The first thing to know about "The Tempest" is that, despite the name, it is not a version of "La Tempête". The latter is a different dance with different music and a much longer and more exotic pedigree.
"Tempest" is a mid-nineteenth-century American contra dance with a delightfully unusual formation, as shown at left in a (relatively) modern illustration from Ricky Holden's The Contra Dance Book
Descriptions of the formation are very clear that the dancers line up couple facing couple, widely spaced, with the frequent suggestion of six to eight couples on each side, though there's no reason beyond the length of dancing time that there can't be more.
The dance is started off by the two couples at the head of each line peeling inward and going down the middle four abreast, as can be seen in the diagram. As those two couples progress down the set, each pair of couples reaches the top, waits out once, and then turns into the line of four to begin the dance in turn. This is the standard early progression style for country dances, as described in detail here. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, it was not unheard of for multiple couples to start simultaneously in a country dance. Boston musician-caller-author Elias Howe, whose books are, collectively, one of the major sources for "Tempest", was quite explicit about this. So it would not be unreasonable to start multiple lines of four simultaneously. The dance would continue until all couples have had a chance to rise to the top of a set, dance down it, and return to their original places.
Howe's instructions, which appear in his dance and music books from at least 1858 to 1892, are as follows:
First two couples down the centre (one couple from each line) four abreast, couples part at the foot and up abreast and each turn around opposite the next couple that was below them on starting — four on each side right and left — ladies chain with the same couple — balance, four hands round (on each side) same four down the centre, &c.
These instructions, with minor variations, appear repeatedly in Howe's myriad dance manuals, including his Complete ball-room handbook (1858), The pocket ball-room prompter (1858), American dancing master, and ball-room prompter (1862 and 1866), New American dancing master (1882 and 1892), and New ball-room guide (1891) as well as his music books, such as Drawing-Room Dances (1859), The Pianist's Social Circle (1869), and Parlor Dances (c1871). All were published in Boston.
Identical instructions, probably copied directly from Howe, appear in the anonymous Ball-room dancing without a master (New York, 1872), How to dance. A complete ball-room and party guide (New York, 1878), Prof. M. J. Koncen's quadrille call book and ball room guide (St. Louis, 1883), the pseudonymous Professor Bonstein's Dancing and prompting, etiquette and deportment of society and ball room (Boston & Chicago, 1884), Gott's Old Familiar Dances with Figures (Boston, 1918), and probably many other books as well.
Reconstructing Howe's "Tempest" is straightforward:
8b Two couples down the middle, turn as couples, and up again to turn outward, facing the next couple in their line and back to back with the other lead couple
8b Facing couples right and left
8b Facing couples ladies chain
8b Facing couples balance forward and back twice (4b) and circle quite round to the left (4b)
At the end, the circling couples open up to allow the two lead couples to once more form a line of four and head down the middle again. During the first eight bars, the lines of couples need to move up a fair distance (twice the usual, because of the formation) or the set will rapidly drift downward.
One non-Howe source from 1896 suggests that once all the dancers have gone up and down the set:
forward all and promenade to seats
I would interpret this as all the dancers going forward to the opposite couple, then back, then taking partners and dispersing the set. It will be most easily performed if there is a caller to signal the dancers and if the dancers are doing the classic historical progression, so that there is a clear endpoint to the dance and most of the dancers have already stopped moving. Given the formation, it is otherwise going to be hard to make it work smoothly.
Some quick performance details:
- Two mildly variant sources specify that the turn at the bottom of the set is a "break to the right and left", the couples turning symmetrically away from each other.
- Since the right and left is performed couple-facing-couple, quadrille-style, rather than facing partners, country dance style, I recommend the quadrille-style figure, which in this era is "pass right shoulders, give left hands".
- The ladies' chain would be an "open" one -- no courtesy turns!
- For the balance, I would suggest taking hands in a circle of four and stepping forward and back twice.
Aside from performance details, there are a few variations in the instructions in some of the non-Howe sources:
- The Ball Room Guide (Laconia, New Hampshire, 1858) and H. G.O. Washburn's The ball-room manual of contra dances and social cotillons (Belfast, Maine, and Boston, 1863) have the final balance and hands four be only the two lead couples. That's awkward, coming out of the ladies chain, and I would ignore it in favor of Howe's very clear instructions that the balance and circling happen on the sides. These are also the two sources which specify the "break to the right and left" for the turn at the bottom.
- Kopp's The American prompter and guide to etiquette (Cincinnati & New York, 1896) has the action on the sides in the order balance/hands four, ladies chain, right and left, and a stray four-bar balance at the end. The latter was probably a mistake, since it is musically unlikely. I don't care for coming from right and left into the line of four to begin the next repeat, so once again I would favor Howe's version.
- Gems of the Ball Room (Chicago, 1896) calls the first move a "chasse [sic] down the middle" and has the same order of figures as Kopp. The "chasse" could imply that the couples join hands facing their partners and gallop down the middle, but that makes for an awkward transition into the following ladies chain. Koncen, one of the sources that copies Howe, says to "march", but it would be possible to have the line of four travel using a galop or chassé step instead. This is also the source of the "forward all and promenade to seats" ending.
Since I would mostly ignore those variations in the instructions, this is pretty straightforward reconstruction until we get to the music, a jig with a repeat structure that indicates that it is played ABA, for a twenty-four bar dance. Here's a sample of the Howe layout (click to enlarge), taken from Gott (1918), which was published by Howe's publisher and used the Howe plates:
and another arrangement (click to enlarge) from Hofer's Polite and Social Dances (1917), in which the twenty-four bar structure is even clearer:
That is unhelpful.
The only way to use the name tune is simply to ignore the given repeat structure. Holden suggested a simple AABB repeat, which is more-or-less implied by how Howe wrote the figures under the music. But Howe was often inconsistent in his layouts, and I think it is clear that the tune is intended to end with the A part. The dance musicians Bill Matthiesen and Liz Stell of Spare Parts, who are experts on American dance music of this era, arrange it AABA as part of a jig medley in their Civil War Ballroom Band Book. I would use either that or ABBA, which is a little less repetitive.
It has been suggested that this tune is not actually very good, which might explain why I have not been able to find a recording of it, so one could also just use a different jig with a thirty-two bar repeat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have two further complications to offer:
First, there are some late sources which evade the music correlation problem by offering a twenty-four bar version of the dance.
- Schell's Prompting: How to do it (Boston, 1890) and French's The prompter's handbook (Boston, 1893) offer a sequence of down the middle and back (8b), balance and hands four (8b), and ladies' chain (8b). That works fine with the music, but once again, I don't care for the transition from the ladies chain to the line of four.
- Link's Unique dancing call book (Rochester, New York, 1893) offers a rather unlikely twenty-four bar version of down the center and back (6b), circle hands four round (2b), right and left (8b), and ladies chain (8b). I don't think those first eight bars are going to work.
- Finally, Hofer (1917) gives down the center and back (8b), then balance forward and back and circle once and a half around, the lead couples then passing under the arms of the other couple to form their line. Presumably the balancing still takes four bars and the circling and passing under another twelve. This is a workable dance, but it's a very late version and much easier in the clothing of 1917 than that of 1858. I'd save it for the occasional 1910s ball that includes contra dancing.
Second, while I think that these dance figures might well be a Howe creation, the tune goes back to at least the 1840s. Howe published it in some of his little instrumental instruction books: School for the Clarionet, School for the Flute, and School for the Violin, all published in Boston in 1843. As you can see from the music below (click to enlarge), taken from School for the Clarionet, it was published in a different key and with a different set of figures:
The figures given are:
Two top couples chassa down and back; balance, ladies chain to place.
Those would take some tweaking to make into a workable dance, so I include it here only for completeness' sake. The music appears in the same key, but with no figures, in Howe's Musician's Companion, First Part (Boston, n.d.)
I have not been able to trace "Tempest" (either tune or dance) any further back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The dance figures did continue to evolve in the twentieth century. While I haven't (yet?) gone to the trouble of tracing any post-1920 versions, Holden lists a number of sources from the 1920s-1950s for anyone who is curious.
David Smukler and David Millstone give a modern version of "Tempest" in their book Cracking Chestnuts, in which they also hint at the mistaken identification with "La Tempête". Yet another, slightly different, modern version may be seen on video here.
Comments