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Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Quadrilles

  • Three “Scottish” Setting Sequences for Regency-Era Quadrilles

    (This continues a very occasional series of posts on setting steps for quadrilles, with the previous posts including eight easy sequences and two French sequences.)

    Calling these three sequences “Scottish” is really a bit of a misnomer, since the sources are Alexander Strathy’s Elements of the Art of Dancing (Edinburgh, 1822), which is in large part a translation of a French manual by J. H. Goudoux, and an anonymous Scottish manuscript entitled Contre Danses à Paris 1818.  All three sequences are certainly French in their steps and style and quite possibly in origin.  They probably would not have caused anyone in Paris in that era to bat an eyelash.  But technically, they are documented to Scotland, not France, in the late 1810s-early 1820s.

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  • Two French Setting Sequences for Regency-era Quadrilles

    Several years ago I posted eight easy setting sequences for Regency-era French quadrilles and said in the comments I’d try to post more “soon”.  That has now stretched to more than five years, but, better late than never, here are a couple of others, this time directly from a trio of French manuals by J. H. Gourdoux (or Gourdoux-Daux):

    Principes et Notions Élémentaires sur l’Art de la Danse Pour la Ville (2nd edition, 1811)
    Recueil d’un Genre Nouveau de Contredanses et Walses (1819)
    De l’Art de la Danse (1823)

    Once again, these are easy sequences, but a bit more interesting than the previous set.

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  • New Scotia Quadrille

    A while back I discussed the wonderful dance CD Music for Quadrilles, by the English band Green Ginger (with Kevin Smith).  At the time, I skimmed over the tracks for five modern Scottish (RSCDS) dances, since I didn’t have any way to check the ones with historical sources against the originals.  Since then, I’ve come across a copy of one of the editions of D. (David) Anderson’s Ball-Room Guide, a “New, Enlarged, & Complete Edition”, which the liner notes of Music for Quadrilles cite as the source for one of the historical dances, New Scotia Quadrille.

    According to J. P. (Joan) and T. M. Flett in Traditional Dancing in Scotland (paid link), David Anderson taught in Dundee and in a number of other towns from c1850-1911.  His Ball-Room Guide seems to have gone through at least five editions, with the “New, Enlarged” versions appearing between the mid-1880s and late 1890s.  Since the one I examined is not dated, and I have no others to compare it to, I cannot date it precisely.

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  • Chassé-Croisé Sequences for Regency-Era Quadrilles (3 of 3)

    (This is the third and final post in a mini-series covering Regency-era step-sequences for the quadrille figure chassé-croisé.  Previous posts are here (with a general introduction) and here.)

    My third and (so far) final sequence for an eight-bar chassé-croisé comes from Elements and Principles of the Art of Dancing, a translation of J. H. Gourdoux published by Victor Guillou in Philadelphia in 1817.  The translation, presumably of the 1811 Principes et Notions Élémentaires sur l’Art de la Danse Pour la Ville, is inconsistent in how closely it hews to Gourdoux’s original.  This step sequence for chassé-croisé does not appear in the 1811 manual at all and may have originated with Guillou himself.

    Even more than Gourdoux’s own sequence, this one features different footwork for the gentlemen and the ladies.

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  • Chassé-Croisé Sequences for Regency-Era Quadrilles (2 of 3)

    (This is the second post in a mini-series covering Regency-era step-sequences for the quadrille figure chassé-croisé.  See the first post for a general introduction to the figure.)

    My second sequence for chassé-croisé actually comes from a French source, the second edition of Principes et Notions Élémentaires sur l’Art de la Danse Pour la Ville (Paris, 1811) by J. H. Gourdoux.  The same sequence reappears in his later manual, De l’Art de la Danse (Paris, 1823).  It is similar to the Strathy sequence described in my previous post, but the differences are quite intriguing.

    I won't cover steps in this post, since I just summarized them in the previous one and no additional ones are required for Gourdoux's sequence.

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  • Chassé-Croisé Sequences for Regency-Era Quadrilles (1 of 3)

    By far the most common sequence variations to be found in quadrille manuals of the early nineteenth century are those for setting, forward and back, chassez-dechassez, and crossing over.  But a few manuals give sequences for more elaborate figures such as chassé-croisé, in which two dancers, side by side, change places and back.  There are quite a few ways to perform the figure, but the most common is probably that danced with one’s partner in eight bars as follows:

    2b    Change places, gentlemen passing behind ladies
    2b    Set
    2b    Change back, gentlemen again passing behind ladies
    2b    Set

    This can be performed just by two couples (heads or sides) or by all four at once, as in the classic Finale figure of the first set of French quadrilles.

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  • Simonet’s Parisian Quadrilles, Third Set, c1820

    There are many, many sets of early nineteenth-century quadrilles, most of which are simply new music for the First Set or include only minor variations on the standard figures.  While I don’t normally publish reconstructions of the figures for random sets of quadrille music, this set is of particular interest because a high-quality recording of it is available on The Regency Ballroom CD by Spare Parts.

    The music is from the first series of T. Simonet’s Fashionable Parisian Quadrilles, Performed by the Bands of Messrs. Michau, Musard and Collinet, with their appropriate Figures as danced at Almack’s, the Argyll Rooms and at the Bath & Cheltenham Assemblies.  The manual is undated, but in February, 1823, the fashionable magazine La Belle Assemblée reported the publication of “Nos. 42 and 43” of the series, commenting positively:

    This is really an elegant little work both in its contents and its typography.  We recognize many of the quadrilles as being great favorites in the French metropolis, and the whole of them are composed in a very characteristic and original style.

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  • 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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  • 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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  • Le Triangle

    Subtitled Nouveau Quadrille, Le Triangle is not actually a quadrille in the literal sense of a dance involving facing couples.  It was composed by F. Paul and published in his manual, Le Cotillon, in Paris in 1877 and is danced by three couples rather than four, arranged in the form of a triangle.  Paul composed it to address the difficulty of finding four couples for the quadrille croisé of the time.  He adds modestly that he does not intend to impose it upon dancers, but gives the description only as a proposal.  I have never seen Le Triangle in any other source; it may never have been danced outside of Paul’s immediate circles.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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