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Country Dances, Ancient and Modern

Ladies’ Chain

Also known as: Chaîne des dames, Ladies’ Change.

Bars: 8.

Ladies’ Chain In the original version of the ladies’ chain, two couples are facing each other (lady on man’s right). The ladies move into the center and take right hands briefly as they pass by right. Meanwhile the men cast into a small counter clockwise circle. After two bars the ladies are approximately where the opposite man started, while the men are approximately where their partners started, they take left hands on the side lines and turn around counter-clockwise for 2 more bars until the ladies are again facing in. Then the process repeats, the men doing essentially the same thing (except with their partners now), and the ladies going back to their original sides and turning their original partners.

Variants

In a Grand Ladies’ Chain then all the ladies in the set will form a right hand star, turn it half, and then turn the opposite man left, and cross back the same way.

In a Gents’ chain, two men will cross by the left hand and then turn right half with the opposite lady, and cross back the same way.

In Square and Contra dancing, the figure has mutated so that it ends with a courtesy turn. Also, somewhere between 1960 and 1980 the term "ladies’ chain" in these two styles, came to mean what originally would have been half a ladies’ chain. (This seems to have happened first in Square dancing, and later in Contra).

History

Nicholas Dukes, 1752, does not describe a ladies’ chain.

The first use I know of a Ladies’ Chain occurs in Ignatius Sancho’s Cotillions &c. published 1776, in the dance L’Bon Ton. He uses neither the French nor the English name for the figure, but simply describes it:

The top and bottom Ladies give Right hands in the Centre and turn contrary Partners with the Left hand give Right hands again in the Centre and turn their own Partners with the Left hand

Then Malpied (Paris, 1785) gives an name to the figure and describes it with Feuillet diagrams in Les Caracteres des Contre~Danses, page 18. He calls it La petite chaine des Dames (the little Ladies’ Chain), he also introduces La petite chaine des Cavaliers (Men’s Chain). His petite chaines are for two couples, so I presume a grande chaine would be for all four in a square, but he doesn’t seem to include that.

Wilson does not mention Ladies’ Chain as a Country Dance figure in his Complete System of English Country Dancing from 1815, but he does in his book on Quadrilles from 1822:

8.—CHAINE DES DAMES ENTIERE

Les deux Dames de vis à vis se donnent la main droite, tournent les Cavaliers de vis à vis avec la gauche, se donnent la droite au milieu, et tournent leurs Cavaliers avec la gauche aux places.

8.—LADIES’ CHAIN.

The two opposite Ladies give right hands, swing the opposite Gentlemen with the left, join right hands in the centre, and swing their partners with left to places.

This version of the Ladies’ Chain was used in Le Pantalon from Payne’s 1st Set of Quadrilles (1815). Chivers’s The Modern Dancing Master, 1822 uses Ladies’ Chain in his Circassian Circle dances (page 184) for example: La Daphne which brought it into Country Dancing.

Ladies’ chain depends on one couple being improper, so it didn’t work very well in the proper country dances of the late 1700s and so didn’t transfer from Cotillions to Country Dances until Chivers brought back improper dances and introduced Circassian circles in about 1822.

In the US, Schell’s book Prompting: How to Do It, Boston, 1890, defines:

Ladies’ Chain.—(8.) Danced by opposite couples at the same time. Opposite ladies cross, give right hand, in passing, join left hand with opposite gen, and turn half round. Repeat, swinging partners with left hand to place.

Henry Ford’s (Benjamin Lovett’s) Good Morning was still using this version in 1925:

(Ladies cross to opposite sides, giving right hands as they pass each other. Give left hands to opposite gentlemen and turn half around. Give right hands back, left hands to partners, and turn to places.)

The first source for a ladies’ chain with a courtesy turn is Burchenal’s American Country Dances from 1918:

Ladies’ Chain

This is danced by two couples facing each other, with the women on the right of their partners. The two women advance toward each other and join right hands; passing each other, they release right hands and join left hands with the opposite men. Without releasing her left hand, each man puts his right arm around the woman’s waist and swings her half around, so that they face the dancers on the opposite side. All this is done in eight steps (4 measures). During the next four measures the same is repeated, so that the women return to their own partners, who swing them around in the same manner, so all finish in their original positions (8 measures).

Burchenal’s ladies’ chain does not quite end in a courtesy turn, as there is no indication that the ladies’ right hands should receive the gentleman’s hand on her waist.

Up to, and including, Ricky Holden's The Contra Dance Book, 1956 the ladies' chain went over and back (so that everyone finished where they started with the same partner). In CallerLab's 1979 definition "Ladies' Chain" meant what had previously been called "Half Ladies' Chain". But in 1986 Tony Parkes was still saying "Ladies Chain" meant over and back.

References

Some dances which (probably) use this figure

See Also

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