I seem to be doing an impromptu schottische mini-series this week; here's another interesting little variation from M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and G. W. Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903). The Columbia, like the American Gavotte, was adopted by the American Society of Professors of Dancing at their New York meeting in the September of 1886, as mentioned in my post on that dance. Unlike the American Gavotte, it is perfectly clear that it belongs in the schottische category, and like the Schottische Gavotte, it shows distinct influence by the racket. It is attributed to dancing master E. C. Spink. Gilbert and Lopp's descriptions match each other nicely.
The dancers start in normal ballroom hold, the gentleman facing the wall and the lady facing the center, with the gentleman starting on the left foot and the lady on the right. Their steps move in parallel.
The Columbia (four measures of schottische 4/4 time)
1&234 Slide-close-slide, cut, leap (along line of dance without turning)
&1234 Close-slide, cut, cut, cut (turning halfway on the last two cuts)
&1&234 Close-slide-close-slide, cut, leap (along line of dance without turning)
&1234 Close-slide, cut, cut, cut (turning halfway on the last two cuts)
Repeat the third and fourth bars indefinitely.
Performance notes
The Columbia is a little bit nuts, even by end-of-the-century standards.
The first bar can be thought of as a galop step (slide-close-slide) followed by a cut and leap. It is important that that last movement be a leap along line of dance, not a cut against line of dance.
The second bar starts with a close on the upbeat to change the weight to the second foot, creating a little chassé to start the bar (&1) followed by three cuts back and forth. And those must be cuts - each goes from raised second to first, displacing the other foot. They should not degenerate into leaps. And while executing these three cuts, the dancers slowly rotate halfway so that the third and fourth measures are done "over elbows".
The third bar echoes the first, but starts with a close on the upbeat to shift weight to the second foot, creating the same little chassé effect at the start of the galop-cut-leap. This little close-slide completes the turn.
The fourth bar repeats the second on the opposite foot, completing the turn and preparing the dancers to restart from the beginning.
On each repeat of the dance, it must initiate with a close to switch the feet as in the third measure. Basically, just repeat the last two measures.
I sing this, more or less, as "(and) ga-lop-and-cut, leap, and-slide, cut, cut, cut".
The racket section ("cut-cut-cut") doesn't use any specific racket sequence the way the Schottische Gavotte incorporates the three-slide racket, but it has the characteristic cut-cut (plus one more cut!) with the dancers rotating minimally on each cut. The required skill set of being able to dance more-or-less in place while cutting back and forth is the same.
Music Note
I suspect there is specific music for this dance, but in its absence, any period schottische will work. Lopp gives a tempo of 76 beats per minute.
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