The sheet music for Clifford G. Sweet's National Park Quadrille, published in 1892, immediately intrigued me because the cover (shown at left, click to enlarge) proclaimed it "For 8 Ladies & 4 Gentlemen". In other words, it was a trio quadrille, for four trios in a square, which is one of my favorite variant quadrille formations. The sheet music was not accompanied by dance figures, but, happily, they are available elsewhere, though not in their original publication. Two near-identical versions of the instructions may be found in The American Prompter and Guide to Etiquette by E. H. Kopp (Cincinnati-New York-Chicago, 1896) and a late edition of Clendenen's [Fashionable] Quadrille Book and Guide to Etiquette (Chicago, 1899). Given how close the language is in the two sources, I suspect that both authors were copying from the missing original.
The National Park Quadrille is a four-figure set performed with either polka steps or plain steps ("according to the ability of the dancers") for most of the figures, with a generous amount of polka for couples thrown in during the "chorus" that ends each figure, during which the glide polka, discussed here, should be used. This is essentially a combination of two slides of galop (one measure) plus a polka step (one measure). If dancing the polka in the casual slide-together-slide style, which I suspect was typical at this time, it will feel much like a four-slide galop (as described here).
The most interesting element of this quadrille is the back-and-forth progression for the ladies: on each iteration of the quadrille, they change places within their trio, from left side of the gentleman to right and vice-versa. Since the ladies on the left and right of each trio perform different figures, this prevents any imbalance in the dancing. Each of the four figures should be performed four times, twice for the head couples and twice for the side couples. It is noted that if this feels too long, the first three figures can be done only twice (once for heads and once for sides), but that produces a slightly strange result, with the ladies in different positions in each figure and one lady getting more polka-round opportunities than the other.
The sheet music for the National Park Quadrille is available from the Goucher College Digital Library, here. The repeat structure for each figure is straightforward and fits the dance figures precisely. Sadly, I am not aware of any recording of this quadrille.
I'll finish this post by discussing the "chorus" figure and leave the details of the individual figures for separate posts to follow. The ladies will be referred to as the "left-hand" and "right-hand" ladies, according to their position relative to their gentleman partner. I personally favor using polka steps throughout, but if dancers prefer to use walking steps where other steps are not specified, it would be best if the entire set would agree.
"Chorus" figure, 16 bars of polka
4b All four gentlemen turn their left-hand ladies by left hands all the way round and into the center of the set, dropping hands a bit early so the gentlemen can move to their right-hand ladies and take them in closed ballroom hold. Polka steps are specified for turning-by-the-hand figures.
12b The four left-hand ladies do a moulinet, right hands across and left hands back, returning to the right-hand position. The dancers may use either twelve polka steps or twenty-four walking steps. Meanwhile, the gentlemen and the right-hand ladies polka round the set using the glide polka, ending by opening out to leave these ladies on their left.
Performance Notes
(1) For the left-hand ladies: with twelve bars for the moulinet figure instead of the standard eight, the ladies could just go considerably more than once round in each direction, especially with polka steps, but I prefer to fill the time more elegantly: four bars going round by the right hand, two bars turning individually to their left to rejoin with left hands, four bars going round by the left hand, then drop hands and take two bars to move out to their new positions on the right of each trio, turning to their right into places. The individual turns are inspired by the description of the moulinet in the changes of a cotillion described in the 1802 edition of A Treatise on Dancing by the anonymous Saltator. These should not be rushed; there is time to walk or polka in a little circle rather than just spinning in place. At the end of the moulinet, the ladies should make sure to go past the center point of their trio before separating and moving out to places so they do not get in the way of the couples polking round into the center and left-hand positions. If using polka steps, ending the final turn to places with a walking step and close of the feet will leave the dancers in a stable position at the end of the figure.
The left-hand ladies also have the option of just remaining motionless in the center while the other dancers polka round instead of doing the moulinet, but the instructions note that "If the left-hand ladies moulinet in the center while the others polka, the quadrille will be much prettier." Indeed.
(2) For the gentlemen and right-hand ladies: the turns in the glide polka are done in four-bar units instead of the two-bar units of a regular polka. This makes things a little bit interesting at the end. It's very easy to open up at the end of a turn with the lady on the right of the gentleman; in natural (clockwise) turning, all the momentum supports that. It's a bit trickier to open out with the lady on the left. Trying to add extra rotation to better position the dancers doesn't work very well. My favored solution is to make half-turns after every two bars for the first eight bars (two complete turns) as usual, but then at the end of bar ten, do not turn on the polka step. The dancers' joined hands will be pointing toward their trio's home position. Drop the gentleman's right arm from the lady's back and the lady's left arm from the gentleman's shoulder, but keep joined hands (gentleman's left, lady's right). Separate and back out to places with a polka step backwards (bar eleven), then a single step back and a close of the feet (bar twelve).
In the next post: on to the first two figures!
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