Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: 1820s/1830s

  • Thoughts on stepping the Grand Chain in Regency quadrilles

    It’s not unusual for new sources to turn up that make me go back and reconsider a reconstruction.  It’s a little irritating for it to happen less than a month after I finally get around to publishing one here on Kickery, and doubly irritating for it to be not a new source but old sources I simply hadn’t looked at recently.  Fortunately, this is less a change in my reconstruction than further background and options.

    In reconstructing the fourth figure of the Mid-Lothians, an early 1820s quadrille, I wrote in my reconstruction notes that “I’ve never found any description of what step sequence to use for this figure,” referring to the grand chain.  Actually, I had come across such, many years ago, and they had simply slipped my mind.  But I was looking through quadrille sources for a different project and found them again, so here is a little more information about performance options for the grand chain.

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  • Gothic Ancestry: A Country Dance Gallopade

    • Era: 1830s, England

    A year or so ago I published a discussion and reconstruction of the 1862 country dance gallopade known as The Gothic Dance and mentioned that there was a very similar dance in London dancing master J. S. Pollock’s c1830 manual, A Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne (Second Edition).  I’ve taught this dance at the few 1830s events I’ve had an opportunity to run, but have not previously published a reconstruction.

    The original instructions for the dance, one of a pair of country dance gallopades with numbers but no titles, are as follows:

    No. 2.     (4 parts) 

        All advance, retire, and cross over, changing places with partners — advance, retire, and cross over back again — first and second couples right and left — first couple gallopade down the middle to the bottom of the dance, and remain at the bottom.

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  • The Original Gallopade

    Like the Royal Gallopade, which I discussed here, the Original Gallopade was published in the Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne (Second Edition) by J. S. Pollock (London, c1830) and is a specific choreography that combines galop round the room, short quadrille-like figures, and a final sauteuse waltz.  I’m not sure about the original part; I suspect that the original form of gallopade was nothing but galop.  But that’s the title Pollock published it under.

    Here is the general description of the dance, as given by Pollock:

    La Gallopade may be danced with an unlimited number of persons, standing circularly in couples, following each other round the room.  In the first figure, the gent. passes his right arm round the waist of the lady, and with his left hand takes hold of the lady’s right, the lady’s left hand resting on the gent’s. right shoulder — the whole of the couples being thus placed, the ladies are all on the outside of the circle.  At the end of the first four bars, the lady crosses to the left of the gent. resting her right hand on the gent’s. left shoulder and holding hands in front as before, which brings the ladies to the inside of the circle.  This figure is performed four times over, and occupies sixteen bar of the tune.  At the fourth time, the whole of the party fall back in a circle, the ladies all standing on the right hand of their partners, ready to commence the figures as they occur.  This dance is performed with a particular and characteristic step, of which it is impossible to give such a description, as would enable any one to dance it, without personal instruction.

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  • Lowe’s Gallopade Quadrille

    Here’s an easy and interesting quadrille taken from Lowe’s Ball-Conductor and Assembly Guide, Third Edition, published in Edinburgh by the “Messers. Lowe.”  The manual is not dated, but internal references and the type of dances included suggest that it is from the late 1820s or early 1830s.  Given the era, I would expect to dance the figures with early nineteenth century quadrille steps, but the steps and sequences required are few and easy.

    The Gallopade Quadrille, or Quadrille Galope, is for the usual four couples in a square and consists of three figures, each with three parts.  The format of each figure is:

    16b    Galopade
    16b    Various quadrille figures
    16b    Sauteuse

    This gives a length of 48bx3.  Following the third figure, the dancers continue to sauteuse until the end of the music.

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  • An 1830s Galop Pattern

    • Era: 1830s England

    This new and fashionable dance, which it appears is of Russian origin, was first introduced into this country at His Majesty’s ball, St. James Palace, on the 11th June, 1829, when the Princess Esterhazy, the Earl of Clanwilliam, the Duke of Devonshire, and some of the foreign ministers exerted themselves in teachings its novel movements to the company, and was danced alternately with Quadrilles and Waltzing during the whole of the evening.

    — J.S. Pollock, Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne (2nd ed), London, c1830

    In an earlier post, I described the basic galop of the mid- to late 19th century as a series of slides and “chasing” steps with half-turns interspersed, commonly found in the pattern of four-slide galops, performed as follows:

    2b    Slide-close-slide-close-slide-close-slide (half-turn) (count: 1 & 2 & 3 & turn)
    2b    Slide-close-slide-close-slide-close-slide (half-turn) (count: 1 & 2 & 3 & turn)

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  • The Royal Gallopade

    The Royal Gallopade is an interesting mix of popular 1830s dances, with elements borrowed from country dances, galopades, and quadrilles, plus a concluding sauteuse waltz.  My only source for it is the Companion to La Terpsichore Moderne (Second Edition) by J. S. Pollock, London (see update at end of post).  It is undated, but the mix of dances and a textual reference to an 1829 event suggests the early 1830s.  Pollock claims that gallopades “appear” to be of Russian origin.  Among those he credits with their introduction is the sixth Duke of Devonshire, who was a close friend of both the Prince Regent (later George IV) and Czar Nicholas I and had traveled to the Russian court.

    Pollock depicts the original gallopade as a choreographed sequence dance for a circle of couples with gallop interspersed with short dance figures and gives not only this original but gallopades in country dance and quadrille form.  Fittingly, the Royal Gallopade is given a separate section of its own between the quadrille and country dance gallopades.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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