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.
Figure 4: La Trenise (8b + 40bx4)
8b Four head ladies double chaine des dames using the side gentlemen as in Pantalon
8b Head trios balancez in triangle formation (gentlemen slightly back of the two ladies) and rond de trois
4b First trio en avant and en arrière
(Second trio: ladies move apart from the gentleman)
4b First trio en avant, ladies traversez to stand between the opposite ladies and their gentleman, and the first gentleman en arrière alone
(The pairs of ladies cross hands in promenade style, right in right and left in left; from here, each pair dances as a unit)
4b The two pairs of ladies traversez to opposite corners, while the first gentleman moves to the center and turns around (2b) and balancez (2b)
4b The two pairs of ladies meet in the center, drop hands, and pass through by right shoulders, curving back to triangle formation with their original gentleman partner, while the first gentleman moves back to his place and turns around (2b) and balancez (2b)
8b Head trios balancez in triangle formation (gentlemen slightly back of the two ladies) and rond de trois
Repeat three more times, each trio leading in turn.
Reconstruction and performance notes
This is a close adaptation of a standard "long Trenise" figure, with the added sixteen measures at the beginning. There are a few minor reconstruction issues:
1. Both the Lowes and Boulogne describe the active gentleman as simply passing to the center and returning to his place. There is way too much music for this, and the normal Trenise figure has the gentleman setting to the active ladies, so I have adopted the same figure used in Pantalon and had the gentleman fill out the time with balancez.
2. The Lowes' core Trenise figure is "The Ladies join hands, two and two, as for the promenade, and cross over; whilst the Gentleman passes between them, they chassé across; the Gentleman returns to his place, the Ladies separate, and dance in before their partners." In Boulogne, the sequence is "The Ladies' promenade across, at the same time the Gentleman passes between them, they chasse across, the Gentleman retires to his place, Ladies separate, and set to partners." Those "chassé across" directions are awkward in the extreme; somehow, the gentleman has to kill time in the center of the set while four ladies in a line do...half a chassé-croisé? In pairs? Sometimes you have to wonder if these writers ever actually tried dancing their own instructions, because, taken literally as a sequence that idea does not work very well.
But I think this is mostly poor writing and punctuation. I would interpret them as saying that on the first two bars, the pairs of ladies are crossing the set while the gentleman moves into the center; the ladies they move across to opposite corners (not a chassé-croisé, just an ordinary chassé-croisé forward, jeté-assemblé) while the gentlemen does his unmentioned but traditional balancez during the next two bars. The "separate, and dance in before their partners" of Lowe's instructions suggests to me the usual curve or cross back to places, which I have added detail to in order to lessen the potential chaos of four ladies suddenly separating and crossing through the center at once. I don't particularly care for Boulogne's "Ladies separate, and set to partners" version because that is too much setting when the very next figure is four more bars of it.
Figure 5: La Finale (8b introduction + 32bx4 + 8b)
8b All eight ladies chassé-croisé while all four gentlemen move to the center and turn around back to back (2b), balancez (2b), move back to places (2b), and balancez (2b)
24b L’Été
(once only at the end)
8b All twelve dancers join hands, en avant and en arrière twice
Repeat three more times, each pair leading L’Été in turn.
Reconstruction and performance notes
1. See my previous description of L’Été for details of that figure and performance tips.
2. On the chassé-croisé, the left-hand-lady in each trio moves back and forth behind the right-hand lady. This is not specified in the sources, but it is the standard method for a mixed-gender chassé-croisé, in which the gentleman is on the left, and some decision must be made to make this work.
3. The chassé-croisé includes the balancez at the corners. While the gentlemen's sequence omits the final balancez, I have added it for symmetry with the ladies' sequences and for the same practical reasons as in Le Pantalon.
4. This will feel unintuitive, but during the introductory music and at the end of each iteration of the figure, the gentlemen must move slightly forward of the ladies, since the latter move sideways immediately in the chassé-croisé at the start of the figure. He has to get out of their way beforehand or there will be collisions!
Pre-Sixdrille conference
I've mentioned several times over the course of this series that for reasons both practical and aesthetic, the dancers need to have a little conference before beginning the Sixdrilles. Here's a quick summary of the questions to be agreed upon:
Facing trios: in Le Pantalon, wheel around and ladies chaîne back, or don't wheel and everyone does a plain traversez back? In La Poule, how to balancez in the garland figure?
Each trio: how to balancez in triangle formation? How to hold hands during the demi-promenade in Pantalon?
Ladies in each trio: in L’Été and La Finale, what steps shall we use for our parallel chassez-dechassez, traversez, and balancez figures?
Music
Any music arranged for the standard Regency-era First Set of French Quadrilles with a forty-bar fourth figure will work for the Sixdrilles. One good recording is the Spare Parts "Fashionable Parisian Quadrilles" on their Regency Ballroom CD. If using live musicians, have them play the third figure only twice instead of the usual four times.
Other reconstructions
The only other reconstruction of the Sixdrilles that I am aware of is that published by Ellis Rogers in his invaluable book, The Quadrille. Our reconstructions are pretty close, though we haven't always made exactly the same choices. Rogers omits the two-bar balancez at the end of the various gentlemen-to-the-center-balancez-returns except in La Finale. He prefers the "wheel around and ladies chaîne back" version of the end of Pantalon. Both of these are perfectly reasonable decisions.
A bit more startling to me is interpreting the "garland" figure of La Poule as neither a circle nor a line, but instead as a pair of three-person moulinets joined by all four ladies' left hands. He also has the ladies chaîne back instead of all three dancers simply passing back to places. I can see deciding to interpret all usages of "pass back" as ladies chaîne / gentlemen traversez, but I don't think I agree.
In La Trenise, he makes the same decision I do with the ladies separating as they return to places, but has them passing left shoulders. Additionally, he separates them as they cross behind the gentleman on the first part as well, having them pass right shoulders and then join hands again. That is rather elegant, but I am not completely comfortable with the dropping and rejoining of hands it requires.
Given these not-entirely-compatible details, if dancing the Sixdrilles with strangers, find out who they learned it from. A much longer pre-Sixdrille conference may be required!
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