Much more intriguing to me than the walk-and-pivot polka mazurka des bals publiques discussed in my previous post is the variant described most clearly by Desrat in his Traité de la danse (Paris, c1880; later edition c1900), in which he suggested dancing the polka mazurka using the "valse à deux pas" (his personal name for the valse à deux temps) but in counter-tempo (par contretemps), meaning with the steps shifted to different notes of the bar:
Quand les danseurs valsent la Polka-Mazurka au moyen de la valse à deux pas, ils la dansent par contretemps exécutee en prenant le premier temps de chaque pas de Danse sur le troisième temps de chaque mesure.
My loose translation:
When dancers perform the polka mazurka by means of the valse à deux pas [temps], they dance it counter-tempo, executed by taking the first movement of each step of the dance on the third beat of each measure.
I gave this a try and found it a truly delightful way to dance to mazurka music, throwing the accent of the dance onto the third beat in a way that matches the music very well.
To break down how to do this, first note that the key characteristics of the valse à deux temps (I'm going to use the more common term) are the steps -- a slide and a chassé, the same as in the galop -- and the stretched out rhythm in 3/4 time, with the two movements coming on the first and third beats of the bar:
1 slide
2
&3 chassé (close-slide)
If one maintains the pause between the slide and chassé, as I think one should, the breakdown becomes:
3 slide
1
&2 chassé (close-slide)
This can be a difficult shift to make. Desrat offered advice for those with a "rebellious ear":
Je recommande aux danseurs doués d’une oreille rebelle à la mesure de consulter plutôt les basses de l’orchestre ou du piano que le chant proprement dit, car les basses marquent ordinairement ces contretemps avec une sonorité regulière et vigoureusement accentuée.
My loose translation:
I recommend that dancers gifted with a ear that rebels at [this form of] measure follow the bass of the orchestra or the piano than the singing per se, because the bass ordinarily marks the counter-tempo with a regular and vigorously accentuated sound.
I admit, my ear, or at least my feet, did rebel at first when I tried this, but after a little practice it smoothed out. The way I processed the steps shifted from "slide....chassé" counted (3...&2) to "pause-chassé-slide", counted "1&23". That is an odd way of thinking about the deux temps, but it let me subdue my rebellious ear and dance counter-tempo without tying either my brain or my feet in knots.
Desrat's is the only clear description I have of this form of polka mazurka valsée, though writers such as Lussan-Borel, in his Traité de danse avec musique contentant toutes les danses de salon (Paris, c1900 and c1904), mentioned that one may waltz in polka mazurka, and H.-M. Audran, in his Nouveau traité pratique de danse et de maintien (Paris, c1890) specifically mentioned the deux temps as an option.
Giraudet, in his Traité de la danse, 7th edition (Paris, c1890) and his later La danse, la tenue, le maintien…, 55th edition (Paris, c1900) gave a rather muddled description involving valse à trois temps danced counter-tempo and potentially alternating with valse à deux temps. Some of his advice is suspiciously close to Desrat's:
...je recomanderai aux danseurs, doués d'une oreille musicale, de consulter les basses du piano ou de l'orchestre, qui marquent ordinairement ces contre-temps, avec une sonorité régulière et une accentuation, que tour bon danseur doit entendre.
My loose translation:
...I would recommend that dancers gifted with a musical ear follow the bass of the orchestra or the piano, which ordinarily marks the counter-tempo with a regular and vigorously accentuated sound which a good dancer must hear.
The publication dates of both Desrat's and Giraudet's earlier works are uncertain, so it's hard say definitively who was copying whom here, but I believe Desrat's to be the earlier work, and it is certainly a clearer description. Giraudet did not explain the counter-tempo or on which beat the dancers begin the step. And, of course, Giraudet's works are known to collect descriptions from many different sources.
A final interesting note:
Dropping back a few decades, Gawlikowski, in his Guide complet de la danse (Paris, 1858) mentioned with disapproval that people were dancing the deux temps counter-tempo:
On a longtemps prétendu et on prétend encore que la Valse à deux temps devait se valser à contre-mesure. C’est une erreur; car les deux pas doivent compter dans la mesure, l’un pour une blanche, l’autre pour une noire.
My loose translation:
It has long been pretended, and is still pretended, that the valse à deux temps must be danced in counter-measure. This is an error because the two steps must be counted within a measure, one with a half-note and the other with a quarter-note.
He said this not within the context of polka mazurka, which he described with the conventional steps, but in the description of the deux temps itself. So there seems to have been history of people dancing it off the standard beats. I would speculate that this manner of dancing the deux temps became attached to mazurka music in particular because it fit it so very nicely, but the evidence is so minimal and scattershot that it's difficult to saw anything for certain about its history.
But it's definitely pleasant to dance!
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