончании, становится крайней справа в своей линии. Затем promenade в две пары, между линиями - в них, желающие бросают снежками. Те, в свою очередь, взявшись левыми руками, отвечают тем же, и так все пары до конца, и затем, общий promenade. Во время общего promenade все, у кого еще не истрачены шарики, бросают друг в друга и тем заканчивается финальная фигура котильона.

[Susan de Guardiola]

(Returning to this post during yet another snowstorm...)

Bodhi, you vastly overestimate my ability to read Russian! I'm going to get some help on the translation, but for the other non-Russian readers, the Russian description confirms the idea that these are paper snowballs filled with confetti. The figure starts out with the similar formation of ladies back to back in the center throwing snowballs at the gentlemen around them, with the gentlemen having the opportunity to catch them, and if they fail, turning their backs so they will then be covered with confetti by the next snowball. There's a bit at the end about promenading which I can't make sense of.

I'm going to send my Google-assisted translation effort off to someone who can fix the last few ambiguities. When I get it back I'll add it to the main body of the post. Thanks for the reference!

[Marnen Laibow-Koser]

Since no one has translated the Russian in almost 3 years, and it's snowing outside, I thought I'd give it a try. I am no expert in 19th-century Russian, with or without dance terminology. I've retained the French terms from the original; in my translation, they're in italics. Editorial comments are in [brackets]. Hopefully I didn't mangle the meaning too badly!

[begin translation]

"Snowball fight" [lit. "game of snowballs"], which must necessarily be the final figure, since the chaos it engenders will make [further] dancing difficult. You may find for sale, generally at foreign shops, so-called boules de neige (snow globes [sic]), balls of fine tissue paper, densely packed with tiny, minuscule [bits] of the same paper. These will represent snowballs which the participants will use for a fight and, when smashed [no, not the participants!], will cover the floor as if with snow. The figure is arranged thus: a few people give the balls out, two or three to each participant. All the ladies form a circle dos-a-dos [a back ring?], facing their own gentlemen [partners], who remain in place. Then they begin to throw the balls, first all the ladies at the same time, then all the gentlemen. Anyone who does not catch a ball turns around so that his back is to the circle. The next ball will hit him in the back, whereupon it will burst and the guilty one will be covered from head to foot in paper bits. If the ball is caught, that couple [presumably the thrower and the catcher] promenade and finish at the extreme right of their line. Then promenade in two couples, between the lines, from which those who wish may pelt them with snowballs. These [latter], in turn, taking left hands, respond in the same manner [i.e. the next two couples promenade], and so on for all couples until the end, then general promenade. During the general promenade, all who have not yet exhausted their supply of balls throw them at each other, and so ends the final figure of the cotillion.

[end translation]

The big question for me is how everyone gets from circles to lines. I suppose that as couples form from playing catch, they promenade over to the right of any couples standing there. But how does this relate to the two volleys of snowballs? Is the second volley only from the men who haven't already caught a ball thrown by a lady? If so, that would answer another question: the instructions talk about distributing only two or three balls to each participant, and yet the ending of the figure suggests that the author expects there to be a lot of leftover balls. Perhaps if most of the men catch the balls from the women's volley, there won't be many men to participate in the second volley, so this would be a way to use up their balls? I don't know.

It certainly seems chaotic and fun, and one can appreciate the advice to put this at the end of the cotillion!