At least two dances called Polka Croisée appear in French manuals. One is a rather banal sequence dance that appears to have a German origin (as the Kreuz-Polka) and one is a completely separate dance by American expatriate George Washington Lopp, who spent time as a dancing master in Paris around the turn of the twentieth century. Lopp's major survey of couple dancing, La Danse (Paris, 1903) is largely a translation of M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), which is one of two major sources for the Cross Step Polka (as previously discussed here). But Lopp's Polka Croisée, while clearly inspired by the version that appeared in Gilbert's book, is distinctive enough to be considered a separate dance.
The major points of difference are that while the Cross Step Polka that appeared in Gilbert, as well as in the fifth edition of William B. DeGarmo's The Dance of Society (New York, 1892), is a four-bar sequence with the lady and gentleman actually doing completely different steps in the first and third measures, with a standard glide sequence and half-turn in the second and fourth, Lopp's version is a longer, eight-bar, sequence which has the dancers matching footwork and turning only on the fourth and eighth measures. It maintains its connection to the Glide Polka (a.k.a. Coquette), but the partners perform it in unison.
I'll give my reconstruction first, then discuss a few interesting elements. The steps below are the gentleman's; the lady dances on the opposite foot.
Lopp's Polka Croisée (eight measures of polka)
1 Slide left foot to second along line of dance
&2 Hop on left (&) then cross right over left, putting weight on right (2)
1 Hop on right, extending left to a raised second position (without weight)
&2 Cut left to right, extending right; cut right to left, extending left
1 Slide left to second along line of dance
&2 Close right and slide left to second (chassé)
&1 Close right and slide left to second (chassé)
&2 Cut right to left, extending left; cut left to right, raising right
(a quarter turn is made on the final &2, with another quarter turn as the repeat over elbows begins)
Repeat the above four measures "over elbows", starting on the right foot.
The mnemonic is: slide-hop-cross, hop-cut-cut, slide-close-slide-close-slide-cut-cut (and repeat), or, as counts: one-and-two, one-and-two, one-and-two-and-one-and-two (and repeat).
Performance Notes
1. It's not clear from Lopp's instructions whether the lady would also cross in front or whether she would cross behind instead. Either way works. If the gentleman's arms are not particularly long, having her cross behind will be easier.
2. As with most nineteenth-century couple dances -- and despite the 1903 date on the source, this is nineteenth-century-style dance -- it is theoretically possible to perform Lopp's Polka Croisée either turning in reverse or simply forward or backward without turning. But there is already so much going on in this polka that I'm not sure it's really necessary. A reverse turn is quite easy, though, or alternating half-turns in each direction. Dancing it without turning (gentle diagonals forward/backward along line of dance) makes the stylistic link to the racket very obvious.
3. The final 1&2 (the slide at the end of the chassé plus the "cut-cut") are Lopp's variant on a polka turn; see the reconstruction notes below.
Reconstruction Notes
1. Lopp actually describes only the first two measures of the dance under the Polka Croisée, referring the dancer to his Polka Coquette for the third and fourth.
2. The timing is fairly straightforward; Lopp states clearly that the second hop and extension of the free foot to second are done en même temps (at the same time).
3. His description of what I call "cuts" (coupé) in the second measure is to bring (ramener) the left foot back toward the right and then briskly (vivement) bring (rapporter) the right against the left while gently raising the left. Lopp neglects to mention that it's necessary to raise the right foot in order to bring it back to the left.
4. As I've previously discussed, Lopp's Polka Coquette instructions are a bit of a mess, but I believe the main difference between the more typical "slide-close-slide-close-slide-cut-leap" (galop-galop-polka turn) description and Lopp's "cut-cut" ending lies in exactly when the turn is made. Lopp seems to prefer, in both the Coquette and Croisée instructions, to make part of the turn on the "cut", which means the final "leap" becomes more of a "cut".
Music
There is no specific music for this polka; any nineteenth or early twentieth century polka may be used. Lopp gave the tempo as 116 beats per minute, which I find rather brisk for this variation. My preference as a dancer is to take it down to a more sedate 100-104 beats per minute.
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