Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian
This blandly named "Polish Dance" was published by expatriate English dancing master William George Wells in The danciad, or companion to the modern ball room in Montreal in 1832. I have my doubts about whether there is anything authentically Polish about it, but the dance itself is…interesting. Let me start with a transcription.
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POLISH DANCE
To be danced by an unlimited number of couples, and placed exactly in the same situation as for the Original Gallopade.
February starts gently for me with an online lecture that is a sort of sequel to one I did in Moscow eight (!!) years ago and one of my regular trips to Boston to DJ before I head off to Europe at the end of the month for a teaching trip to Belgium and Germany that will also take me briefly through Dublin and Amsterdam for research, art, and reunions.
Happy new year! I wasn't planning to travel for anything but library research this month while I wait out the post-holiday Covid surge and polish a bunch of old and new reconstructions for my European trip in February-March. But it seems I'm going to Boston to DJ again. Tomorrow! Whee!
Wrapping up my little series on extended-Regency-era oddities, let’s talk about an unusual version of the English finishing dance, Sir Roger de Coverley! This is one of the rare dances where tune and dance are so tightly associated that it’s reasonable to give the dance the tune name.
I discussed a typical Regency-era version of the classic Sir Roger de Coverley figure long, long ago. Since then, I’ve accumulated a number of other versions of the figure with the same characteristic elements: opening figures performed on the long diagonals followed by whole-set figures that end with the original top couple progressed to the bottom. I’ve written up a couple of later nineteenth century versions here and here.
Now, this is not to say that there were never any other, more typical, country dance figures set to the “Roger de Coverley” tune. In its earliest appearance with dance figures in the ninth edition of Playford’s The Dancing Master, published in 1695, it is printed with a normal progressive figure, completely unrelated to the later dance. One hundred and thirty years after that, a different figure, very generic-Regency, was published with it in Analysis of the London Ball-Room (printed for Thomas Tegg, London, 1825). Never underestimate the willingness of music publishers and dancers, to recycle a tune.
But there’s one set of figures I’ve found printed with “Sir Roger de Coverley” which is a real oddity:
Dropping back to the late nineteenth century, here's another short blurb from the pages of Demorest's Family Magazine, following the Thanksgiving Pumpkin Party I described last year. This little tidbit appeared in the "Chat" column of the February, 1891, issue, along with a description of a Valentine's party and comments on the overuse of floral decorations. The anonymous author described the fashion that season of using a thé dansante (tea dance) held at the "usual hours" for a reception, four o'clock to seven o'clock in the late afternoon, for the purpose of introducing debutantes to the fashionable world. The thé dansante could stand on its own as an event or might be the lead-in to a dinner.
Winding down for the year after a busy late autumn with a final trip up to Boston. Then home for a few weeks to attempt to catch up on writing projects!
Things are getting lively again! Online and in-person workshops, two balls, and a DJ gig, plus at least two library visits, and I'm hoping for four…
And…it’s back to masquerades, fancy dress balls, crazy cotillion figures, and other fun for the month of October! First up: a Christmas masquerade ball in Montana in 1899.
The Degree of Honor masquerade ball was held on Christmas night at the Hefferlin Opera House in Livingston, Montana, the elaborate building at right in the postcard photo at left; click to enlarge. At this time, the Degree of Honor was the ladies’ auxiliary of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, a post-Civil War “fraternal” mutual benefit society providing insurance, burial policies, etc, to working-class men. In the late 1890s, the Degree of Honor was said to have had 40,000 members nationally. It later spun off into a separate organization and existed independently until 2017.
Livingston itself was tiny at the time, having been founded as a cluster of tents at a future railroad stop in 1882. Even today, its population is under ten thousand people (per the 2020 census); at the time of the ball, it was probably only around a thousand. This puts into perspective its description as “largely attended” in the coverage of the ball in the social column of The Anaconda Standard on Sunday, December 31, 1889: seventy-five couples following the leaders of the march. For a town of that size, that is actually quite impressive, and the coverage noted that the event succeeded both socially and financially.
Writing time! I have a huge backlog of papers and articles to get written, so I'll be spending most of October home doing that, with one trip at the end of the month to the UK for an academic conference.
Finally, a month that begins to look like normal for me, with workshops and DJing and lots of research time. On the road again!
Onward goes the hot and quiet summer! I am still consolidating and collating and cataloguing my research collection, with interesting results, especially in the "collating" area, with my only event this month a reunion with my pandemic group of online cotillion students!
Well, now I have two months of a fairly long, hot summer ahead of me without much going on before things kick back into gear again in the autumn. I've been making a project for the last month or so of organizing and cataloguing my rather enormous collection (and, um, backlog) of research photos from various libraries, so I expect I'll continue with that, and I have plenty of writing to do! But first, one more online lecture!
Another month full of exciting travel, this time to Germany, and then on to precepting a Civil War ball in Pennsylvania. In-person teaching and dancing, hurrah!
IN-PERSON EVENTS. That pretty much sums it up. See you on the real, live dance floor!
Spring has sprung, I'm still in the USA, and I have one more month of online events before transitioning back to primarily in-person teaching in May and June!
Please note: online events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
Well.
The major possibility I was expecting for March was to move back to Moscow and resume teaching dance in Russia and Ukraine, so I didn't plan much of anything else. As anyone who has not been living under a rock for the last few days is no doubt aware, that is probably not happening this month, and it's hard to say whether it will happen in the foreseeable future. Or at all.
So…new possibilities are needed. I'll make a quick research trip to Boston early this month and will be working on other events and workshops in the USA for later this spring, plus planning for one or two conferences in Europe. For those who've been wanting me in the USA but have been blocked first by my mostly being in Russia and then by the pandemic, this is a great time to book me.
Is anyone else tired of being resilient after the last two years?
Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
"Pleasing the Parish; or, The Minister's Wife", and its sequel, "Intervention", appeared in the January and July, 1852, issues of Godey's Lady's Book, probably the most prominent women's magazine of mid-19th century America. The author remained anonymous, offering only a list of their previously published stories.
The first story is the sad tale of the overwhelming demands made upon Mrs. Stone, the wife of a theologian who accepts a position as rector of a large parish in New York City. Her inability to fulfill all the demands on a rector's wife and her refusal to yield in all areas to the leading female parishioners makes her increasingly unpopular and, as a result, miserable. In the second story, she has the temerity to attend a gathering of friends rather than the organizational meeting. Both the gathering and its consequences offer brief insights into the practice and perception of dance in mid-nineteenth-century America.
As we come out of the Omicron surge, I’m starting to plan actual, in-person events for later this spring (May/June), hoping they will actually take place this year. Meanwhile, I’m back with the California-based Historical Tea & Dance Society again this month for another Zoom lecture and will have a research trip or two as well.
Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
Happy new year! It’s got to be better than the last one, right? Did I say that last year, too? (Nope.)
This month I’m back (online) with the California-based Historical Tea & Dance Society for another lecture and will have a research trip or two, but we’re in the midst of the Omicron surge, so not much else is happening, alas.
Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
And…we may be heading into another winter viral surge. Fortunately, I've only got online events this month, but I'll be making research trips to Boston and Washington, D.C., and continuing to push my writing (now with extra added translation!) forward. Life may be quite, but it's not boring!
Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
Back in the ballroom at last! This month I will return to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for a Remembrance Day Ball (though in a different location and with a different organizer than in previous years) as well as doing a presentation for an online conference in the UK. I'll squeeze in a research jaunt around the Gettysburg trip and expect to spend time early in the month sewing a new costume for it since my ballgown is (sigh) still in Moscow. I'm so excited to get back on the dance floor in costume for the first time since early March, 2020!
Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
All right, this month is actually less of the same, relative to last month. Let’s hope that roots grow deep in the dark, because this is definitely a dark and quiet month for me. But better things – including an in-person thing – are coming in November! Edited to add: And better things have arrived! I will be doing an in-person dance class! In person!!! Not open to the public, alas, but in person!
Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
I'm cautiously optimistic that things will start to pick up this autumn, though I'm not sure about winter. This will be a fairly quiet month (like so many recently…) with an online lecture and a research trip.
And if your dance group us back to actual in-person dancing, I'm willing to travel for small, vaccinated-only events and classes and, of course, to do Zoom lessons and talks for those who are not yet back to in-person events.
Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
I'm now in that in-between space in which online lesson series are no longer viable but, with the delta variant surge, in-person lesson and classes have not really started up again, at least not to the extent of hiring traveling teachers. But I have a wonderful research trip planned this month — two separate libraries, two days in each, plus seeing friends I haven't see since 2019 — and expect to have plenty of work to keep me busy, what with wrapping up my July events, revamping my masquerades lecture for another outing in September, and pushing several research and writing projects forward.
That said, I'm also still somewhat willing to travel for small, vaccinated-only events, depending on what and where and how the pandemic is going. And (sigh) to do Zoom lessons and talks.
Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones. Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!
Continuing on with figures two and three of Chivers' Troidrilles…
Figure Two (Tune: Eté) 8b + 24bx4
8b Introduction (not repeated)
2b First head trio forward (en avant) and stop
2b Opposite trio forward (en avant) and stop
4b All retire to places, turning round to the right twice
8b Four head ladies right hands across (moulinet) and left hands back
8b Set (pas de basque) in trios (4b) and hands three round (4b)
Repeat three more times, other couples leading in turn
This is another straightforward reconstruction. The figure is done four times as in standard quadrille practice: twice by the head couples (first couple leading, then opposite couple leading) then twice by the side couples, led first by the couple to the right of the first head couple.
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Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian
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