Along with the development of the buzz swing, another mystery I've wondered about in the evolution of modern contra dancing is just when the figure "right and left" acquired one of its twentieth-century forms, in which two couples (or two men facing two women) cross over, passing right shoulders rather than taking hands, followed by the person on the left walking backward, not in a "courtesy turn", but simply shoulder to shoulder with the person on the right as they turn halfway to change places. Ricky Holden gave the following description of right and left in The Contra Dance Book (Newark, New Jersey, 1956):
All move forward to opposite place, passing right shoulders with opposite person; keeping side by side as though inside hands were joined, pivot half around as a couple and reface the center of the set. The one on the left of each pair pivots backwards around while the one on the right moves forward.
It can be clearly seen in, e.g., this video of the modern contra version of Money Musk, starting at about :23.
This isn't the only way to do a right and left nowadays. I believe the standard modern version involves either passing right shoulders or taking right hands and then taking left hands with a courtesy turn (see, for example, the lists of figures here and here; search for "right and left"). The no-hands version with the shoulder-to-shoulder pivot seems to be regarded as "old-fashioned" or "chestnut style", which tells you something about how much contra has evolved since the 1950s!
I've been told with great assurance that the no-hands version is the "nineteenth-century style" of right and left. But I've seen no evidence that it predates the twentieth century, and it's certainly not the original way of doing right and left, either in country dances or squares (quadrilles). I don't believe it's nineteenth century at all. But when did it become popular?
As with the buzz swing, trying to trace the development of right and left is hampered by the fact that we just don't have American descriptions of contra dance figures for most of the nineteenth century or early twentieth century. But given how closely contra dance and quadrilles were becoming entwined as called dances in late-nineteenth-century America, it's worth a look at the descriptions we have of the quadrille version of the figure, taken from guides to dance callers. These are remarkably consistent with the descriptions of the figure from the mid-nineteenth century: pass right shoulders, sometimes touching right hands in passing, then take left hands and do a half-turn. A few examples:
John M. Schell's Prompting, How to Do It (Boston, 1890)
By two opposite couples; two couples cross over, gents touch right hands with opposite lady in passing; join left hand with partner; both turn half round in opposite couple's places; same is repeated to original place.
H. N. Grant's The American National Call Book (Buffalo, NY, 1893)
Advance toward couples vis-a-vis, drop partner's hands, ladies passing in the center, gents on the outside; when at opposite places, gent takes partners left hand, using his left, turning half around, returning to places in the same manner.
F. Leslie Clendenen's Fashionable Call Book and Guide to Etiquette (Davenport, Iowa, c1895)
First and second couples join nearest hands and cross over to opposite side of set, the ladies passing to the center; gentleman takes ladies' left hand in their left, turn partner half round to opposite couples' place, repeat back to place, eight measures.
Professor D. F. Jay, The A. B. C. Guide to Ball Room Dancing (Chicago, 1900)
Two opposite couples cross over, each gentleman touching right hands with opposite lady in passing, count 4, as he drops her hand he joins left hand with his partner, both turning half round to opposite couple's place, count 4. Repeat, coming back to places.
Albert Newman, A complete practical guide to modern society dancing (Philadelphia, 1903)
Cross Over (to opposite place) - Eight steps. Couples walk to opposite places, ladies passing between opposite lady and gentleman and the gentlemen outside. At opposite place join left hand with partner's left, take a half turn so as to change places with partner, resuming position having lady on the gentleman's right side. Then recross to original places with the same number of steps.
All of these are also consistent with how the figure is done in contra dancing today. So where is the no-hands/shoulder pivot version? As with the buzz swing, I spent years wondering about this before finally tripping over Elizabeth Burchenal's American Country-Dances, Volume I (New York & Boston, 1918), which includes a detailed description of this figure, complete with diagrams (click to enlarge):
The two couples advance toward each other, and "pass through," the one on the right in each couple going between the opposite two.
Then, keeping side by side as if their inside hands were joined, each couple continue to the opposite side, wheeling half around (to do this, the one on the left makes a left-about-face and walks backward, keeping the right shoulder toward the other's left shoulder), thus finishing on the opposite side with the right one still on the right, and the left one still on the left.
The description is a bit problematic. The person on the left cannot actually make a "left-about-face" in the sense of a complete half-turn on the spot. That would put the dancers left shoulder to left shoulder, when the description goes on to state that the left-hand dancer keeps "the right shoulder toward the other's left shoulder". But I think the rest of the description, including "keeping side by side as if their inside hands were joined" and "walks backward", plus the diagram, strongly suggest that this is the same as the "chestnut" right and left described by Holden.
Once again, one datapoint is not enough to build a useful timeline, so I can't draw conclusions from this beyond the fact this version of right and left is documentably, though perhaps not exclusively, appropriate for American contra dances from the 1910s through at least the middle of the twentieth century. And that makes it suitable for reconstructions of the contra dances found in Burchenal and on some 1910s dance cards.
Working out when this right and left came to be considered old-fashioned and displaced by the version with a courtesy turn is a project for a historian of twentieth-century contra dance, which I am not.
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