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Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Galop

  • 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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  • The Polish Galop

    • Era: 1880s-early 1900s, New England & Paris

    The so-called Polish Galop, which is neither Polish nor necessarily a galop, is one of those odd little variations that was the creation of a single dancing master and was not generally taken up by others.  It is not Polish in origin; the name comes from the heel-clicking move it incorporates, which is typical of Polish dances such as the mazurka.  Its creator, Maine dancing master and author M.B. Gilbert, explains in Round Dancing, published in 1890, that

    The movements of this dance were arranged by me for special use in children’s classes, and I found the combination a pleasant innovation.

    I also found it pleasant; it’s actually slightly less “busy” than a regular galop.  And its ambiguity on where the turn (if any) happens is interestingly similar to that of the racket.

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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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  • Alternating the One- and Three-Slide Rackets

    • Era: 1880s into very early 1900s

    Combining the one-slide rackets and three-slide rackets previously described creates an interestingly varied dance which is referred to by the prominent late-nineteenth-century dancing master Melvin B. Gilbert simply as the Racket, with no further descriptor.  The unadorned term is used by other writers to refer to several different variations in both 2/4 and 3/4 time, however, leaving us with unwieldy labels such as Allen Dodworth’s “Alternating the One Slide and Three Slide to Galop.”

    Whatever one may call it, the sequence is not difficult once both the one-slide and three-slide rackets have been mastered.  Conceptually, one simply alternates two bars of one with two bars of the other to build an eight-bar sequence.  For the one-slide racket, two bars will be moving to the left and right (in whichever order); for the three-slide racket, two bars means moving either to the left or to the right.  So sequences may be built as follows:

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  • The Three-Slide Racket

    • Era: 1880s into very early 1900s

    The three-slide racket extends the two-bar repeat pattern of the one-slide racket previously described into a four-bar pattern which has a more galop-like feel and is somewhat easier to initiate.  It is described in the major dance late-nineteenth-century dance manuals of M.B. Gilbert and Allen Dodworth and in two minor compilation manuals, one of which (Cartier’s Practical Illustrated Waltz Instructor) names it “The Wave.”

    The instructions below are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  The dancers start in a normal late-nineteenth-century ballroom hold with joined hands angled forward at a diagonal along the line of dance.  Like the one-slide racket, the three-slide racket follows a zig-zag track along the line of dance; there is no turning involved.

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  • The Galop Racket or One-Slide Racket

    • Era: 1880s into very early 1900s

    The galop racket or one-slide racket is the simplest of the various rackets and is described under  both names in different sources.  In one Parisian manual it is simply “La Raquette,” though most other sources agree that “the” racket is a compound sequence mixing two different racket rhythms.  Prominent New England dancing master M.B. Gilbert explained it simply as “Pas de Basque sidewise” in 2/4 time.

    The instructions below are for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.  The dancers start in a normal late-nineteenth-century ballroom hold with joined hands angled forward at a diagonal along the line of dance.  The dance follows a zig-zag track along the line of dance; there is no turning involved.

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  • Introducing the racket

    The racket, or racquet, is one of the major new couple dances that began appearing in American dance manuals in the early 1880s and lingered into the beginning of the twentieth century.  It spread to France in the mid- to late 1890s.  I have found no information on its origins or reference to any creator.

    The racket is a lively dance that combines sideways slides and quick cuts of the feet back and forth.  It can be danced in both galop (2/4) and waltz (3/4) time, though galop time appears to be the default.  It was one of the few of the myriad couple dance variations of the last quarter of the nineteenth century to make it into manuals like Allen Dodworth’s Dancing and its Relation to Education and Social Life (New York, 1885, reprinted 1900), which for the most part included only the most commonly-found couple dances.  (He did include one of his own invention, the Knickerbocker, and the up-and-coming Boston.)

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  • Waltz Step, Galop Time

    • Era: 1880s-1890s (America)

    In his sizable manual of couple dance variations, Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), late 19th-century dancing master M.B. Gilbert describes the Waltz-Galop succinctly as:

    Waltz step, Galop time

    While no other dancing master that I have found includes the waltz-galop by name, the accenting of a waltz step done in duple rather than triple time is discussed by Allen Dodworth in Dancing and its relations to education and social life (1885, reprinted several times through 1900) and is included in dances such as the turn-of-the-century Pasadena, and the idea that waltz steps can be transposed from triple to duple and vice-versa dates back as far as the sauteuse waltz of the first quarter of the 19th century.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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