Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Quadrilles

  • Aladdin Quadrille

    Like the New Scotia Quadrille, the Aladdin Quadrille is one of several single-figure quadrilles found in the “New, Enlarged, & Complete Edition” of D. (David) Anderson’s Ball-Room Guide (Dundee, this edition undated but probably c1886).  This is a simple, fun figure that would fit easily into a Scottish-themed ball.

    Despite there being various quadrille sets called the Aladdin Quadrilles, Anderson doesn’t seem to have had any specific music in mind.  He notes only that it can be danced in 2/4 or 6/8.

    Aladdin Quadrille (8 bars introduction + 64 bars x4)
    8b   Introduction/honors (not repeated)
    8b   All promenade round
    4b   Ladies advance to the center and retire
    4b   Gentlemen advance to the center and retire
    8b   All set to partners and turn by the right hand
    8b   Head couples advance and retire, then half right and left
    8b   Side couples advance and retire, then half right and left
    8b   Grand chain half round to places
    16b All waltz (in duple time) around (see performance notes below)

    The figure is danced four times, with the head couples leading on the first and third iterations and the side couples leading on the second and fourth.

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  • Un jeu d’échecs (a game of chess), 1810

    Another themed quadrille described by Laure Junot, the Duchess of Abrantès, was the “game of chess” danced, or at least presented, at a masked ball in Paris in the February of 1810.  The quadrille was also described in her Memoires de Madame la duchesse d’Abrantes, which were published and republished in multiple volumes in a variety of editions.  The French text below was taken from an 1837 fourth edition published in Brussels, which may be found online here.  A contemporary (1833) English translation is online here, but it is not a close enough translation and omits some lines, so I’ve done my own, with reference to it.

    Junot spent more time in her memoirs complaining about the costumes and rehearsal time required for this quadrille than she did on the actual performance, but from her description, it seems like very few of the pieces (dancers) actually got to do much, unless perhaps they danced as they entered the board.  But what little she describes does mention steps, and the costume descriptions give us a fairly good idea of how the dancers must have appeared: vaguely Egyptian pawns with tightly-wrapped skirts and sleeves like mummies and sphinx-like hairstyles, knights like centaurs with horse rumps made from wicker, rooks wearing wicker towers, and fools (bishops) in caps with bells.

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  • Reminiscences, 1865

    I have what seems like an endless collection of works of nineteenth-century women’s fiction that I plow through for the dance references whenever I have the chance.  Most of them are overly sentimental and laden with heavy-handed moral messages.  “Reminiscences”, which was serialized in the American women’s periodical Godey’s Lady’s Book from February to June, 1865, was no exception to this, alas, but at least it was relatively short.

    The background of the piece is a bit of a mystery.  The author is the same “Ethelstone” credited with “Dancing the Schottische” (Godey’s, July 1862), which I discussed a few years ago.  I’ve never been able to locate any information about this author.  And “Reminiscences” adds a new element of confusion because it is written in first person and purports to be the story of one Ethel Stone.  Was “Ethelstone” actually a woman named Ethel Stone?  Is this fiction masquerading as memoir?  Or part of an actual memoir of a life that oh-so-conveniently included the elements of a mid-nineteenth-century morality tale?  That seems unlikely, so I assume that it’s fiction.  But I may never know for certain.

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  • Professor Sheldon’s Presidential Polka Quadrille

    Professor Sheldon’s Presidential Polka Quadrille was created by Washington, D. C., dancing master George T. Sheldon, who had a lengthy career as a dancing master to both children and adults and was the author of at least a couple of other quadrilles.  In May, 1898, Sheldon was discussed briefly in M. B. Gilbert’s dance journal, The Director, in which it was said that he was then 72 and had been teaching for 57 years.  His most famous pupil was probably Nellie Grant, daughter of President Ulysses S. Grant.  This quadrille was said in several sources to be dedicated to her.

    Professor Sheldon’s Presidential Polka Quadrille seems to have first been published around 1893, possibly by H. N. Grant, and thereafter turns up in a number of midwestern dance manuals running through the early years of the new century.  It is referred to variously by its full name, by the shorter Sheldon’s Presidential Polka Quadrille or Sheldon’s Polka Quadrille, and, in one manual, as Williams’ Presidential Polka Quadrille.  I have no idea who Williams was or why he was credited with a quadrille well documented as having been authored by Sheldon.

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  • Political Dance Jokes: The Italian Quadrille, 1859

    1859-06-04 Punch - Italian QuadrilleThe humor piece at left, “The Italian Quadrille” (click to enlarge), appeared in the June 4, 1859, issue of the famous British humor magazine, Punch.  It’s obvious from the timing that it’s satirizing the brief Franco-Austrian War of 1859, also known as the Second Italian War of Independence.  I love it when dance terms get used this way.  This one isn’t as clever overall as the near-contemporaneous Quadrille Nautically Described (1856), but what it lacks in clever figures it makes up for in real-world meaning.

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  • Susan’s Sociables

    When I first wrote about the quadrille figure called the Sociable almost seven years ago, I noted that some sources offered slightly different sets of figures, and at least two suggested that the choice of figures was up to the caller:

    “No positive rule as to what figure shall be called in the Quadrille Sociable.  The choice is left entirely to the prompter.”  (Brookes, L. De G.  Brookes on Modern Dancing.  New York, 1867)

    “Prompters often call figures in the ‘Sociable’ to suit their fancy, introducing the ‘Star Figure,’ ‘Grand Chain,’ etc.”  (De Garmo, William.  The Dance of Society.  New York, 1875)

    I rarely exercise the option to call variant figures; my habit has been to do the most common four-figure sequence twice over, once for the ladies to progress and once for the gentlemen, with an eight-bar “All chassez” and honors coda at the end.  Including introductory honors, this calls for a structure of 8b + 32bx8 + 8b.  Working with live musicians, I can have music played to fit this pattern exactly.  Or, if I am using the Sociable as the final figure of a quadrille, the short version with the progressive figures done only once (ladies progressing) is plenty, and since 8b + 32bx4 + 8b is a common finale structure, if necessary, it is easy to find a recording with that pattern.

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  • Revisiting the Flirtation Figure

    Almost six and a half years ago, I reconstructed and briefly discussed the Flirtation Figure, which appeared in William Lamb’s How and What to Dance (London, 1903 or 1904) as a separate figure after the usual five figures of the first set of quadrilles.  My slightly revised reconstruction of Lamb’s figure:

    Flirtation Figure (8 bars + 32 bars x4 + 8 bars)
    8b     Introduction (not repeated)
    4b     Grand Circle: all take hands and forward and back
    4b     All turn partners two hands
    4b     All four ladies forward and back
    4b     All four gentlemen forward, turn, and bow to lady at their left (their corner lady)
    4b     Facing corners, all balance by stepping right, close left behind, step right, touch toe of left in front (1, 2, 3, 4); repeat to left
    4b     Turn corners two hands, ending in gentleman’s original place and taking closed hold
    8b     All galopade around the set (four-slide galop to each position, alternating over hands/over elbows)
    Repeat previous thirty-two bars three more times. After last repetition:
    8b     Grand Circle and turn partners two hands

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  • The Sixdrilles (3 of 3)

    Wrapping up my mini-series on the Sixdrilles, here are the final two figures and some overall thoughts.  The earlier figures can be found in my first and second posts in the series.

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  • The Sixdrilles (2 of 3)

    Moving right along from my first post in the Sixdrilles series, here are the reconstructions of the next two figures:

    Figure Two: L’Été (8b introduction + 24bx4)
    4b    First gentleman and two opposite ladies en avant and en arrière.
    4b    Same three chassez-dechassez (à droite et à gauche)
    4b    Same three traversez, gentleman crossing between the two ladies
    4b    Same three chassez-dechassez
    4b    Same three traversez/balancez [see note below] while partners balancez
    4b    Same three rond de trois

    The figure is then repeated by the second gentleman and the two opposite ladies, the third gentlemen and two opposite ladies, and the fourth gentleman and two opposite ladies.

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  • The Sixdrilles (1 of 3)

    The Sixdrilles are a clever reworking of the figures French Quadrille (or First Set) for a group of twelve dancers in the form of a square of trios, each consisting of a gentleman and two ladies.  I have two Scottish sources for them, which match fairly closely:

    The Ball-Room, by Monsieur J. P. Boulogne (Glasgow, 1827).

    Lowe's Ball-Conductor and Assembly Guide…Third Edition, by the Messrs. Lowe (Edinburgh, c1830)

    Monsieur Boulogne is billed as French, but I know no more about him.  The Messrs. Lowe were a group of four brothers, all dance teachers, one of whom eventually became famous as dancing master at Balmoral for the family of Queen Victoria.  Their book is difficult to date, especially since it is a third edition.  A reference to the Sixdrilles being created around the time of the coronation of Charles X puts it at 1824 or later, and a late reference to the opera Guillaume Tell (Paris, 1829) at the very end of the book suggests 1830 onward.  The last half-dozen pages look like a later attachment, however, and may have been added for the second or third edition.  The Sixdrilles appear much earlier and are integrated into the overall work.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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