Onward we go, with figures two and three of The Nahant Quadrilles!
For figure two, the music (available here) has two strains with a Da Capo, which works without any tweaking. The Spare Parts recording matches my reconstruction.
The original language for the figures:
Four ladies grand chain. Forward & back 1st two. Back to back. Repeat 4 times.
This is a very short figure, only sixteen bars. The second half is very straightforward: the first pair (first lady and opposite gentleman) go forward and back then perform a dos-à-dos. As in the first figure, each time through this is a different pair.
The first half, however, presents an interesting choice.
"Ladies grand chain" has been interpreted as either a grand right and left performed only by the ladies or as a double ladies chain (chaîne des dames) in which the four ladies moulinet halfway round, turn the opposite gentleman, moulinet to places, and turn their partners. I discussed the confusion between these two usages here. Later dancing masters made the distinction explicit, though that was not enough to avoid all confusion. Earlier ones tended to describe one or the other but not both. I generally lean toward considering "ladies grand chain" to mean a grand right and left, the same way the term "grand chain" was used in the first figure, and have so decided for this reconstruction.
It could be considered either a plus or a minus that this choice means that most of the gentlemen have nothing at all to do in this figure. But the lack of action for most of the dancers is not much worse than in the very popular L'Été, and the figure is so short that it's going to go by even more quickly. And with the figure dedicated to a lady and the tunes named after ladies, it doesn't seem inappropriate to have a figure focused on them.
Figure Two: "Estelle" A=8b, B=8b; played A + BAx4 (8b + 16bx4)
8b Introduction (not repeated)
8b Four ladies grand chain inside the set
8b First pair forward & back; dos-à-dos
Repeat three more times, led by each pair in turn.
Steps: as with the grand chain for eight dancers, for the ladies-only version, I favor a series (in this case two) of three chassé; jeté, assemblé. For forward and back, any of the sequences here. For the dos-à-dos, I am most fond of the sequence published by Alexander Strathy in 1822, but other possibilities and style points are discussed here, here, and here.
For his choreography (here), Patri made a different choice on the chain, interpreting it as the ladies chain double. That's a reasonable choice; I considered it seriously myself. He also once again converted the pairs into couples, mid-nineteenth century-style, so that the second half of the figure is danced by four dancers at once: head couples twice, then side couples twice. This has the virtue of getting a lot more dancers moving each time. The downside is that half the repeats are exact repeats -- twice exactly the same for the heads, twice exactly the same for the sides. And the dos-à-dos is a little more crowded with two pairs doing it side by side, which one would think would have been a concern given that his choreography was to be danced by ladies in hoop skirts.
Moving on to figure three. The original phasing:
1st two cross over give right hands. Back again give left hands. Turn between the side couples. Forward & back six. Same two cross over. Give right hand. Forward & back six. Turn partners to places.
This is a twenty-four bar figure, but the music only gives two strains with Da Capo and no indication of an internal repeat. The choice is A + BBAx4 or A + ABAx4, with no way to know which is correct. Spare Parts chose the latter for their recording, and I am perfectly content with that choice.
The beginning of the figure is reminiscent of La Poule, with the active pair crossing back and forth, but then brings in the side couples, leaving the poor partners of the active pair with nothing to do until the very last figure. The instructions are fairly clear; the only question is where each of the active pair ends up after the first turn and how much they turn to get there. I've chosen to have a three-quarter turn to put each dancer to the right of their original places, which seems better than either the quarter turn (too little movement for the amount of music and steps) or the one-and-a-quarter turn (too far to travel) that would be necessary to put them on the other sides. The dancers should drop left hands a bit early so that they can move forward into their new places rather than backing into them.
After crossing over by the right hand once again to change sides, the dancers are then to the left of their original places. For the leading gentleman and his partner, it's going to be a close to a full two-hand turn. For the leading lady and her partner, it will either be rather less than a full turn -- more like her partner escorting her over to her place -- or almost a turn and a half, if the dancers are vigorous and can really travel with their steps, which is more difficult in a two-hand turn than a single-hand turn. In both cases all four dancers need to fade outward somewhat as they turn so that they end up on the side of the quadrille instead of too far into the center.
Figure Three: "Laura" A=8b, B=8b; played A + ABAx4 (8b + 24bx4)
8b Introduction (not repeated)
4b First pair cross by right hands
4b First pair turn by left hands three quarters round to each stand between a side couple
(first lady is now between the third couple and second gentleman between the fourth couple)
4b Trios on the sides forward and back
4b First pair turn by right hands half round to stand between opposite side couples
(first lady is now between the fourth couple and second gentleman between the third couple)
4b Trios on the sides forward and back
4b First pair turn their own partners by two hands back to their original places
Steps: sequences for crossing over are given here. The first three work for the right-hand crosses. For the left-hand turn that needs to cover so much ground, I would keep it simple with the first one (the standard three chassé; jeté, assemblé). Likewise for the two-hand turn at the end. Forward and back sequences are covered here, but given that these forward-and-backs are done in trios, I would use only the first, simplest sequence.
Patri's interpretation of the figure may have one major difference from mine but definitely has an error in the online writeup. His choreography has the left-hand turn go three quarters but also states that it ends with the first lady between the fourth couple and the second gentleman between the third. And that can't be right; the three-quarter turn would put them in opposite positions. I suspect that the error is in the couple numbering rather than the amount of turn, and that his figure does match mine, but I'll just have to hope that the Nahant ball returns someday so I can dance his choreography and find out!
Next post: on to the fourth figure, the problem child of this set of quadrilles!
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