Capering & Kickery

The Mid Lothians (1820s Quadrilles), Figure 1

The Mid Lothians, A new Set of Quadrilles, was a set of traditional Scottish tunes selected by J. S. Pollock, "Professor of Dancing / late of Paris /", with the tunes arranged by R. W. Evans and new quadrille figures (given in French and English) choreographed by Pollock.  The undated music was published in London in the early 1820s (Google Books dates it to 1821), and the figures additionally appear in Pollock's La Terpsichore Moderne, Ninth Edition (London, c1824) and in Henry Whale's Hommage à Taglioni, A Fashionable Quadrille Preceptor and Ballroom Companion (Philadelphia, 1836).  The English-language instructions in all three sources are extremely consistent, though there are a few discrepancies between the French and English versions given on the sheet music. 

The set is cannily dedicated to Lady Gwydir, more familiar to students of upper-crust Regency society as one of the famous Patronesses of Almacks under her former name, Mrs. Drummond-Burrell.  Born in 1786, Lady Sarah Clementina Drummond, heiress of Lord Perth, married Peter Burrell in 1807, whereupon they both hyphenated their names to Drummond-Burrell to preserve the prestigious Drummond name.  In 1820, the couple succeeded Peter's parents to double honors as Baron and Baroness Gwydir (or Gwydyr) and Baron and Baroness Willoughby de Eresby.

The Mid Lothians refers to the area of Scotland around Edinburgh.  The title of the set and the use of well-known Scottish tunes may be an attempt to play off the success of Sir Walter Scott's popular 1818 novel, The Heart of Midlothian, or simply a reflection of the popularity of all things Scottish at the time.  Some of the tunes used are versions of those famously used by Robert Burns for his poems in the late eighteenth century.

An Easy Dos-à-Dos Sequence, 1822

Once a dancer moves past the basic chassé, jeté, assemblé step sequences for early nineteenth-century French quadrilles, the very next step sequence I teach them is this alternate dos-à-dos sequence taken from Alexander Strathy's Elements of the Art of Dancing (Edinburgh, 1822).  In this sequence the dancer advances moving forward, travels sideways for the actual back-to-back part of the figure, then makes a half-turn to travel forward back to place before completing the turn on the final measure.  This is quite beautiful to watch, but the steps are very simple.

I would consider this sequence slightly too elaborate for country dances, which are supposed to use simpler steps.

Here's the sequence:

1b    Chassé forward, passing opposite dancer
1b    Jeté (left foot), glissade dessous to the right
1b    Making a half-turn to face original place, chassé forward, curving slightly
1b    Completing the turn, make a glissade dessous to the left and a final assemblé

The counts are "and ONE and TWO, THREE and FOUR, and ONE and TWO, and THREE FOUR."  Note that the two halves of the figure have slightly different rhythm patterns.  It may help when learning it to clap or chant them several times.

Here's a quick summary of the necessary steps as used above.  These are not full descriptions!  All of them can be led on the opposite foot.

Chassé: after an initiating hop on the left foot on the upbeat, move the right foot forward, close the left foot behind it, and move the right foot forward again.  This move takes one measure ("and-ONE-and-TWO").

Jeté: extend the left foot out directly to the side (second position raised) then, bringing it in front of the right, leap onto it, raising the other foot behind to point straight down, close along the leg.  This is a linear "out and in" motion rather than a curving ronde de jambe.  The step is initiated on the upbeat and lands on the first beat of the second measure above ("THREE").

Glissade dessous: slide one foot to the side and close the other foot to fifth or third position behind.  The slide to the side is performed on the upbeat with the close coming on the downbeat.  This is "and FOUR" in the second measure above, where it occupied the second half of the measure, and "and THREE" in the fourth measure, where it takes up the first half.

Assemblé: extend the left foot out directly to the side (second position raised) then hop, bringing the left foot behind the right in either third or fifth position with weight equally on both feet, bending the knees slightly when landing rather than locking them.  Again, this is an "in and out" motion.  The step is initiated on the upbeat and lands on the downbeat, ("FOUR") in the fourth measure above.

Ladies' Double Chain vs. Ladies' Grand Chain

Sometimes, musicians and prompters for Quadrille dancing, when they intend "Double Ladies' Chain," say "Ladies Grand Chain." This is wrong: the figures are entirely dissimilar.
        --- William B. De Garmo, The prompter (New York, 1865)

A century later, this problem is still with us, as modern-day dance historians confuse the two figures when reconstructing quadrilles.  The problem is made worse by the plethora of terminology.  Though the first of the two is called either a Ladies' Chain Double or a Ladies' Double Chain, the second can be known variously as the Chain of Four Ladies, Les Chaine des Dames Continue, Ladies' Grand Chain, Ladies' Right and Left Around, or Ladies' Grand Right and Left. 

Let's take a look at the difference between the two figures.

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.

What did Regency-era dancers dance?

I combine the two as a category because people who are interested in the one are often interested in the other, but what was danced by Jane Austen (1775-1817) and what was danced during the English Regency era (1811-1820) are actually questions with slightly different answers.  Austen's dancing days were more of the late 18th century, and the Regency era was a time of rapid change in social dance, mostly emanating from Paris and London.  Austen would have missed out on much of this by being country gentry and by her death just as things were starting to get really interesting dancewise.

Having addressed dance in Jane Austen's lifetime in my previous post, which I recommend reading first for background, let me now talk a little bit about the 1810s.  What did they dance during the Regency era?  Around 1810, people probably weren't doing much that was different from the previous two or three decades: country dances and reels, with a cotillion perhaps still making an appearance now and then, and occasionally an oddity like the Boulanger, Sir Roger de Coverley, or (in Scotland) the Bumpkin.  But change was coming.  The upper classes and the residents of London would soon find themselves with a much wider set of options.

The Royal Lancers, Figure 5

The fifth and final figure of the Royal Lancers/Horse Guards quadrille for sixteen is actually not a very radical departure from the fifth figure of the usual Lancers.  The only real change is replacing the opening grand chain with a less elegant right hands across/left hands back done by all eight ladies together.  The only virtue of this change is that this figure fits the standard music, which a grand chain of sixteen people would not.  The rest of the figures are really no more than a typical fifth figure performed side by side but separately by two groups of four couples.

Please refer to the first post in this series, here, for the diagram showing the formation of the Royal Lancers, with each pair of numbered couples (first/first, second/second, etc.) being located diagonally across the set from each other.

The Royal Lancers, Figure 4

Moving right along with the Royal Lancers quadrille for sixteen: the fourth figure is the first figure to really take full advantage of the large-square format, with each repetition bringing the active couples (heads or sides) exactly halfway around the square to the diagonally opposite position.  In this, it has more in common with the fourth figure of Allen Dodworth's later New York Lancers (here) than with that the standard Lancers, a version of which is described in the same post.

The formation for the Royal Lancers is shown in the first post in this series, here; reference to that diagram will be useful in sorting out the perambulations of the various couples.

The Royal Lancers, Figure 3

Proceeding through the Royal Lancers quadrille for sixteen, the third figure incorporates choreographic adaptations to the larger square similar to those made in the first two figures.  Once again, moves that are usually done by the head or side couples together are divided, but this time in a way which harks back to the oldest form of the Lancers, with the figures led in turn by each lady and her opposite.  The ladies chain for four couples is then modified into four ladies chains for two couples each, to suit the large-square formation.

A direct comparison with the third figure of the original Lancers may be made via my post on the third figure of the New York Lancers, here.  The formation for the Royal Lancers is shown in the first post in this series, here.

The Royal Lancers, Figure 2

Continuing on from my previous post covering the first figure of the Royal Lancers quadrille for sixteen, here is the second figure.  Once again, moves that are usually done by the head or side couples together are divided so that the first couples move during the first time through, the second couples during the second, and so forth.  A more substantial alteration is that rather than the side couples (in the first two repetitions) dividing to form lines of four at the heads and those lines going forward and back followed by a two-hand turn to places, the Royal Lancers takes advantage of the ready-made lines of four along each side of the set and allows both the head and side lines to advance and retire sequentially, skipping the two-hand turn to places entirely.

Comparison with the second figure of the original Lancers may be made via my post on the second figure of the New York Lancers, here.

The Royal Lancers, Figure 1

Era: American, 1860s onward

There are several "sixteen Lancers" quadrilles, written for eight couples rather than four, many of which adopt similar solutions in adapting the figures to twice as many couples.  The Royal Lancers, or Horse Guards, is a version that I have found in only two sources: Thomas Hillgrove's 1863 A Complete Practical Guide to the Art of Dancing and Professor M.J. Koncen's 1883 Quadrille Call Book and Ball Room Guide.  The diagram at the left (click to enlarge), taken from Hillgrove, shows the arrangement of couples for the Royal Lancers.  Note that the odd-numbered couples on each side are to the right of the even-numbered ones.  Koncen provides a similar diagram but misnumbers two of the couples.

The figures of the Royal Lancers are only minor variations on the standard Lancers ones, but the multiplier effect of doing the figures with twice as many couples makes even the simplest figures substantially more interesting.  For the most part, the Royal Lancers may be danced to any Lancers music, but note that there are both 20-bar and 24-bar versions of Figure 4 in the standard Lancers repertoire, and the Royal Lancers requires the longer music.

A Promiscuous Figure: The Sociable

"This is a very lively figure, as it keeps all the couples occupied and introduces a continual change of partners." 

    -- Dick's Quadrille Call-Book and Ball-Room Prompter, New York, 1878.

I've posted occasionally about promiscuous figures (Basket and Star, Gavotte and Minuet, Flirtation), single quadrille figures which may be substituted for one of the figures of the first set of quadrilles to provide more variety.  Another of these, which dates at least to 1848, was known variously as "The Sociable," "Quadrille Sociable," or "Social Quadrille."  Its distinctive feature was repeated partner changes.  As noted above, it also had the virtue of having very little waiting out for any of the couples.  While Charles Durang, writing in Philadelphia in 1856, sniffed at it as one of the "good, but now unfashionable" old figures, it seems to have remained popular right through the middle of the nineteenth century and is even included in a few manuals appearing into the late 19th and very early 20th century.

Different dancing masters disagreed about which figure of the first set this or other promiscuous figures may be substituted for.  One 1878 manual stated that substitution is done for the second or fifth figure, while an 1889 one is equally clear that the third and fourth figures are the ones to replace.  My personal opinion is that the Sociable is stylistically most like a fifth figure.

Thomas Hillgrove, writing in 1857, seems to have been the first to build an entire quadrille around the Sociable, using it as figure one in a traditional five-figure set called the "Quadrille Sociable."  Six years later, he includes it in a later manual as "Social Quadrille No. 1."  A similar five-figure quadrille is included in a manual attributed to Elias Howe and published in 1862.  Unfortunately, the five-figure version is not particularly interesting, just one of many interchangeable rearrangements of generic quadrille figures.  This may explain why it doesn't seem to have been picked up by many other authors. 

The Sociable by itself, however, is a fun little figure, easy to teach and fun to do.  Here's the basic version:

The New York Lancers, Figure 5

This is the fifth and final post in a series covering the individual figures of Allen Dodworth's New York Lancers, published in Dancing and its relations to education and social life in 1885, and comparing them side-by-side with the figures of Dodworth's standard Lancers.  The earlier posts in the series, covering figures one through four, may be found here, here, here, and here.

The New York Lancers, Figure 4

This is the fourth post a series covering the individual figures of Allen Dodworth's New York Lancers, published in Dancing and its relations to education and social life in 1885, and comparing them side-by-side with the figures of Dodworth's standard Lancers.  The earlier posts in the series may be found here, here, and here.

The New York Lancers, Figure 3

This is the third post in a series covering the individual figures of Allen Dodworth's New York Lancers, published in Dancing and its relations to education and social life in 1885, and comparing them side-by-side with the figures of Dodworth's standard Lancers.  The first post in the series, with some background and a discussion of Figure 1, may be found here.  Figure 2 may be found here.

The New York Lancers, Figure 2

This is the second post in my little series covering the individual figures of Allen Dodworth's New York Lancers, published in Dancing and its relations to education and social life in 1885, and comparing them side-by-side with the figures of Dodworth's standard Lancers.  The first post in the series, with some background and a discussion of Figure 1, may be found here.

The New York Lancers, Figure 1

I recently had the opportunity to reconstruct and teach a Lancers (Quadrille) variant created by New York dancing master Allen Dodworth and published in his lengthy Dancing and its relations to education and social life in 1885 as "Dodworth's New York Lancers."

The figures are easy ones which make a pleasant change of pace for those accustomed to dancing the popular standard Lancers figures or their Saratoga Lancers variant.  They are also the same length as those of the standard Lancers, though sometimes fewer repeats are needed, so they can be used with many existing Lancers recordings.  I thought it would thus be interesting to take a look at the New York Lancers figure by figure and side by side with the usual figures to see exactly how Dodworth went about creating his version. 

A Promiscuous Figure: Flirtation

• Era: circa 1905

A while back I published a couple of posts on so-called "promiscuous figures," which may be substituted into the first set of quadrilles for variety.  The Flirtation figure is another of these, taken from English dancing master William Lamb's How and What to Dance (London, 1903), an undated New York edition of which was published in the first decade of the 20th century.

The figure is probably intended as a finale figure, replacing the usual fifth figure, since it is entirely full-set moves and finishes with a galopade, typically included in finale figures.

Flirtation Figure (8 bars + 32 bars x4 + 8 bars)
8b     Introduction (no bows if replacing a finale figure)

4b     Grand Circle (all take hands and forward and back twice)
4b     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     Chassez with corners; slide right and left, gents coming out of center and back in
4b     Turn corners two hands, ending in gentleman's original place
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

During each iteration of the figure, the ladies move one place counter-clockwise around the set.  The gentlemen all return to their own places, bringing a new lady with them each time.  After four times through the figure, all the ladies are back with their original partners.  There is a final eight-bar "tag" figure to end.

(Edited 7/6/2016 to add: see my later post on this figure for considerably more information!)

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.  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.

My photocopy of the Pollock book is at least third-generation and extremely blurry, but as best I can make it out (I make no guarantees on the punctuation) the description of the dance sequence is as follows:

Gallopade (as described in the original Gallopade) straight forward to the top of the room the lady crossing the gent at the end of each four bars; on arriving at the top, the first couple in one set, faces the first couple of the other set; the second couples faces the second, and so on to the bottom of the dance, then each four perform the figure of Le Pantalon -- the whole of the party then face the bottom of the room, and gallopade as before -- then perform La Poule -- gallopade to the top of the room, and finish with the sauteuse round the room.

While given as a social dance, this makes a spectacular performance piece as well.

A Fancy Medley (1893)

Throughout the mid- and late 19th century, dancing masters had mixed quadrille figures and couple dances such as the waltz, polka, schottische, and galop into single figures or entire quadrilles.  A popular variation on this idea was a "varieties" or medley quadrille in which each figure used a different kind of music and incorporated a different couple dance.  Such a one is this Fancy Medley, published in Boston in 1893 in The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French.  The three figures of the quadrille include a polka figure, a schottische figure, and a waltz figure.  The original instructions may be seen here (page one) and here (page two).  The individual figures are quite similar to some of French's single-figure quadrilles, such as the Waltz Quadrille and Polka Quadrille discussed in earlier posts here (waltz) and here (polka) and bear a close family resemblance to other single-figure quadrilles of the era.

A Polka Quadrille (1893)

By the end of the 19th century,  many quadrilles were being published that didn't follow the earlier form of having multiple separate figures.  Although this short dance does have two distinct parts, they are treated as one long figure.  The source of the dance is The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French, published in Boston in 1893.  The original instructions may be seen here.  There are significant similarities in the figures to the Waltz Quadrille from the same source, which I described in an earlier post, as well a a generic similarity to other one-figure quadrilles of the late 19th century, which typically involve a mix of very simple figures interspersed with the entire set dancing in couples (waltz, polka, galop, etc., depending on the type of quadrille).

The Regency-Era Pas de Basque

In his 1818 dance manual, The Quadrille and Cotillion Panorama, Thomas Wilson provides a list of the ten essential steps for quadrilles (image at left from the second edition, 1822).  The last of these is the "PAS DE BASQUÉ."  Almack's orchestra leader James Paine (or his ghostwriter), in Paine of Almack's Quadrilles, Set I (n.d., probably late 1810s), agrees that:

"Every Lady and Gentleman desirous of Dancing Quadrilles should be Acquainted with the following Steps, which are but few in Quantity and Extremely facile in their performance."

Last on the list given is "Pas des Basques et Emboité en àrriere." 

Advancing & Retiring Sequences for Regency-Era French Quadilles

For the fourth in my series of posts (previously: setting, crossing over, and chassez-dechassez) on the step-sequences usable for various Regency-era French quadrille figures, I've pulled together three easy sequences which may be used for the figure En avant et en arrière (advance and retire or, more colloquially, forward and back), in which some number of dancers move forward to the halfway point of the quadrille set and then backward to places.  It is an extremely common figure; in the first set alone, it appears in multiple figures: L'Été, La Poule, La Trenise, La Pastourelle, and the many versions of the Finale figure which incorporate L'Été.  The move is sometimes written simply as En avant deux (trois, quatre, etc.); the return backwards is implied unless otherwise specified.

Chassez-Dechassez Sequences for Regency-Era French Quadrilles

Chassez, or Move to the Right and Left.
Are terms generally used in Quadrille and Cotillion Dancing, and signify a Movement or Figure made sideways in a straight line, either to the right hand or left of the situation from whence it is performed.
        -- Thomas Wilson in The quadrille and cotillion panorama, 2nd edition, 1822

Continuing on with my series of posts (previously: setting and crossing over) on the step-sequences usable for various Regency-era French quadrille figures, I've pulled together a few sequences suitable for the sideways move known variously as A droite et à gauche (dance or move to the right and to the left) or Chassez-dechassez, in which two dancers opposite each other dance as described: to the right and back to the left.  This figure appears in L'Été, the second figure of the first set of French quadrilles, and in the many versions of the Finale figure which incorporate L'Été.  Wilson, ever the perfectionist, complained to no avail that the figure was wrongly named,

...as they both move to the right and back again to their places, instead of to the left, as described in the title of the Figure. The Movement should be named from the situation in which it is performed, as, to the right or left of the situation from which they move...
        -- Ibid.

Crossing Over Sequences for Regency-Era French Quadrilles

As with setting, there are a number of different step sequences available for dancers to use in the Regency-era quadrille figure Traversez (cross over), in which a lady and the gentleman opposite her exchange places.  Traversez appears most notably in L'Été, the second figure of the first set of French quadrilles, and in the many versions of the Finale figure which incorporate L'Été.  Below I will give a sample of five of the easier step sequences that may be used to dance Traversez.  This is not an exhaustive list of all the period sequences I have for this move, but it should suffice for most dancers.

Eight Easy Setting Sequences for Regency-Era French Quadrilles

I rarely have the opportunity to teach a wide range of Regency-era setting sequences, but there are dozens of them extant and suitable for use in French quadrilles such as the first set.  Using variant setting sequences when setting to one's partner is one of three ways to jazz up the oft-danced first set (the other two being using more exotic sequences for the other figures and changing the figures themselves) as well as in other French quadrilles for the setting part of the omnipresent "Balancez et un tour de mains" (set and turn your partners) figure.

The following selection of eight four-bar setting sequences is drawn from two sources in particular: the Scottish manuscript Contre Danses à Paris 1818 and the useful Elements of the Art of Dancing by Alexander Strathy (Edinburgh, 1822).  Curiously, the best sources for quadrille steps other than the actual French manuals come from Scotland -- the Auld Alliance revived in dance!

An 1860s Schottische Quadrille

Here's a first for Kickery: a reconstruction of an entire quadrille!  The Original Set of Schottische Quadrille [sic] was published in Boston in 1862 in a compilation manual attributed to Elias Howe.  I have found no other sources for this particular quadrille.

I'm going to work through the entire dance figure by figure with a bit of discussion about the choices I made in this reconstruction.  Those who just want to print out the calls and take them off to teach it without having to sort through my reconstructive nattering, despair not: there's a link at the bottom of this post to a PDF handout you can download.

The Lady's Courtesy in the Victorian Ballroom

After discussing the correct performance of the gentleman's bow in the ballroom, it seems appropriate to tackle the movements necessary for ladies to properly perform a courtesy.  In 1875, William De Garmo explained the major difference between the two moves:

In courtesying the knees bend and the body sinks; in bowing the knees do not bend and the upper part of the body is projected forward.  In courtesying, as well as in bowing, the slightest possible inclination of the head forward is admissible.

Ten years later, Allen Dodworth noted that

[The courtesy] is a combination of motions, of no little difficulty, requiring repeated practice for its accomplishment with the necessary ease.  It is singularly artificial and unnatural, and yet is of great beauty when executed by a well-trained lady.

How to perform these unnatural motions?  The sources, unfortunately, are somewhat inconsistent.

The Gentleman's Bow in the Victorian Ballroom

Mid-19th century dance teacher Edward Ferrero writes of the bow and courtesy that they

"...are among the most important rudiments of the Terpsichorean art.  A proper knowledge of them is indispensable to both sexes.  There is no movement so awkward as a stiff bow or courtesy...We have lately been more fully impressed with the necessity of a greater attention, among dancers, to this branch of the art."

It thus seems useful to the modern social dancer or performer to examine the details of the gentleman's bow as performed in the mid- to late 19th century ballroom.  Several dancing masters address the topic in their writing.  Interestingly, all that I have found are American authors; European writers seem not to have felt it necessary to describe the bow.  I suspect this reflects the middle-class audience of the American manuals.

Wrestling with Belle Brandon

(Note: since this post was written, I've expanded my research on this figure and written a follow-up post, Revisiting Chassé Out, which discusses further sources and slightly alters my conclusion about the performance of the chassé out figure.)

Recently my English friend and fellow dance teacher/reconstructor Colin Hume asked on the English Country Dance mailing list for help on some American dances he plans to teach later this month at a festival.  He posted his notes (the final version is now up here) and asked for advice, since he's not a specialist on historical American dance.  I do a lot with quadrilles (French, American, English, Spanish, etc.) so I pounced on the challenge of the 1858 set he proposed to use, the Belle Brandon Set.  This five-figure quadrille is drawn from Howe's Ball-Room Handbook (Boston, 1858) by Massachusetts dancing master and music publisher Elias Howe. 

The first four figures were fairly straightforward, with the first three being pretty much the usual figures of the "First Set" of quadrilles that had been popular for nearly half a century when the manual was published.  Interestingly, they were a more old-fashioned version than those which were popular in the mid-century and which Howe prints elsewhere in the same manual.  Tell-tales include the use of "balance and turn partners" instead of a long balance figure and, in Figure 3, two people crossing back and forth and forming a line rather than four crossing back and forth and going into a basket formation.  It had been common practice from the 1810s onward to use three of the standard figures and then vary the last two, so this set is well within the quadrille tradition.  But the fifth figure proved a real challenge to reconstruct.

More Promiscuous Figures: Gavotte and Minuet

• Era: 1840s to early 1900s, America

Continuing on from my earlier post on promiscuous or fancy quadrille figures, which may be substituted for individual figures in the first set of quadrilles or other well-known sets, here are two more particularly interesting figures.  Both make use of an unusual figure known as "Sides Four," in which the dancers form diagonal lines across the set and then trade partners and reform the lines.  The Gavotte Figure is a lengthy one with one couple per repetition having a sequence of solo moves while the other six dancers watch.  The Minuet Figure is a shortened and simplified version which keeps more of the dancers moving throughout.  Once the essential Sides Four figure is mastered, the figures are easy to call and perform and can be used today as they were then, to add variety to a familiar quadrille, generally as a replacement for either the second or fifth figure.

Neither figure has any choreographic relationship to the gavottes and minuets of previous centuries.

Promiscuous Figures: Basket and Star

• Era: 1840s to early 1900s, America

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the five figures of the first set of quadrilles had grown drearily familiar, and several lively, standardized figures had developed which could be substituted in for one or more of its figures.  These replacement figures were known as "fancy figures" or "promiscuous figures" and could be used to enliven any quadrille.  Two popular ones were the Basket Figure and the Star Figure, with the Basket being slightly more common in period sources.  The Star appeared in dance manuals from the late 1850s all the way into the early 20th century.  The Basket is even earlier, appearing as far back as 1841.  The figures are equally useful today as a way to spice up a well-known quadrille without going to the bother of learning an entire new set of five figures.

A Waltz Quadrille (1893)

By the end of the 19th century, quite a number of quadrilles were being published that didn't follow the earlier form of having multiple separate figures.  Although this dance does have two distinct dance parts, the original instructions (which may be seen here) are clear that they should be treated as one long figure:

Play an ordinary waltz and do not stop between the numbers.

The source of the dance is The Prompter’s Handbook by J.A. French, published in Boston in 1893.  I haven't looked for any other sources for this particular set of figures - it's a trivial little quadrille which I reconstructed in order to have a late-evening set dance that was easy and provided an excuse for plenty of waltzing.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

One of the difficulties in reconstructing 19th century quadrilles lies in the frequent inadequacy of the instructions for the figures.  This might include the lack of information on the amount of music occupied by a particular figure, unspoken assumptions about what is included in a figure, completely omitting a necessary figure or instruction, and the use of unconventional figures or timing.  One might simply ignore such dances, as there is hardly a shortage of quadrilles which lend themselves to straightforward reconstructions.  But for the dance historian it is an intriguing mental challenge to wrestle with these quadrilles and come up with workable reconstructions, even if at times this involves some creativity in the interpretation of the instructions.

Among these reconstruction challenges is the quadrille described in the notable mid-19th century source, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll, 1865).  Popularly known as the Lobster-Quadrille, it is notable both for its specific geographic requirements (it is impossible to perform the figures anywhere other than the seashore), its unusual partnering (every couple must include a lobster), and its unique figures, such as the swimming somersault.

Rhymes with Terpsichore

This post is dedicated to Tania, with thanks for the unexpected shout-out that made my day!

Giving this blog a name was quite the challenge.  I wanted something memorable and dance-related, but not obviously specific to any one era, since I post about dance across several centuries.  I found the phrase "capering & kickery" in the chorus of a Regency-era song on the quadrille fad hitting London in the late 1810s.  How could I resist any phrase that rhymes with “flirting with Terpsichore”?

The song is "Quadrilling", published in Birmingham in 1820.  I am reproducing the complete lyrics below; you can see them reprinted (fairly legibly) here in the 1834 collection The Universal Songster, courtesy of Google Book Search, and can also see a facsimile of the original handwritten lithograph edition (with the music and hilarious illustrations!) at the wonderful Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music at Johns Hopkins University, which has webbed it here.  There are minor variations, primarily in punctuation and capitalization, between the two editions which I have not bothered to mark; I have generally followed the 1834 printed edition below.  I have also gone through and annotated the dance terms and other period references for your amusement and/or edification.  The overall theme of the song is the wide range of people infatuated with the quadrille, referenced both in the chorus (lines 5-7) and in almost every stanza as noted below.

Star Light, Star Bright: Reconstructing the "Star" Quadrille Figure

In his manual on quadrilles, early 19th-century (“Regency”) London dancing master Thomas Wilson wrote hopefully that his diagrams,

... together with the printed Directions appended, will enable any person, by marking the Figures on a floor, to perform them correctly without the aid of a Master.
    Thomas Wilson, The quadrille and cotillion panorama, 2nd ed., London, 1822

Quadrilles, the ancestors of the modern square dance, were popular in England from the 1810s onward, displacing the longways country dance from its former preeminence in the ballroom.  Wilson’s diagrams and directions are in fact quite helpful in deciphering many of the figures needed for the Regency-era quadrille, but he does have occasional failures, as in the figure “L’Etoile” or “The Star”.