New information on the Regency-era congo!

(For those coming late to the party: this was originally posted on APRIL FIRST.  You may conclude from this that it is an extended joke, not serious dance history!)

It’s always a big moment when brand-new material comes to light and forces dance historians to completely reconsider what had been accepted practice for decades.  While it has not yet been publicly announced, scholars working on the Austen family music books, which were recently released online, are quietly buzzing about the discovery of a one-page manuscript tucked into the back of one of the books.  The manuscript, said to be in Jane Austen’s own hand, contains a scene which was cut from the published version of Pride and Prejudice.

Any previously unknown work by Jane Austen is a wonderful discovery, but this particular one is  especially exciting to me as a dance historian because the newly-discovered scene, which I've obtained a copy of from a connection in England, documents a dance not otherwise mentioned in Austen’s work, one which has been something of a mystery over the years: the congo, or conga, sometimes also found under the name congo minuet.

We know from the scholarship of authors such as Rodreguez King-Dorset (Black Dance in London, 1730-1850: Innovation, Tradition and Resistance. London: McFarland and Company, 2008) that there was a substantial African-English community in London in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century that adopted European dances like the quadrille.  Descendants of quadrilles and contredanses are still a living tradition in the Caribbean.  But this new manuscript provides fascinating evidence of early African influence on the dance of upper-class society in England.

It also calls into question whether the common perception of the congo as a couple dance, like the minuet, is truly representative of how it was primarily danced.  In the manuscript, Darcy, under criticism from Elizabeth Bennet for not dancing when there are ladies standing out, clearly states that it is supposed to be danced by multiple couples simultaneously.  Unfortunately, Austen gives no further detail which would enable a workable reconstruction.

Fortunately, there's a bit more information in one of the more obscure corners of my collection of dance ephemera.

In one of those peculiar coincidences that fill my life, at about the same time I first heard about the new manuscript, I was working my way through scanning a pile of old photocopies of Regency dance manuals I got from a fellow country dance researcher about fifteen years ago.  And I came across an illustration I had completely forgotten about.  A scan of the illustration is shown below; click to enlarge.  Sorry about the poor quality; my copy is an nth-generation photocopy.  

I don’t have the original, but there’s a small handwritten note on the reverse reading “WM 1809 - dottator?”  “WM” is probably short for watermark, and “dottator” presumably refers to the famous “Dottator and Lineator Loquitur” illustration published in the magazine Ackermann's Repository of Arts in 1817.  I've included a scan of it below for comparison purposes.

One can immediately see the similarities in layout and design.  I don’t think the two pieces are by the same engraver, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was at least some direct artistic influence.

In company with Austen's manuscript, this engraving changes everything we know about the congo, establishing a direct connection to the modern conga, an Afro-Cuban dance which became popular in the late 1930s and survives to the present day as a popular party dance.  It now appears that its history must be revised substantially, along with that of the congo minuet, which now appears to be merely a two-person variant of the standard early nineteenth-century group conga. The variation in ending vowel may be the result of regional variation or of a clumsy, Spanish-influenced attempt to match the gender of conga as an adjective to the masculine French menuet.

The captions of the engraving are quite difficult to read, but upon close examination, they appear to document the postures, attitudes, and steps of the conga.  

The group of couples is labeled "Arrangement of the set", which implies that this line, which is somewhat similar to the formation of the mid-seventeenth-century Playford-published country dance Dargason, is the standard method of performing the dance.  Perhaps there was some early cross-pollenization with the English country dance during the seventeenth century?  Review of the history of early English exploration of Africa might be a fruitful direction for further research.

The couple illustrated at top right is labeled “à la Minuet”, confirming that there was a couple version, as documented by writers such as the pseudonymous Saltator (A Treatise on Dancing.  Boston, 1802), who provides one of the most detailed descriptions of the minuet form of the conga.

The bottom row of illustrations, left to right, appear to be some helpful technical tips.  Left to right, they are captioned “Posture of the conga”, “Characteristic step”, “Attitude of the arms” and “Reverse movement”.  It is clear from these that the Regency-era conga employed a very different movement vocabulary from the better known ballet-based steps of the majority of the era's dances.  While the "Reverse movement" does indicate a proper extension of the foot in fourth position, and the group illustration has the dancers pointing their toes properly, the "Characteristic step" actually shows the foot completely flexed.  Even allowing for some artistic license, this is a radical departure from accepted period practice.  

The attitudes of the arms displayed by the individual dancers are also unique, avoiding the graceful curvature of the arm in favor of extension straight forward alternating with a bent-elbow pose that probably gave Thomas Wilson, who deplored the "ungraceful attitude" produced by the bending of elbows in his 1821 work The Address, or An Essay on Deportment, palpitations.

Finally, the curvature of the body displayed by all the dancers is more reminiscent of the Lindy hop than the minuet, and suggests to me that heavily balletic interpretations of even the congo minuet should now be deprecated in favor of something more similar to Lindy hop.  While that sounds a bit radical in the context of the Regency ballroom, keep in mind that swing-like moves were evident in the paintings of Peter Breughel the Elder as far back as the sixteenth century.  See his famous Wedding Dance (1566) for a good example of this.  Perhaps the congo minuet is the missing link?

A final element of note: the manuscript scene includes an argument between Lizzy and Darcy over whether a gentleman does or does not conga.  I can't draw any specific conclusions from the limited evidence as to whether the conga was indeed not-quite-respectable as a ballroom dance or whether Darcy's real objection was to the company dancing it.

Despite the helpfulness of the c1809 engraving, which, lacking its actual title, I jokingly refer to as "Congator", we can only guess at the precise footwork of the group conga of the Regency era.  This lack has not prevented the BBC from attempting a recreation of Austen’s missing scene, including the conga.  

While it is a delight to see the actors portraying Lizzy, Darcy, and Caroline sparring verbally, and the costumes are pretty good (certainly better than their recent version of War and Peace), I was not terribly surprised to find that, as usual, the dancing is only dubiously period.  As with their "stately walking" depictions of country dance in other productions, they seem to have been more heavily influenced by mid-twentieth century dance style than by that of the era in which the novel is set.  Despite the relaxed posture, feet, and arms of the Regency conga, as depicted in the engraving, there is no reason to think the dancers did not move with care or that they lacked good body control.  Look again at the "Arrangement of the set" and observe the precision with which the dancers match the angle of their legs and the neatly pointed toes.  When danced in a line of couples, it seems that the Regency conga should really be more reminiscent of the Rockettes than a bunch of shambling zombies.

It's not unusual for me to be a little disappointed with the BBC and I don't want to encourage people to use their video as a period source, but I'll include it here anyway and hope that with further research, more and better sources will come to light to enable a more precise and accurate reconstruction of the Regency conga.

  

Comments

[James Langdell]

Amazing information. Well done. I hope that someday you find more information about a rumored Saut de lapin dance from that era.

[Linda]

It's the second day of April in Kyiv already, but it is the best piece of April fun I have had for years. Thank you so much!