A year ago I wrote about Battle Confetti, a figure for the "German cotillion", a form of dance party game popular during the nineteenth century. Other figures mentioned in the 1898 article that spurred that post included the Dewey figure, which I wrote about earlier this year, and Charge of the Light Brigade, which I'll discuss here, a hundred and sixty-one years after the event that inspired it.
I originally noticed two sources for this figure:
- the April, 1898, issue of The Director, a dance magazine edited by Maine dancing master, author, and enthusiastic professional organizer M. B. Gilbert. Gilbert is best known today as the author of the 1890 tome Round Dancing, but for a few months he also managed to publish The Director. It didn't last. I suspect he wrote most of its contents himself.
- the 1899 edition of the Fashionable Quadrille Call Book and Guide to Etiquette by B. Coanacher, an earlier edition of which is online at the Library of Congress. This edition has a cover proclaiming it Clendenen's Quadrille Book and Guide to Etiquette.
Here's the original language of the figure as it appears in each:
Charge of the Light Brigade
Music: --- Two-Step
--- Couples Up. Sig. Each lady select another lady. Each gentlemen [sic] select another gentleman. The ladies form a circle in the centre of the room; the gentlemen form a circle outside the ladies. The gentlemen raise their hands, the ladies stepping back underneath the up-raised hands which should be lowered, forming what is known as the basket. The basket thus formed should be divided in halves, each half retiring one to the head and the other to the foot of the room.
Sig. Gentlemen raise their hands, ladies pass from under and rush to the opposite side of the room, taking as partners the gentlemen opposite them.
-- M. B. Gilbert, editor. The Director, Vol. 1, No. 5., April 1898 (Portland, Maine).
Charge of the Light Brigade
Couples up; signal, each lady selects another lady each gentleman selects another gentleman; the ladies form circle in centre of the room, the gentlemen form circle outside the ladies, the gentlemen raise their hands, the ladies stepping back under the upraised hands which should be lowered, forming what is known as a basket; the basket thus formed should be divided in halves, each half retiring; one to the head and the other to the foot of the room, taking as partners the gentleman opposite them.
-- B. Coanacher. Clendenen's Quadrille Book and Guide to Etiquette / Fashionable Quadrille Call Book and Guide to Etiquette (Chicago, 1899)
The only real difficulty is managing to split the circle in half evenly if the group is large; the leader and his partner would presumably have to step in to organize this. The worst that could happen is that the lines are slightly uneven and someone has to turn back to get a partner from their own line.
The version in The Director makes the final partner-seeking a bit more exciting by specifying that at another signal the gentlemen raise their arms and the ladies "rush to the opposite side of the room", while the gentlemen, presumably, wait. Since half the ladies would be rushing in each direction, with a large group, things could easily get a bit confusing as ladies try not to collide (or do collide). Any lady who didn't like her opposite could probably manage to shift a gentleman or two over in the chaos. I think this version would be a lot more fun, myself.
It's not entirely clear to me just how this figure relates to the famous 1854 Charge of the Light Brigade. In the Director version, are the madly rushing ladies supposed to represent the British soldiers getting mowed down by the waiting Russians (the gentlemen?) What about the other version, where everyone presumably just walks forward at once? As with many dances with fanciful names, it may be best to just not think too hard about it.
When I dug around a little bit, I discovered that this figure was actually a modification of a much older figure, which appears to have evolved over time into the exciting version above. The figure was originally called Les bras enlacés, the intertwined arms, and dates back at least to the late 1840s, where it appeared in Cellarius' famous La Danse des Salons. It was translated into English with that book and appeared in many American sources over the latter part of the nineteen century. Here's the original French and a representative American translation:
Les bras enlacés. (Polka, mazurka.)
Trois ou quatre couples partent ensemble. Après un tour de mazurka ou de polka, chaque cavalier prend une dame, et chaque dame un cavalier. On forme un rond général. On avance et on recule tous ensemble sur quatre mesures; on avance encore une fois, et quand on se trouve rapprochés les uns des autres, les cavaliers se donnent les mains en dessus, et les dames en dessous. Quand les bras sont ainsi enlacés, on tourne à gauche; le cavalier conducteur quitte la main du cavalier qui se trouve à sa gauche: on se développe sur une seule ligne sans se quitter les mains. Quand une ligne droite est bleu formée, les cavaliers lèvent les bras tous ensemble et sans se quitter les mains; les dames partent en dansant, et les cavaliers s'élancent derrière elles à leur poursuite. A un signal donné, toutes les dames se retournent et dansent avec leurs cavaliers, qui doivent se trouver derrière elles.
-- Henri Cellarius, La Danse des Salons (2nd edition) (Paris, 1849)
The Intermingling of Arms--Les Bras Enlacés. (Waltz, Polka, or Mazourka Step.)
Three or four couples set out together. After a tour de turn, mazourka or polka, each gentleman takes a lady, and each lady takes a gentleman, when a general round is formed. They all advance and fall back together at four bars. They again advance, and when near each other, the gentlemen join hands above and the ladies below. The arms being thus entwined, they turn to the left; the conductor lets go the hand of the gentleman on the left; they extend themselves in a single line without quiting each other's hands. When a straight line is well formed, the gentlemen raise their arms, but still holding each other; the ladies dance off, and the gentlemen pursue them. At a given signal all the ladies turn round and dance with their partners, who ought to be behind them.
-- Elias Howe, American Dancing Master and Ball-Room Prompter (Boston, 1862)
The translation is fairly good, though somewhat less colorful than the original French. Here's how it works, in modern language:
Three or four couples (including the leader and his lady) dance a mazurka, polka, or possibly a waltz, once around the room. They split up, and each takes a new opposite-sex partner. They all form a circle of couples. Forward and back twice, then the ladies all join hands and the gentlemen join their hands over those of the ladies. All circle to the left, And at some point, the leader and his (current) partner break the circle and the dancers open up into a single line. The men keep hands, but raise their arms. The ladies flee across the room while the gentlemen chase them. At a signal, the ladies turn and dance with their partners, who "ought" to be behind them. The language there suggests to me that the gentlemen, intentionally or otherwise, didn't always manage to be right behind their ladies, which is perfectly understandable when six or eight gentlemen are chasing an equal number of ladies across the room.
It's easy to see how Les bras enlacés was modified to change the from "chase" to "charge", but, oddly enough, the acquisition of the name seems to have happened well before the change in the figure. Here's one source from the 1870s which give basically the same figure as the original Les bras enlacés, but which has added the Charge of the Light Brigade as a subtitle:
LES BRAS ENLACES;
Or, Charge of the Light Brigade.
Three, four, or more couples commence. Gentlemen select ladies, ladies select gentlemen. Form a grand round. All forward, four bars, and back same; again forward, when the ladies join hands with each other below and the gentlemen join hands above, in front and across each other, then all make a round to the left. The first gentleman separates from the gentleman on his right, and the lady on the right of the first gentleman (the one selected by first gentleman) separates from the lady on her right, the two ends then go backward until the circle becomes a straight line, the arms still entwined, when the gentlemen raise their arms, still holding fast, and the ladies dart forward from under, and are immediately followed by the gentlemen; and upon reaching the opposite end of the room, the ladies turn round and dance with the gentleman found opposite.
-- Allen Dodworth, Assistant for A. Dodworth's Pupils (New York, 1873)
This version acknowledges the possible mixer element, as each lady dances with "the gentlemen found opposite", which may or may not be her latest partner.
And, finally, here's a stab at pinning down the change in the actual figure: an 1878 version which has both the old and new titles but changes from the single-line to the two-line version, thus creating the "charge" effect:
Les Bras enlaces; or, "Charge of the Light Brigade."
Any number of couples begin. Form a grand round. All forward with joined hands to centre (four bars). Ladies join hands, and stop at centre. Gentlemen join hands around the ladies in a larger circle, and all balance (four bars). Ladies turn to the right, and gentlemen to the left (sixteen bars). Then ladies (keeping their hands joined) pass backward (stooping), while gentlemen advance, and (with hands still joined) pass their arms over the ladies' heads (taking care to have a lady between each two gentlemen, and "é conversa"). In this position break the circle in two places, and form two lines by going backward. At a signal, gentlemen raise their arms (hands still joined), ladies pass under and advance, gentlemen following. The two lines of ladies pass each other by letting go hands, and keeping straight on to meet the opposite advancing lines of gentlemen, when each gentleman takes the lady immediately in front of him, and all waltz to seats.
-- C. H. Cleveland, Dancing at Home and Abroad (Boston, 1878)
This is actually a better figure, with a bit more group dancing before splitting into the two lines, though there is no classic introduction of a smaller group couples dancing and then splitting and going to choose other dancers and the "charge" is more sedate than in some of the other descriptions. Here's the breakdown of this version:
Some number of couples dance. At a signal, they make a circle of couples, as in the older version. They all go forward to the center (four bars). The ladies join hands in a smaller circle (in theory stopping in the center, but in practice everyone is going to need to back up as well, or it will be awfully crowded!) while the gentlemen make a larger circle around them. All balance (four bars); this could be either single steps forward and back twice or right and left twice. I lean toward the former. The ladies circle to the right and the gentlemen to the left (sixteen bars). At a signal, the gentlemen raise their hands, the ladies duck backward under, and the basket forms. The circle breaks and the dancers fall back into the two lines. At a signal, the gentlemen raise their hands and the ladies advance, gentlemen following. The ladies pass through each other lines and meet the opposite gentlemen. All waltz to places.
There's no indication of whether the music for the first part should be waltz as well. Since the term waltz could simply mean "turning dance", there's no reason the entire figure, including the final couple dancing, couldn't be done to polka or, in the 1890s, to two-step.
In summary, we have two basic versions of this figure, distinguished by opening into a single line and having a chase or splitting into two lines and having a charge. The time range is 1840s-1900, with the transition apparently happening sometime in the 1870s. The earlier setup of creating the circle and what is done in that formation before the basket form is formed could vary; it's quite normal (even recommended!) for cotillion leaders to tweak their figures a bit.
The more dancers involved, the more chaotic this figure would be, but the later sources do leave an opening for this to be an all-dancers "general" figure, a "scalable" cotillon (as my Russian students have requested) that works for hundreds of dancers. Doing the "charge" version with those kinds of numbers seems like it would be the most accurate simulation of the Charge of the Light Brigade, short of using actual artillery!
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