Continuing to work my way through M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and G. W. Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903), here's one of the more unusual dances: the Ruchter! It was also known as "Babies on our Block" and "Little Sally Waters" for reasons I will discuss below, as well as, apparently, "La Marsaielle". The Ruchter as given in Gilbert and Lopp is a polka. There is also a double-length mixed-time signature version, the Rutcher [sic] Waltz, which appears in the fifth edition of William De Garmo's The Dance of Society (New York, 1892) and which may be the original form of the dance. De Garmo adds a footnote to his discussion of the Rutcher Waltz acknowledging the shorter just-plain-"Rutcher" with a slight variation in the second part.
(Edited 7/26/19 to add) I have described the Rutcher Waltz here. (end addition)
The Ruchter is unusual primarily because it's standard starting position is with the two dancers facing each other across the line of dance, both hands joined and extended somewhat outward. Gilbert's illustration of this position is above; Lopp's is at left (click either to enlarge). Note that the dancers need to be as far apart as is comfortable since, as depicting in Gilbert's illustration, they're about to be moving mirrored feet straight toward each other.
The dance itself is in two parts: the hand-in-hand bit shown above, which occupies eight measures, followed by eight measures of closed-position turning polka. The breakdown is below, with the gentlemen's steps given. The lady dances opposite.
Part I (facing, hands joined)
1b Extend left foot straight forward (1, 2)
1b Switch to extend right foot straight forward (1, 2)
1b Switch feet faster: left foot forward (1), right foot forward (2)
1b And even faster: left foot (1), right foot (&), left foot (2)
4b Repeat all of the above, starting with the right foot
(take closed ballroom hold)
Part II (closed hold)
8b Polka, four complete turns
(open up to facing position again)
The rhythm of the first part is actually kind of neat: one...two...one, two, one-and-two. The foot-switches may end up being gentle leaps from one foot to the other, but the feet need to be kept low, actually sliding along the floor if possible. If your forward foot (gentleman's right, lady's left) is off the floorat the end of Part I, you will need to set it down in order to free your other (first) foot to begin the turning section. There is nothing else particularly tricky about the dance; just be ready to switch positions quickly in between parts.
There are, however, several possible variations:
- For the first part, both Gilbert and Lopp state that it is sometimes danced in the position of the Military Schottische, which is to say side-by-side, the gentleman's right arm around the lady and her left hand resting on his shoulder. Lopp notes that in this position, the dance is called "La Marasielle". Gilbert gives it no special name.
- For the second part, Lopp gives only the polka, and a simple polka at that, meaning danced smoothly with no initial hop. Gilbert offers either the polka or the waltz-galop ("new waltz" step, galop time; described here). De Garmo, in his footnote, suggests the four-slide galop (described here).
If dancers feel the need to vary the sequence, two positions for the first part, three possible steps for the second part, and all the usual couple-dance changes of direction of travel (forward, backward, natural turn, reverse turn) should be enough to keep them entertained. Just be careful to keep the the overall sequence of alternating eight bars in place with eight bars of travel or the ballroom will start to resemble bumper cars.
If dancing the waltz-galop for the second half, it works more smoothly if the first part is performed with the gentleman's back to line of dance, or if the dancers rotate enough to put the gentleman's back to the line of dance before taking closed position, so that his first step can be a clean backward step along line of dance.
Music
There is supposedly-traditional "Rutcher" music given in De Garmo, which has both 2/4 and 3/4 segments, but the reason the dance acquired the names Babies on our Block and Little Sally Waters is that by the 1880s, it was often danced to the tune "Babies on our Block", which adopted some of the lyrics of an old dance game, "Little Sally Waters" and was also known by that name. It was written/adapted by Ned Harrigan and David Braham for the musical comedy The Mulligan Guard Ball (1879) and became quite popular. Here's a sample of the relevant bit of the lyrics:
There's the Phalens and the Whalens
From the sweet Dunochadee
They are sitting on the railings
With their children on their knee
All gossiping and talking
With their neighbors in a flock
Singing "Little Sally Waters"
With the babies on our block
There's considerably more information about Harrigan and Braham's work at Musicals 101 and a bit more on the more recent history of the tune at The Traditional Tune Archive. The latter site would have saved me a lot of digging around had I thought to look there first instead of last!
"Babies on our Block" actually works quite well for the Ruchter; it's easy to see why they were paired. You can hear a modern rendition in the video below:
Unfortunately, this particular recording is not particularly good for dancing the Ruchter, since, on top of its modern sound, the performers add single extra bars here and there. A somewhat better recording with a more historical "music hall" sound may be purchased from Amazon, here
There's also a very short (one minute) "canal" themed version with a nice string-band sound here, if you want to dance it very, very briefly, and a somewhat later (1916) rendition of the song may be heard for about twenty seconds, starting at about 1:25, here.
A version of the tune, under the name "Sallie Water" made it into a music manuscript discovered by musician and researcher Vivian Williams, who has done a great deal of work on the music history of the northwestern USA (see my earlier post based on her research on pioneer fiddlers). The Haynes family manuscript is described on Williams' website here, and Vivian and her husband Phil have also produced a CD of recordings from it which includes "Sallie Water", as well as a book of modernized sheet music. This recording has even eight-bar strains with no spare measures, and it's played with a great, zippy, dance feel; you can tell they are experienced dance musicians. But there's a variant strain which is accented in a way that fights against the rhythm of the steps of either part. It more-or-less works for the second half if you just power through it, keeping the same tempo, but it feels very, very weird. I'd have to get a look at the sheet music to see exactly what's going on with it, but that's the main reason I can't recommend this recording wholeheartedly for dancing.
Assuming you can deal with this problem, a second issue with this recording is that the pattern of the strains isn't perfectly matched to the dance. So if using it, I'd actually recommend dancing it in reverse order, the second part before the first, which by midway through the recording will fit the music better. It will end on the first part.
Finally, of course, should one be blessed with live musicians, the 1879 sheet music (with the complete lyrics!) may be found downloaded from the University of Maine. There are an extra four bars at the very end of the piece; warn the musicians not to play them except on the final repetition.
The recording of the Haynes manuscript version (which at least makes a great listening piece) may be purchased either on the physical CD at the Williams' website here (search for "Haynes" to find it on the page), where one can also purchase the accompanying book with the sheet music, or in mp3 format at the Amazon link below, where you can buy either the entire album or just the individual track:
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