There are at least five different dances in the second half of the nineteenth century whose name is some variation on the generic "polka country dance". The one I'm looking at here was published as both "Polka Contre Danse" and just "Polka Contre". Unusually, it is attributed to a particular dancing master, Mr. Layland, who was active in London in the mid-19th century. I've mentioned him before in the context of his mescolanzes. That makes it very much an English dance, despite its appearance in a couple of American dance manuals.
My first English source for the Polka Contre Danse, The Victoria Danse du Monde and Quadrille Preceptor, dates to the early 1870s, but I suspect that it actually dates back to the 1850s. It actually appears earlier in two of the manuals of Boston musician/dance caller/publisher Elias Howe, the earlier of which is from 1862. Howe was a collector and tended to throw dances from every book he collected into his own works, so I suspect there is an earlier English source somewhere, possibly by Layland himself. Maybe someday I'll find it.
Until then, on with Polka Contre Danse!
I'm going to start by I'm explaining why I'm quite skeptical of the modern version published in Ricky Holden's The Contra Dance Book (1956), which makes it a duple minor improper dance. Holden describes it as follows, with line breaks added by me for clarity:
(1-8) Everyone move to center and all balance partner twice.
(9-16) Each pair of couples polka to the right (counterclockwise) around each other so they have changed places.
(17-24) All balance partner twice and
(25-32) polka as in 9-16 so everyone is back in place.
(33-48) Each pair of couples ladies' chain; this accomplishes the progression.
(49-64) Same two couples polka to the right (counterclockwise) around each other and back to place as they were after the progression.
His counts are beats, not measures, so this version of the dance adds up to the typical thirty-two bars. He adds that:
The original version ended by having (49-64) only the head two couples polka around each other, then (65-80) same two couples polka down the center and take places at the foot of the set.
That would make the original a forty-bar dance, which it is not. But that is not the worst problem here. I have no idea whom to blame for this reconstruction, but at best it's a significant adaptation, and at worst, a complete misunderstanding of the dance.
Let's look at the two versions of the instructions that I have.
Howe books:
Polke Contre Danse, by Mr. Layland
Stand in couples face to face down the room, and hold your partners as in the Polka — all balance twice and cross, four bars — repeat to places, four bars — ladies chain, eight bars — two couples at top Polka round each other, eight bars — same two couples back step down the middle to bottom, eight bars — then repeat until all have gone down the middle. This is a very merry and sociable Polka dance
La Victoria Danse du Monde:
Polka Contre by Mr. Layland
Stand in couples vis a vis down the room, and hold your partners as in the Polka — all set twice and cross, four bars — repeat to places, four bars — ladies chain, eight bars — two couples at top Polka round each other, eight bars — same two couples back step down the middle and stop, eight bars; then repeat until all have gone down the middle. This is a very merry and sociable Polka dance.
First, it's obvious what the basic figures and timing of the dance are:
4b Set and cross
4b Set and cross back
8b Ladies chain
8b Polka around each other
8b Back step to the bottom
Both sources are clear that it is a thirty-two bar dance. The modern version stretches the four-bar set-and-cross figures into eight-bar ones. It also eliminates the original progression of two couples to the bottom and inserts a progression into the ladies chain.
The basic mistake (or deliberate change) in this reconstruction was in turning Polka Contre into a duple minor improper contra dance. It's not. Nor is it a couple-facing-couple dance like the Spanish Dance. Polka Contre is a whole-set dance akin to a galopade, with a typical galopade-style progression of two couples going to the bottom of the set after each iteration.
There's just one little twist that tripped up the reconstructor: rather than having the gentlemen on one side and the ladies on another, as in many galopades, partners stand side by side up and down the lines of the set, facing a couple directly across from them, as in The Tempest or a modern Becket set. Look back at the language of the setup: "Stand in couples face to face [vis a vis] down the room." "Couples face to face" is not the same thing as "partners face to face". Nor is it the "form as for the Spanish dance" style.
What the reconstructor of the modern version may not have realized is that there is an earlier source that explicitly uses the "Tempest" setup for both a galopade and a polka contra dance. Polka Contre isn't the same dance, but it's quite similar to that older polka contra. By turning Polka Contre into a duple-minor improper dance, the reconstructor rotated all the figures ninety degrees, altered the familiar galopade pattern, and made the original progression unworkable.
Here's how the set should look:
M1a W1b
W1a M1b
M2a W2b
W2a M2b
And so on to the bottom.
Set up like this, Polka Contre makes much more sense. The opening eight bars are classic galopade material, a variation on the "forward, back, cross over; forward, back, cross back" pattern that opens other known galopades. It's just done in couples instead of as individual dancers.
Here's how I would reconstruct the dance in the Tempest setup:
2b All couples, in closed hold, balance one polka step toward the center and one out again
2b All couples, four-slide galop across set, gentlemen passing back to back
4b Repeat back to places, balancing "over elbows" first and doing galop "over elbows"
8b All couples ladies chain across the set
8b Top two couples, turning polka around each other
8b Top two couples, pursuit/back polka down the set to the bottom
Reconstruction and performance notes
In general, the step for this dance is a gentle (hop) slide-close-slide polka rather than the more vigorous and technical (hop) slide-cut-leap.
One could argue that the dancers should polka across the set and back in the first eight bars, but two bars of polka is not much to cross the set, and if the room is crowded, having the entire set trying to cross with turning polka at the same time would be a real problem. A four-slide galop straight across, without turning, fits better.
An alternate interpretation for the balance would be to use a heel-and-toe step, either twice on the lead foot or once on the lead foot and once on the second foot, switching back to the lead foot for the galop.
For the ladies chain, which goes across the set, not up and down it, I would keep using a gentle polka step, though one could also argue for just walking through it.
The polka-around is an easy once around. At the end of it, the dancers need to end with the partner nearer the bottom of the set (when they are standing side by side in their lines) with their back to the bottom of the set and their partner facing them, still in closed hold. In one of the couples, the gentleman will be backing; in the other, the lady. Basically, just don't open up at the sides. Get to the original places, but stay in ballroom hold.
Both progressing couples polka then down the set, side by side, without turning, one person in each moving backward and the other forward (this is also called "pursuit"). On the last polka step down, the couples move toward the outside, but maintain ballroom hold, since the next move as the dance restarts is to polka-balance.
The question of the back step was an interesting one. Early polka sources give two possibilities: the "pursuit", which was referred to as the back step, or the reverse turn, which was sometimes called the back waltz. Since the instructions clearly say "back step", not "back waltz", I've gone with the former. It fits inside the set better; two couples reverse-polkaing side by side would require substantial elbow room. And it flows quite nicely into the polka-balance at the beginning of the next iteration of the dance.
Music
It's possible there was specific music for one or more of the generic polka contras; I have an ad from 1854 offering music called "Polka Contra Dance". But there's no way of knowing which of the five similarly-named dances that was for, or whether it was just generic polka music for any contra dance. Any polka with a thirty-two bar repeat pattern will work for Polka Contre.
If a specific recommendation is needed, dance trio Spare Parts' CD Returning Heroes has a "Polka Contra Medley" of three 1860s polkas. It is played eight times through, which will suffice for either a set of sixteen couples with each pair of couples progressing once or a set of eight couples going through the dance twice, or any other number if you don't care whether everyone gets an equal number of progressions.
Sources for Polka Contre Danse, in chronological order
Elias Howe. American Dancing Master and Ball-Room prompter. Boston, 1862.
Elias Howe. American Dancing Master and Ball-Room prompter. Boston, 1866.
Anonymous. The Victoria Danse du Monde and Quadrille Preceptor. London, c1872.
Enjoy!
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