Compared to other dances found in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and George Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903), the Bronco is a bit of a puzzle. The tune "Le Bronco" was a schottische with an interestingly irregular accent which the dance matched precisely. Both music and dance were composed by J. F. Davis, as may be seen on the cover at left, from the 1888 sheet music, which has been made available online by Richard Powers, here (PDF). According to Powers' bibliography, there was also an earlier edition published in 1885.
These publications obviously predate Gilbert (1890) and Lopp (1903). But Gilbert and Lopp, who were usually quite good about crediting the creators of dances, did not attribute the Bronco to Davis. They also gave a shorter sequence, only the first part of Davis's two-part dance, and listed it as for 6/8 (jig) or 2/4 (galop) music rather than schottische. Why? We don't know.
The simplest explanation is that the shorter jig-time version was transmitted more widely and Gilbert either was unaware of the Davis version or, for some reason -- personal conflict, political difficulties between dance organizations, whatever -- just didn't want to give Davis the credit. Lopp rarely offered a credit that Gilbert did not. Or Gilbert might have created the shorter version himself, though in that case Lopp might likely have credited him.
Another possibility is that there was an existing dance called the Bronco and that Davis incorporated it into a longer sequence and composed music to match. I consider this less likely.
For now, the exact process by which we ended up with two variant Bronco sequences will have to remain a mystery.
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John Freeman Davis (1835-1916) was a music publisher, composer, and teacher of dance and music in Toronto for more than five decades and active not only in the National Association of Teachers of Dancing of the United States and Canada but also in the American National Dancing Association and, as with other Canadian dance teachers, the Western Association Normal School Masters of Dancing. An excellent short biography may be found at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography website. Along with musical compositions and dances, he also authored The Modern Dance Tutor (Toronto, 1878) which, alas, does not contain the Bronco. At left (click to enlarge) is an advertisement for Davis's services published in the Dominion Medical Monthly (Toronto) in 1895, as archived online here. This particular ad is from May, but identical ones appeared at least three other times that year as well. That isn't as weird as it sounds; judging from the issues online, advertisements for all sorts of products and services unrelated to medicine appeared in the Medical Monthly.
Further thickening the plot regarding the Bronco credit, in Toronto, Old and New (1891), from which the photo at right (click to enlarge) is taken, Davis was not only credited with the Bronco, but also with the "Jersey Ripple". I believe "Jersey Ripple" refers to the Ripple Galop and the Jersey, or possibly just the Jersey, which was also know as the "Ripple Combination". Both the Ripple and the Jersey also appeared in Gilbert and in Lopp; I reconstructed and discussed them here. As with the Bronco, they were also listed uncredited. Since both are quite basic, that didn't strike me as unusual when I worked on them, but it seems possible that Gilbert failed to credit Davis not once but either two or three times.
Assuming that Davis was, in fact, the creator of at least two of the three dances, he seems to have been working through variations on a theme:
Ripple: Newport danced in 2/4
Jersey: Newport plus waltz danced in 2/4
Bronco: Newport plus waltz danced in 4/4 and phase-shifted
There are interesting musical aspects to the Bronco music, but before I get into them, let me first give my reconstruction of Davis's version of the dance, as published on the sheet music. The instructions below are given with the gentleman's feet; the lady dances opposite. The music is 4/4 time, but I've counted it in eight below for convenience, given how the steps cross measures.
The Bronco (four bars of schottische music; one bar = 4 beats) (Davis)
1 Leap backward (along line of dance) with left foot
2 Leap backward (along line of dance) with right foot
3 Leap backward (along line of dance) with left foot
&4 Slide right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
&5 Slide right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right (half-turn)
6 Leap forward (along line of dance) with right foot
&7 Slide left foot to the side (along line of dance), close right to left
&8 Slide left foot to the side (along line of dance), close right to left (half-turn)
1&2 Waltz, half-turn
3&4 Waltz, half-turn
5&6 Waltz, half-turn
7&8 Waltz, half-turn
This can be broken down into:
1, 2 Two leaps backward
3&4&5 Newport, half-turn
6&7&8 Newport, half-turn
(1&2 x4) Two complete turns of waltz
Davis did not go into detail on the steps; his description for the "3&4&5, 6&7&8" in the first part was just "a la Ripple". I am making the assumption that this means "Newport in 2/4 time", which is how the Ripple is described in Gilbert, with the individual movements as broken down above (see my post on it here). I'm going to keep using Newport as a shorthand, Gilbert-style, because a Ripple is usually counted with four strong beats (1&2&3&4), but in the Bronco, it's only three (3&4&5), so it's literally a Newport step, albeit in duple time. A longer explanation of the Newport may be found here.
Davis also did not describe the steps of his "rotary motion a la Waltz" in the second part on the sheet music. Given that it is an 1880s dance, I wouldn't object to using a waltz-galop step (leap-slide-cut) as described here, but another reasonable option would be the Glide Waltz as described by Davis in his 1878 book. Given that the Bronco was published as much as seven years later, Davis's waltz preference might have changed, but I've no other description from him to reference.
Davis's Glide Waltz step was "slide-slide-pivot": a step backward to fourth, a step to the side keeping the weight on the first foot, and a pivot on both feet, then a step forward to fourth, a step to the side keeping the weight on the first foot, and a pivot on both feet again. It's reminiscent of French waltz descriptions of the second half of the nineteenth century. I personally find it more difficult than the waltz-galop.
A third option would be the valse à deux temps, slide-close-slide, which has some pedigree in the early schottische and might make particular sense here because of the dotted notes of "Le Bronco" discussed below, which is similar to the rhythm of valse à deux temps in its incarnation as the 6/8-time two-step. There's some discussion of the accenting of the two-step here.
But before going on to the music, let's look at the major oddity of the dance: the way the Newport sections cross the measures.
Doing a literal Newport turn, three beats instead of four, in 4/4 time, means that the turn ends on the first beat of the second bar. This dances better than it looks in writing; "5" is a strong beat, and each half of the Newport ends with a close of feet. It actually doesn't work badly to regular schottische music. But it was designed to be danced to "Le Bronco", which has precisely the same odd rhythm as the steps. I'm not aware of any recording of "Le Bronco", but here's a basic version of the first strain (repeated) at the recommended tempo of 120 beats (30 measures) per minute to listen to for comparison:
Le_Bronco (first strain repeated)
There's a little trill for an upbeat, then listen and count:
1 2 3&4&5 6&7&8 1&2 3&4 5&6 7&8
The music-dance association is very, very obvious. What's less obvious, if you're not musically knowledgeable or sensitive to nuances of rhythm, are the dotted notes mentioned above. The first two numerical beats of each Newport (3, 4, 6, 7) and the first beat of each waltz step (1, 3, 5, 7) are dotted, which means they are stretched just a tiny bit and the following "&" is shorter. The waltz is not counted as an even "one-and-two", it's "oooooone-a-two"; the Newports are "threeeee-a-fooooour-a-five", etc. Those who read music can refer to the sheet music here. Dotted notes are not unusual in a schottische, and dancers with any musical sensitivity will match their steps to the dotted rhythm without even having to think about it.
And so we come to Gilbert's version (copied by Lopp), which simplified the reconstruction issues by eliminating the waltz segment entirely. Gilbert detailed the individual movements, which he parenthetically described (ha!) as "à la Newport".
The Bronco (four bars of jig music; one bar = 2 beats) (Gilbert/Lopp)
1 Leap backward (along line of dance) with left foot
2 Leap backward (along line of dance) with right foot
3 Leap backward (along line of dance) with left foot
&4 Slide right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right
&5 Slide right foot to the side (along line of dance), close left to right (half-turn)
6 Leap forward (along line of dance) with right foot
&7 Slide left foot to the side (along line of dance), close right to left
&8 Slide left foot to the side (along line of dance), close right to left (half-turn)
The tempo Gilbert and Lopp gave was the same as that given by Davis, 120 beats per minute, but neither of them listed the Bronco as a schottische. Gilbert classified it as "Miscellaneous". Lopp put it in "Les Two Step et Les Three Step", which makes sense, since both Gilbert and Lopp call for 6/8 music, jig-time, the rhythm of a two-step - another reason using the deux temps in Davis's Bronco in particular makes a certain degree of sense.
Shifting from 4/4 to 6/8 is not as much of a change as it might sound given the all those dotted notes in "Le Bronco". Jig time, 6/8, is compound duple, which means that although every bar has two strong beats, it is technically counted "1-and-a-2-and-a". That's a fairly effective way of mimicking a dotted rhythm; instead of a stretched first beat, you have "1-and" for the leap with the slide on "a". It's a different time signature, but the effect is similar. Here's a comparison:
leap slide close slide close
"Le Bronco" threeeeee a foooour a five
jig time three and a four and a five
The jig accenting of the steps again ought to be something good dancers do instinctively.
Note, by the way, that the Gilbert/Lopp steps go very poorly to the actual Bronco music. The steps just don't align well to the music of Davis's second part. It's possible, but it feels painful.
What about galop time?
Both Gilbert and Lopp gave the option of dancing their version of the Bronco in 2/4, though it seems something of an afterthought in Gilbert. I personally find the very ordinary "one-and-two" even rhythm of a galop to be somewhat dull compared to jig time; it loses that slight lengthening of the first step which makes a jig so engaging. But it's quite danceable to galop music.
Can it be reversed?
Davis and Gilbert both mention reversing. Davis notes that one may "Reverse “ad lib” in rotary form," though it's not clear whether this applies only to the waltz section or to the Newport section as well. Gilbert, having only the Newport section, suggests that the second time through, one might do a half-turn to the right and then a half-turn to the left.
Personally, I would not be too uncomfortable with any practical combination of the normal period forward/backward/natural/reverse variations applied to any set of movements in the dance, though there's enough going on in Davis's version that the gentleman probably ought not get too carried away!
A final note about the name
Davis used "Le Bronco" on the cover and on the dance instructions, but "The Bronco" at the head of the actual music. Gilbert went with "The Bronco". Lopp called it "La Bronco". Since I refuse to debate the gender of a dance variation, I've gone with the English version.
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