Flower Girl's Dance is an American Civil War-era contra dance that I remember dancing way back in the early 1990s when I first started doing mid-nineteenth-century dance. But the version we did does not actually match that found in any source I've ever seen. And it's easy to see why: the versions given in the sources don't actually work very well. And now that I've reconstructed the California Reel, I have a little theory about why that is.
The earliest sources I have for Flower Girl's Dance are Elias Howe's two 1858 books, the Pocket Ball-Room Prompter and the Complete Ball-Room Handbook. I strongly suspect that all the later sources were copying to some degree from Howe. So let's look at Howe's instructions:
FLOWER GIRL'S DANCE.
(Music: Girl I left behind me.)
Form as for Spanish Dance. All chassa to the right, half balance--chassa back, swing four half round--swing four half round and back--half promenade, half right and left--forward and back all, forward and pass to next couple (as in the Haymakers).
There are some minor differences of spelling and punctuation, but the wording is essentially the same across almost forty years of Howe publications. Taken at face value with the hash marks setting off eight-bar musical strains, this yields a 40-bar dance:
8b All chassé to the right, half balance
8b Chassé back, swing four half round
8b Swing four half round and back
8b Half promenade, half right and left
8b Forward and back, forward and pass through
40 bars is an unusual length, but not unheard of. But there are worse problems here:
- The first chassé to the right lasts for four bars. That's an eight-slide galop. Even in lines that will take the couples halfway across the room. In a circle formation, unless you are dancing in an enormous room, it will be a train wreck. And a four-bar balance is not usually described as "half".
- After the second chassé (back to places), the dancers circle halfway round. Then they circle halfway round again...and back. That leaves them in opposite places, and there are no other moments in the dance to get them back home. That means the progression will not work; each iteration of the dance will turn the dancers in the opposite direction, and they'll end up dancing with the same two couples over and over.
- The swing four half round followed immediately by swing four half round and back is repetitive in a way which is unusual in contra dances.
Is that really how it's meant to work? How to dance is no help; it gives the same figures as Howe. Koncen makes matters worse, by describing the first chassé as "to the right and left", which fills the time better, but the second only as "back", while retaining the swing half/swing half and back problem.
Two later sources, Schell and Gems of the Ball Room, give the measures needed for each figure, and both confirm that they are four-har (eight-slide) chassés. They do fix the problem of repetition and the messed-up progression by one of the "swings" by making the circling figure take the dancers back to place and eliminating the second eight bars of circling, leaving a 32-bar dance:
8b All chassé to the right, balance
8b Chassé back, circle four half round and back (Schell) or all the way round (Gems)
8b Half promenade, half right and left
8b Forward and back, forward and pass through
That's better, but both also specify that the dance is done in circle formation, and those four-bar chassés really are a problem in that format. But are they really meant to be four bars?
Look at Howe's language for the California Reel, with my highlighting added:
All chassé to the right, half balance, de chassé, and swing four half round — all chassé to the right, half balance, de chassé, and swing four to places — ladies chain — balance, swing partners — swing four half round and back — half promenade, half right and left — forward and back all, forward and cross to face the next couple.
Doesn't it look familiar? Take out the highlighted words, and you have the exact sequence of the Flower Girl's Dance. And I think that's exactly what happened. When Howe was putting his first books together, he wanted a shorter version of California Reel, but he made some sort of error in editing the figures and ended up with a dance that doesn't work. All the other sources just copied blindly from Howe, without thinking about whether the sequence was actually any good.
But how much does recognizing the connection between the two sets of figures help in solving the problems? Not enough, unfortunately. Fitting the chassé-balance-chassé-swing sequence into eight bars, as in California Reel, solves the problem of the long chassés but leaves the repetition and progression problems:
8b Couples chassé to their own right, balance, chassé back, and circle halfway
8b Circle halfway around and back
8b Half-promenade, half right and left
8b Forward and back, forward and pass through
So what's the solution? There is no single definitive one. If one wants to make a functional dance, there is no option other than altering the figures somehow. It's impossible to tell what Howe really intended, but since the "circle halfway" after the chassé back is the most obvious problem, the simplest solution would be to change it to another balance. That was the solution adopted by whoever reconstructed the version I learned in the 1990s. It's nice and symmetrical, and it immediately solves all the problems with the dance while maintaining most of the sequence:
Solution #1: replace the circle halfway with another balance.
8b Couples chassé to their own right, balance, chassé back, balance
8b Circle halfway around and back
8b Half-promenade, half right and left
8b Forward and back, forward and pass through
Another possibility would be to add back the repetition of the chassé sequence for a 40b dance:
Solution #2: forty-bar dance.
8b Couples chassé to their own right, balance, chassé back, and circle halfway
8b Couples chassé to their own right, balance, chassé back, and circle halfway
8b Circle halfway around and back
8b Half-promenade, half right and left
8b Forward and back, forward and pass through
That brings back the repetition problem, however, and 40-bar musical arrangements are somewhat harder to come by.
A final option: keep both chassé sequences and eliminate the eight bars of circling, which gives us a 32-bar dance with no irritating circle/circle/circle sequences.
Solution #3: eliminate the separate eight bars of circling.
8b Couples chassé to their own right, balance, chassé back, and circle halfway
8b Couples chassé to their own right, balance, chassé back, and circle halfway
8b Half-promenade, half right and left
8b Forward and back, forward and pass through
This basically creates a miniature version of California Reel, only 2/3 the length. I think that might be the concept Howe had in mind, but even if that's a correct assumption, there's no way to know exactly which figures he wanted to keep, or whether he really thought about it at all.
In the end, this comes down to personal preference, and mine is for either the first or the third solution. But since I can't make any definitive statement, I'll just leave all the options above for others to choose from.
A final note:
There is a modern(ish) version of the dance given in Rickey Holden's The Contra Dance Book (1956) in which the chassé sequences are turned into chassé-croisé movements, with partners crossing each other. The rest of the sequence is the same as the 40-bar version given above. I don't believe the chassé-croisé interpretation; while Koncen's does give a "chassé right and left" instruction, I think it is a mistake. All the other sources are consistent that all the dancers chassé to the right.
Music
Howe and Schell both specify "The Girl I Left Behind Me", a popular tune which is easy to find sheet music or a recording for. But any contra dance tune of the appropriate length will work.
Sources for Flower Girl's Dance
Elias Howe. Complete ball-room handbook. (Boston, 1858)
Elias Howe. The pocket ball-room prompter. (Boston, 1858)
Elias Howe. American dancing master, and ball-room prompter. (Boston, 1862)
How to dance. A complete ball-room and party guide. (New York, 1878)
Elias Howe. New American Dancing Master. (Boston, 1882)
Professor M. J. Koncen's quadrille call book and ball room guide. (St. Louis, 1883)
John M. Schell. Prompting, How To Do It. (New York/Boston/Chicago, 1890)
Elias Howe. New American Dancing Master. (Boston, 1892)
Gems of the Ball Room Call Book. (Chicago, 1896)
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