Continuing my short series on Lawn Tennis (see here for the introduction and first figure), here are figure two and the very exciting figure three!
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Figure Two: The Varied Chains
Music: A=8b, B=16b, played A+ (BA x4)
8b Introduction (not repeated)
8b Head couples turn to right diagonal, sides to left; right and left (chaîne anglaise)
4b With same couples, half ladies' chain
(Pairs are now: 1st lady/3rd gent, 2nd lady/4th gent, 3rd lady/1st gent, 4th lady/2nd gent)
4b All turn new partners
8b All balance to corners and turn corners
8b Head couples turn to left diagonal, sides to right; right and left (chaîne anglaise)
4b With same couples, half ladies' chain
(Ladies are now opposite their original places)
4b All turn new partners
8b All forward and back at corners and turn corners
Repeat all of the above to bring ladies back to original places.
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I'm not an expert on tennis, but I think "The Varied Chains" refers to the figures rather than to anything about the game.
In the first figure, the ladies moved two places around the set and then went back to original places. Here, they make the same trip, but go all the way around the set. It's completely straightforward to reconstruct and dance.
As with the first figure, the original language included "All balance at corners", which I have converted to "forward and back" as standard practice for the time.
Technically, this figure is only performed twice, though the music is played four times through. The choreography cheated a little by incorporating a repeat into the original description.
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Figure Three: The Rounds
Music: A=8b, B=8b, C=8b, D=8b, E=8b, F=8b, played A+ (BCDEFA x4)
8b Introduction (not repeated)
8b Head couples grand chain
4b All forward and back
4b All forward, leave ladies back to back in center, and salute
8b All half grand chain
4b Four ladies forward and back
4b Four ladies take right hands and half double ladies' chain
(Ladies are now in their original positions; gentlemen are in opposite positions)
8b Head couples turn to right, side couples to left, hands four round and form lines along heads of the set, head gentlemen at left ends of their lines
4b Two gentlemen in each line, hands round the lady between them once and a half to chance places; all face partners across the set
4b Turn partners with right hands to places
Repeat all of the above as written once more.
Repeat all of the above twice more with side couples leading.
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Once again, I think "The Rounds" is more about these figures than tennis.
This figure is the most interesting reconstruction of the entire set and has one ambiguous point for which I am coming down on the side of "more interesting option".
First, the grand chains. At the beginning, this figure is done by the head couples. This should be distinct from a regular right and left (chaîne anglaise) in that it is a continuous movement rather than two distinct halves.
A little later, a grand chain is done halfway around by all eight dancers, but starting with the ladies in the center back to back and the gentlemen backed away and facing them; I interpret that setup as four steps forward to put the ladies in the center, then the gentlemen back out two steps, and all do a brief bow or curtsy in two beats. This leaves the gentlemen relatively close to the ladies.
One could just dance the figure from there, the ladies coming out of the center on the first right hand change of the chain and thereafter proceeding around the set in the usual way and ending next to their partners. That would be a nice, conservative solution, but it does make one wonder what the point of having the ladies in the center was in the first place. My preferred reconstruction gives one possible answer.
An important aesthetic point in dancing a grand chain that takes eight bars (sixteen walking steps) to go halfway round is that the movement of the dancers should not be linear, passing each other with as little deviation from the circular track as possible. That would have them moving too fast. Instead, they should make a weaving pattern, moving in and out on curved tracks as they take hands, which fills the four steps for each taking of hands and keeps them with the music.
With the dancers weaving in and out like that, having started fairly close together and closer to the center than usual, it's quite possible to have them keep their tracks small throughout the chain, so that when they move inward they are actually in the center of the set. End the figure with the ladies back to back in the center again and the gentlemen, having lengthened their steps a bit, once again facing them on the outside.
From the center, the then ladies go forward toward their partners, then back up into the center again, turning a quarter clockwise to take right hands to perform the half double ladies' chain. A double ladies' chain always feels a bit rushed, since the ladies have a long way to travel -- from their original places and halfway round in moulinet formation in only four steps. With the ladies retreating toward the center instead of the outside, that problem goes away. The ladies are already in the center, so it's easy for them to take right hands and go halfway around with plenty of time for the left-hand turn with their new partners (originally their opposites).
There's no direct evidence to support this reconstruction, but it both solves the mystery of why they bothered moving the ladies to the center at all and makes the half double ladies' chain easier. The ladies going forward and back from the center is also a nice variation on the usual figure, in keeping with the unusual figures of Lawn Tennis as a whole.
After that, there are no interpretive problems, but I'll break down last part of the figure in detail since it's a little bit hard to visualize. The half double ladies' chain has brought the ladies back to their home positions, but the gentlemen are still opposite their original places. Head couples (who were all originally head couples, just differently arranged) turn to the right, sides to the left, and circle, but break the circle early, the head gentleman dropping left hands with the side lady and heading out along the side of the set corresponding to his current position. This will end with lines across the set like this:
L4 G3 L2 G1
G2 L1 G4 L3
The two gentlemen in each line then take hands around the lady who is between them (gentlemen one and three around lady two and gentlemen two and four around lady one) and circle, ending in each others' places. The amount of circling isn't specified, but with eight steps I find once and a half round to be more fun than half round, and the ladies' narrow dresses of this era accommodate this. This will end with the lines like this:
L4 G1 L2 G3
G4 L1 G2 L3
Everyone has conveniently ended up opposite their own partners. The side couples will turn by right hands on the side while the head gentlemen advance to their partners and turn along the heads, and everyone is back to places. The head couples' turns will be facilitated if the ladies begin moving outward and slightly forward with small steps so that the gentlemen have more room to move through the center without crashing into each other and the figure has a more curvaceous form. The side couples should also add some travel to their turn, gentlemen moving strongly out to their left as they approach their partners, to give the head couples space and so that they end in their places rather than too close to the center.
I find this entire figure both clever and elegant.
Koncen messed up this figure in his instructions, inserting into the hands around with the side couples the baffling instruction that "First lady go to second couples place second lady go to first couples place". I have no idea where that came from; it's not in the original instructions and does not work with the rest of the figure. Koncen also stated that the second time through the figure would bring the head couples back to their original places, implying that once time through would not. None of the other instructions mention this (they just say that the head couples repeat the figure), and the dancers do all return to places after each time through, so I think this was a second error on his part.
A note on the music: it is broken down into six different strains, but the figures printed in the staves on the sheet music indicate that there's no rondo or other oddity in the structure; strains B through F are played straight through like one long strain.
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The series will conclude with figures four and five in the next post.
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