Capering & Kickery

April 2016 Gig Calendar

This is mostly a stay-home-and write month for me, with my only significant travel being to the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA) mid-month!  It's been a few years since I could last make it to NEFFA due to calendar conflicts, so I'm excited to be back and looking forward to a great weekend of dance and music!

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Sunday, April 3rd ~ New York City
Regency Dance Workshop (Facebook event)
3:00-5:00pm.  Beginner-friendly workshop, no costume required.

Wednesday, April 6th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (4 of 6) (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, April 6th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Nineteenth-Century Waltz (2 of 4)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 8:00-9:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, April 13th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (5 of 6)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, April 13th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Nineteenth-Century Waltz (3 of 4)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 8:00-9:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Friday-Sunday, April 15-17th ~ Mansfield, Massachusetts
The New England Folk Festival (NEFFA) (Facebook event)
Enormous folk festival full of all kinds of traditional music and dance. My sessions:
    Friday 9:00-10:05pm: Polka Squares of the 1840s with Calliope
    Saturday 9:30-10:20pm: Royal Scotch Quadrilles with White Cockade
    Sunday 10:00-10:50am: Austentatious! Regency/Contra Mashup with Coracree

Wednesday, April 20th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (6 of 6)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm. Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, April 20th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Nineteenth-Century Waltz (4 of 4)  (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 8:00-9:00pm. Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, April 27th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Spring Regency Dance Party (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly dance evening 7:00-9:00pm.  Historical costume encouraged!

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I am available for private lessons in Connecticut or on my various travels; during the latter, you must provide the dance space.  Email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson.

New York City: April 1-3, 30
New Haven and Middletown, Connecticut: April 4-14, 18-29

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Coming in May: the 1814 Commemoration Ball!

See the Gig Calendar for further-out events and workshops!

Cinderella

Cinderella is a short hesitation waltz sequence that appeared in both the first and second editions of the collection Dance Mad, or the dances of the day, compiled by F. Leslie Clendenen and published in St. Louis, with the two editions both coming out during 1914.  

The dance was created by St. Louis dancing master W. T. Clark.  I expect that it was named after the then-brand-new Cinderella Dancing and Skating Palace shown at left (photo from the Pinterest collection of Scott McIntosh; click to enlarge), where Clark was the manager and dancing master.  His role there is mentioned in the December 16, 1913, issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which also noted that Professor Clark would be demonstrating and teaching the Cinderella at the Post-Dispatch Christmas Festival Fund benefit the next evening, and that it would then be included on the evening's dance program, along with the Wave, the tango, the Castle Walk, the Norfolk and the Dream Waltz.

An 1880s Reel of Nine

I've been teaching various versions of the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century reel for nine called the Country Bumpkin for a number of years.  Jumping forward to the late nineteenth century, this reel for nine is clearly akin to the Bumpkin, though it's simply called "Reel of Nine" in David Anderson's The New, Enlarged, and Complete Ball-Room Guide, which was published in Dundee, Scotland, in the mid-1880s.  This is the only source I have for the dance.

The nine dancers required should have a two-thirds majority of either ladies or gentlemen; three of one and six of the other.  Anderson considered three gentlemen and six ladies to be the "more suitable" combination.  The formation is the "tic-tac-toe" formation of three rows of three dancers each, the odd gender in the center.  For purposes of this description, I'm going to default to the three gents/six ladies arrangement.  Here's what the set will look like:

L    G    L
L    G    L
L    G    L

The instructions are deceptively simple: reel for three across the set, set and turn both partners, reel at the corners while the other six dancers hands three around and back, set and turn both partners, and repeat all this "around the square", followed by a final hands eight around to the left while the center dancer sets.  All of this takes eight bars of music played seventeen times.  

Easy, right?

Actually, no.  While the individual figures are easy, making the whole thing work in practice is kind of tricky and turned out to require plenty of extrapolation and interpretation.

The Sixdrilles (3 of 3)

Wrapping up my mini-series on the Sixdrilles, here are the final two figures and some overall thoughts.  The earlier figures can be found in my first and second posts in the series.

The Sixdrilles (2 of 3)

Moving right along from my first post in the Sixdrilles series, here are the reconstructions of the next two figures:

Figure Two: L’Été (8b introduction + 24bx4)
4b    First gentleman and two opposite ladies en avant and en arrière.
4b    Same three chassez-dechassez (à droite et à gauche)
4b    Same three traversez, gentleman crossing between the two ladies
4b    Same three chassez-dechassez
4b    Same three traversez/balancez [see note below] while partners balancez
4b    Same three rond de trois

The figure is then repeated by the second gentleman and the two opposite ladies, the third gentlemen and two opposite ladies, and the fourth gentleman and two opposite ladies.

The Sixdrilles (1 of 3)

The Sixdrilles are a clever reworking of the figures French Quadrille (or First Set) for a group of twelve dancers in the form of a square of trios, each consisting of a gentleman and two ladies.  I have two Scottish sources for them, which match fairly closely:

The Ball-Room, by Monsieur J. P. Boulogne (Glasgow, 1827).

Lowe's Ball-Conductor and Assembly Guide...Third Edition, by the Messrs. Lowe (Edinburgh, c1830)

Monsieur Boulogne is billed as French, but I know no more about him.  The Messrs. Lowe were a group of four brothers, all dance teachers, one of whom eventually became famous as dancing master at Balmoral for the family of Queen Victoria.  Their book is difficult to date, especially since it is a third edition.  A reference to the Sixdrilles being created around the time of the coronation of Charles X puts it at 1824 or later, and a late reference to the opera Guillaume Tell (Paris, 1829) at the very end of the book suggests 1830 onward.  The last half-dozen pages look like a later attachment, however, and may have been added for the second or third edition.  The Sixdrilles appear much earlier and are integrated into the overall work.

Whatever their precise date, Boulogne ensures that these particular trio-quadrilles are at least documentable to late-1820s Scotland.  Let me note, however, that the idea of a quadrille of trios is not unique to Scottish sources.  Either a lot of people had the same inspiration or there was significant borrowing of ideas (if not precise figures) going on.

In Germany, quadrilles for twelve (called Douzes) in four-trio (as opposed to six-couple) formations were published in the 1811 and 1813 editions of Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker's Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen and, closer in time to the Sixdrilles, in Christian Langer's 1824 and 1838 editions of Terpsichore.  In London, G. M. S. Chivers included a set of "Troisdrilles" in his mid-1820s The Dancing Master in Miniature, and in far-off Quebec, W. G. Wells included "Tredrilles" in his 1832 Danciad.  Wells copied most of his book from English sources, so I suspect his Tredrilles are likewise borrowed.  

Given Boulogne's nationality and the Lowes' tendency to borrow liberally from continental sources, it would not particularly surprise me if the Sixdrilles have a French or German source.  None of the other trio-quadrilles are precisely the same as the Sixdrilles, however.  The Becker Douzes have some interesting figures, but the Tredrilles and Troisdrilles are banal.

The Sixdrilles are excellent, however: intelligent variations on the basic figures that are easy to learn for dancers who know the First Set, as any good dancer of the 1820s would, and a convenient solution to the problem of having more ladies than gentlemen at a ball.  

Sadly, it is near-impossible to definitively answer the critical question of whether they were ever actually danced.  There's a dearth of written ball programs for the British Isles in this era, and the Sixdrilles need not even have been listed on such.  They were musically compatible with the First Set, so most of the room could be dancing a normal quadrille while a few individual sets danced in trio formation.  But since the imbalance of genders continues to be a problem today, I find it useful to have a solution documentable to dance manuals, if not to the dance floor.

March 2016 Gig Calendar

Greetings from Kyiv, Ukraine!  I'm here preparing to teach a whole slew of classes in dance from the early nineteenth century through the early twentieth, with a side-helping of Steampunk!

After Kyiv, I'll be back in Russia briefly for a quick trip to teach in Voronezh before heading home to a more relaxing second half of the month of my regular waltz and Regency classes, including a special one-shot class on easy 1910s waltz choreographies and the beginning of four-week a series on nineteenth-century waltz.

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Thursday, March 3rd ~ Kyiv, Ukraine
Blues Dance Social (Facebook event)
I'll be DJing during the band breaks!

Saturday - Tuesday, March 5th-8th ~ Kyiv, Ukraine
Vintage Dance Exchange 2016  (Facebook event) (VKontakte event)
for Historical Dance Studio "La Rêverie"  (website)  (VKontakte)  (Facebook)
Classes in nineteenth and early twentieth century dance.

Thursday-Friday, March 10th-11th ~ Voronezh, Russia
Classes in Regency-era and early twentieth century dance.

Sunday, March 13th ~ New York City
Regency Dance Workshop (Facebook event)
3:00-5:00pm.  Beginner-friendly workshop, no costume required.

Wednesday, March 16th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (1 of 6) (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, March 16th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Easy 1910s Waltz Choreographies (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly lesson 8:00-9:00pm.  No costume needed.  

Wednesday, March 23rd ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (2 of 6) 
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, March 23rd ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Jane Austen Era Dancing (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly lesson 8:00-9:30pm.  No costume needed.

Wednesday, March 30th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Social Waltz 101: Country Waltz (3 of 6) (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 7:00-8:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

Wednesday, March 30th ~ Middletown, Connecticut
Nineteenth-Century Waltz (1 of 4) (Facebook event)
Beginner-friendly introductory waltz lesson 8:00-9:00pm.  Take one or the whole series!

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I am available for private lessons in Connecticut or on my various travels; during the latter, you must provide the dance space.  Email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson.

Kyiv, Ukraine: March 1-8
New York City: March 13
New Haven & Middletown, Connecticut: March 14-31

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Coming in April: at last, I return to NEFFA!

See the Gig Calendar for further-out events and workshops!