This alternate reel of five comes from Lowe's Ball-Conductor and Assembly Guide, third edition (Edinburgh, c1830), where it is the only reel of five given. The formation is the same as that of the "common" reel for five described by Thomas Wilson during the Regency era and by me in my previous post. Lowe's original description reads:
Reel of Five.
(Places -- one Lady at the top of the room, one at the bottom, one at each side, and the Gentleman in the middle.) The Gentleman, with two of the Ladies, makes a reel of three, while the other two Ladies circle round them; all set, during which the Gentleman turns to each Lady alternately; he then forms the reel of three with the other two Ladies.
Although the source for this reel is about a decade post-Regency, the reel itself is in keeping with Regency style and would not be obtrusively out of place in a Regency ballroom. And, unlike London-based Thomas Wilson's provenance-free "common reel of five", this one appeared in a Scottish dance manual and thus can be more confidently documented as actually Scottish for those concerned about authenticity of place as well as time.
Wilson's diagram for the common reel of five is so useful that I'm reproducing it at left and will use the same letters to describe the dancers in this reel. Like Wilson's New Reel of Five and unlike his so-called common Reel of Five, this is a reel for four ladies and one gentleman. As with those other reels, the genders of the dancers don't make any difference in the actual dancing.
Lowe's original description offers no progression, just a brief twenty-four bar sequence of hey, set, and hey again. The most obvious interpretation of this would be that it is just as simple as classic reels of three and reels of four: alternate heying and setting indefinitely, the center dancer just shifting his or her starting direction each time.
Reconstruction #1: simple and straightforward
8b B does a hey for three with dancers A and C, passing right shoulders to start
while dancers F and D circle clockwise completely around them to their original places
8b B sets to the four outside dancers, two bars to each, beginning with A and moving clockwise around the set, ending facing D.
8b B does a hey for three with dancers D and F, passing right shoulders to start
while dancers A and C circle clockwise completely around them to their original places
8b B sets to the four outside dancers, two bars to each, beginning with D and moving clockwise around the set, ending facing C.
8b B does a hey for three with dancers C and A, passing right shoulders to start
while dancers F and D circle clockwise completely around them to their original places
8b B sets to the four outside dancers, two bars to each, beginning with C and moving clockwise around the set, ending facing F.
8b B does a hey for three with dancers F and D, passing right shoulders to start
while dancers A and C circle clockwise completely around them to their original places
8b B sets to the four outside dancers, two bars to each, beginning with D and moving clockwise around the set, ending facing A.
This is a nice, simple, sixty-four bar dance which can be repeated indefinitely if the dancers and musicians choose and have either live musicians or music with any even number of repeats of thirty-two bars. It could also be done with left-shoulder heys, but if the dancers are using a simple setting step like the pas de basque, they are positioned better for a right-shoulder hey. If they use a step like the Single Kemkóssy, however, they will be better positioned for a left-shoulder start. (See the discussion of possible steps in my previous post for some of the other options, though I feel that in a more complicated reel, simpler steps are best.) It helps if the dancers know which shoulder to pass by before beginning, but experienced dancers with quick reflexes can adapt to whichever way the center person goes, though it probably won't look as smooth!
So...that was the simple reconstruction. But there is also the evidence from the early nineteenth century that progressing a reel so that different dancers took the center was a common practice. It's documented in the Scottish manuscript Contre Danses à Paris 1818 as a way to vary the normal reel for three: "each individual takes a turn of the middle in rotation". And in the two other reels for five described by Thomas Wilson, the "common" reel for five and his own new choreography, the dancers progress so that each takes the center in turn.
So what happens if we apply the progressive principle to this reel for five? In the absence of other guidance, I've followed the pattern of Wilson's "common" reel for five:
Reconstruction #2: progressive
8b B does a hey for three with dancers A and C, passing right shoulders to start
while dancers F and D circle clockwise completely around them to their original places
(This is an introductory figure, not repeated.)
8b B sets to the four outside dancers, two bars to each, beginning with A and moving clockwise around the set, ending facing D.
8b B does a hey for three with dancers D and F, passing right shoulders to start, and doing one extra change to leave dancer D in the center, D turning around to face his/her original place
while dancers A and C circle clockwise completely around them to their original places
After several repeats of those last sixteen bars, switching the lead dancer, starting direction, and axis each time (see below), end with:
8b Center dancer sets to the four outside dancers, two bars to each, beginning with the dancer they are facing and moving clockwise around the set.
The repeat of the middle sixteen bars always involves setting first with the person the new center dancer just changed places with and doing the hey on the other axis of the dance. After a total of five times through those middle sixteen bars, dancer B will be back in the center and all the dancers will be one place counter-clockwise from where they started. End with the eight bars of setting to even out the music. As with the common reel of five, everyone will not have occupied every position in the set, but this is a reasonable stopping point and requires only 96 bars of music (16b x 6).
The same issues with length of dance apply as in the common reel of five: five more repeats (176b total = 32b x 6) and the dancers will end in opposite places from where they started (another reasonable stopping point). Add five more times (256b total) for three-quarters round, and five more times (336b total) for everyone to get back to their original places.
This is obviously a more speculative reconstruction, but still within the general range of period practice, at least in London.
Music
As with Scotch reels in general, there is no specific music; any period reel will do. If dancing the progressive version, all the problems of length in the common reel of five apply to this one as well; see my previous post for details.
Modern RSCDS Version
Interestingly, this reel of five has been picked up by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society and was published in their series, The Scottish Country Dance Book, Book 27 (1975), apparently with no source given -- I don't own this book myself, but the listing of its contents under the "Dances" tab here lists it with author "unknown". It's possible they used some other source for this reel. Their description is here, and a video of it being danced is here.
Assuming they are working from the same original source, the RSCDS version adds a second bout of setting, reasonably enough, to make it thirty-two bars of dance, and then repeats the whole thing twice through, first in slow (strathspey) time and then in quick (reel) time, with the center dancer heying on exactly the same axes in the same order each time. Choreographically, that's even simpler than my simple version!
The musical pairing is in keeping with some later nineteenth century sources, but I don't have any specific evidence for it as early as c1830. That doesn't rule it out; they certainly had medley dances and the strathspey/reel distinction by then, although whether the tempo difference was the same as it is today is open to debate. But there's no actual evidence for using two pieces of music in the Lowes' description, either.
Another minor difference: for no reason that I can see, the RSCDS version has the two circling dancers go halfway and then turn around and come back. I feel that if the Lowes had meant to circle halfway, they'd have said that.
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