Earlier this month I saw and greatly enjoyed Love and Friendship, the adaptation of Jane Austen's short epistolatory novel Lady Susan. There's not actually a dance scene in the original story, but they squeezed a brief one into the film. I'll defer full commentary on the scene until I can get the DVD and watch it a couple more times, but the brief version is that it was an odd and, as far as I know, ahistorical variation of Sir Roger de Coverley in which partners stood alternately proper and improper, resulting in lines that alternated gentlemen and ladies and diagonals that involved two people of the same gender. You can see it for about a second at 1:26 in the trailer here.
While I'm waiting for the DVD release, I'll free-associate to another country, era, and dance. I promise, this does have some connection to Love and Friendship!
My first thought on seeing that Sir Roger was that the alternating lines were weird for Austen's era. Earlier in country dance history, there are figures in which every other couple is improper or in which the couples become improper at the top and progress down the set that way, but as far as I can tell, that format had generally faded out by the late eighteenth century in favor of triple-minor-proper dances. It would revive, sort of, with the influence of quadrilles, but that version was the "couple-facing-couple" format, known in the mid-nineteenth century America as "form as for the Spanish Dance", with couples standing alternately back to back and face to face around a circle or down a line. The couples are side by side, not facing each other across the set.
There were also the occasional dances like The Tempest in which couples faced across the set, creating lines that alternated ladies and gentlemen. But again, the partners are side by side, rather than facing each other.
Neither of these formats is the same as a classic progressive improper country dance. And the idea of alternating genders down the lines in a full-set dance with a one-couple-to-the-bottom progression, like Sir Roger, is even more unusual, historically speaking. Did that even happen in the nineteenth century?
Well, actually, yes, it did, rarely. And one of the dances in which it happened was Kentucky Reel, an extremely easy little dance well suited to events at which there may be a number of inexpert dancers.
Kentucky Reel is a mid-nineteenth century full-set dance that has nothing to do with reels (heys). I have not made a thorough survey, but I would speculate that the term "reel" in this context means something more like "full set dance" (as in the Virginia Reel and some versions of Opera Reel) than "Scotch reel".
I have exactly two sources for Kentucky Reel's figures:
- The ball room guide : a description of the most popular contra dances of the day, (Laconia, New Hampshire, 1858)
- H. G. O. Washburn's The ball-room manual of contra dances and social cotillons, with remarks on quadrilles and Spanish dance (Belfast, Maine, and Boston, 1863)
The instructions are identical in both:
Note. -- Form the sets, the first gent. on the right, his partner opposite; second gent. on the left, his partner opposite.
Ladies all forward and back, forward and join hands in the centre -- gents, all forward and back, forward and join hands in the centre, facing partners -- all balance and turn partners -- first couple balance at the head, down the centre and remain at foot.
Reconstruction (32-bar contra dance)
Partners stand facing across the set, alternating proper and improper.
8b All ladies forward and back, forward and join hands in a wavy line down the set (see performance note below)
8b All gentlemen forward and back, forward and join hands in a wavy line down the set (see performance note below)
(partners will be face to face, gentlemen's arms over the ladies' arms)
4b All balance right and left twice
4b Turn partners two hands to places
4b Top couple balance right and left twice
4b Top couple take two hands, galop to the bottom of the set, and stay
On each iteration of the dance there is a new top couple that performs the last eight bars of dancing. The dance should repeat until all couples have gone down and everyone is back in original places.
Reconstruction and performance notes
The second time each group of dancers comes forward, they should be careful not to end up too close together. They should form as deep a zigzag as possible, arms straight forward on a slight diagonal rather than stretched out to the side. The gentlemen especially should make a point of keeping well back from the ladies when they come forward to join in, so that the two-hand turn at the end can be done comfortably.
Opening positions:
M W
W M
M W
W M
The ladies forward and taking hands:
W
W
W
W
The gentlemen joining them:
MW
WM
MW
WM
Edited 6/3/17 to add: after calling this dance a number of times this spring, I've found that the excess two bars of music for the dancers (first the ladies, then the gentlemen) in the first part is a real problem. The forward/back/forward takes six bars, and the dancers end up standing around fumbling for hands for two more or, worse, grabbing hands too fast and starting the balance early. My solution is to occupy those two bars with taking hands, first right hands, then left. Each hand-taking uses one bar (two beats). I call it as "forward-2-3-4, right-hands, left-hands". Using this sequential method also prevents the dancers from having to fumble for hands as everyone attempts to take both at once. Everyone looks to their own right and joins right hands easily, then to their own left and joins left hands easily. I can't document this solution historically, but it makes the dance work much better!
Using a simple sideways back-and-forth balance is my reconstruction choice, but there's not a lot more one can do in this interwoven-wavy-line formation. Stepping forward and back will cause collisions and longer chassez movements sideways simply won't work.
The galop down the center is also my choice, as best fitting the unsophisticated dance figures. The dancers could also use a cross-hand hold or even a closed ballroom hold, but taking two hands is the simplest. Alternately, the couples could simply promenade, if the set is short enough for them to get to the bottom in time.
If the set has an odd number of couples, each couple will need to switch sides when they arrive at the bottom, in which case a galop might be necessary to give them time to accomplish this.
Music
The only tune called "Kentucky Reel" of which I am aware is, amusingly, a jig. It was published in Brainard's collection of instrumental music (Cleveland, 1841), from which the image below (click to enlarge) is taken:
Photo courtesy of The Watkinson Library, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
In the absence of musicians or a recording of this music, any historical thirty-two bar jig could be substituted. Edited 6/3/17 to add: I've recently been using the track "Seneca Square Dance/Yellow Rose of Texas/Round the Horn" from the Grandview Victorian Orchestra CD. It is brisk enough to make the simple figures exciting and has a twangy country sound that feels appropriate for this dance.
An interesting footnote
The perennial question for any of the myriad dances found only in one or two sources is, "did anyone ever actually dance this?" In the case of Kentucky Reel, there's actually a suggestive bit of evidence.
In her Journal of a residence in America (Paris, 1835) Frances Anne Butler, better known as the actress Fanny Kemble, wrote in November, 1832, of a "small party" at which she danced
what they called a Kentucky reel, which is nothing more than Sir Roger de Coverley turned Backwoodsman...
There's no way to know whether she danced the same figures as those in New England dance manuals from three decades later -- "Kentucky reel" in this context might be a genre, rather than a particular set of figures -- but the reference to Sir Roger de Coverley suggests that at least it was a full-set dance, and something more informal or rough-and-tumble ("Backwoodsman") than the original.
And that brings us back to where we started, with the dance depicted in Love and Friendship, which could be described as Sir Roger de Coverley turned into something that resembles at least one Kentucky Reel. If only it had been set in America in the 1830s...
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