The Corporation
Country Dances, Ancient and Modern

Swing

Bars: 2,4,6 or 8.

A couple stands in ballroom position and turns clockwise about their center, using either a walking step or a buzz step.

History

The partner swing is an essential part of a modern Contra Dance or Square Dance. A dance without a swing is greeted with dismay in our local contra group.

But the swing did not exist in Playford's day, nor in the early Regency period.

I assume the swing is a simplified offshoot of the waltz, a waltz without steps as it were. As far as I know people did not stand in what is now called "Ballroom Position" before the waltz, I'm sure that would have been quite shocking (as indeed the waltz was).

But when did the swing evolve?

Well, it is NOT in Wilson's list of country dance figures from 1808. And as I mentioned earlier there's nothing like it in Playford.

The Regency Dance site says that a dance from 1807 called The Russian Ambassador's Waltz was the first country dance where couples waltz briefly as part of the dance.

There was a style of quadrilles called "Waltz Quadrilles" where waltzing was treated as a figure of the quadrille, Chivers describes Les Valse Quadrilles as early as 1821 in "The Dancer's Guide".

The Complete Ball-Room Hand-Book, Elias Howe, Boston, 1858 includes a category called "Waltz Contra Dances" (page 97) where waltzing is an integral part of the dance, but the waltzing usually seems to involve going somewhere rather than the stationary partner swing.

Cinderrela Waltz
Form as for common Contra dance First lady and second gentleman balance and turn First gentleman and second lady balance and turn two couples waltz down the centre and back right and left four.

Wilson's list does define "Swing Corners" (page 33), this is not a "Swing" in the modern sense, just a turn. Swing is often used in the sense of a hand turn, David Wall's The Russian Dance from 1775 is the earliest example I've found so far.

Hillgrove, in The scholars' companion and ball-room vade mecum, New York, 1857, also uses uses "swing" to mean a hand turn in his descriptions of Contra Dances (page 78):

First couple give the right hand, and swing once and a half round;

Howe, in The Complete Ball-Room Hand-Book, Boston, 1858, uses "swing" in a number of senses:

He does not define his terms, and uses the word "swing" in so many senses it can be hard to understand exactly what is meant, there are a few cases where he doesn't provide any context, and the word might have it's modern meaning. In the last case above, the dance is Arkansas Traveller and 60 years later Burchenal's version of that dance does have a partner swing in the same place, so perhaps Howe intends the modern meaning.. On the other hand Schell's Prompting: How to do it (Boston, ~1890) does not have a partner swing in this dance.

The term "swing" was still being used in the sense of a hand turn in Cowboy Dances, Lloyd Shaw, 1939 (page 50) when he discusses teaching allemande left to square dancers:

The caller will explain that the complete call is usually given in some such form as:

Allemande left with your left hand,
Then right hand partner and right and left grand,

but that until they get more used to the call and the idea he will use a simpler form which goes:

Swing your left hand lady with your left hand,
Then right hand partner and right and left grand,

And even today Square Dance uses "Swing through" to describe a series of pull-bies.

The first clear record I have of "swing" in the modern sense comes from Cecil Sharp's The Country Dance Book, part 1, 1909 where it is used in every single one of the dances in that work. He defines it as:

Partners meet, engage in waltz fashion, and dance round in a small circle between the lines of the General Set. At the beginning of the last bar they disengage, return to places, and bow to each other.

The step varies with the rhythm of the music, and may take any one of the three following forms: (1) The waltz step: (2) the polka step or a modification of it: (3) step and hop on alternate feet.

Country dancers sometimes, though very rarely, substitute for the Swing the more conventional Set or Set-to-partners, a figure which is familiar to all quadrille dancers. This was the invariable custom in the ball-room where the Swing, as described above, was quite unknown.

There was, however, a figure known to fashionable dancers as the Swing, but this was performed in quite another manner: Partners met, joined right hands, turned slowly round from right to left and returned to places.

Emma Burchenal in American Country Dances, 1918, defines Partner Swing (and Balance and Swing) on page xii.

The most usual way of executing the "Balance and Swing" to-day, is for partners to meet, take "ordinary dance position" (the usual way of holding partner for waltzing), and swing around vigorously with the buzz-step. Originally the "Balance" was executed before the swing, but for some reason this has been almost universally abandoned, so that the expression "Balance and Swing" now means nothing more that "Swing Partners".

If you look up Burchenal's dances in Howe you will find that many of the places where she has a "Balance and Swing" Howe has a simple "Balance" (Circassian Circle, The Merry Haymakers, etc.). Burchenal defines five different ways to "Balance" and perhaps this flexibility allowed it to become a swing?

In the square dance world the picture is mixed. Cecil Sharp does not describe it as part of The Kentucky Running Set (an early square dance) in 1918. Henry Ford/Lovett defines it in Good Morning (a collection of dances, including squares and contras) in 1925, and uses it in both squares and contras.

TURN PARTNERS—(4) Lady and gentlemen join both hands (shoulder high) and turn once around. To swing partner in waltz position, weight of body should rest on half of right foot, turning with toe of left foot.

Ida Levin does not use it in Kentucky Square Dances in 1928. Lloyd Shaw uses it in Cowboy Dances in 1939.

In summary

The word swing was not used (or very rarely) in the modern sense in the 1850s on either side of the Atlantic, but was used that way around 1910 on both sides. Swinging was an integral part of the English Country Dance tradition that Cecil Sharp found still extant, but after his revival that figure seems to have died away. It is almost never used in modern ECDs, though waltzing does occasionally get a look in. The Contra and Square Dance traditions of the US have continued to count swinging as an integral part of their repertory.

Mary McNab Dart in Contra Dance Choreography, a Reflection of Social Change, 1995, has an interesting discussion of how the swing continued to grow in popularity between 1950 and 1990.

Petronella Turn

The dance Petronella was devised by Nathaniel Gow in about 1820, and involved a signature movement which became known as the Petronella Turn. This has become integral to both modern Scottish and American Contra dancing (and is occasionally seen in English).

In modern Scottish a Petronella turn involves a pas-de-basque step to the right (ending facing out), followed by another pas-de-basque step which turns round 180 in place to face back in.

In modern Contra, the figure involves moving right while spinning approximately 360.

But if you look at the Lowes, who published in Edinburgh in 1831 they describe the figure as First couple chassé round to the right.

By ~1868 in Glasgow Wilcock says: First couple turn round to the right which might be a description of the modern contra way of doing it.

The first description I know of from the US is in The Pianist's Matinee: A Collection of Music for the Piano-Forte, Howe, Boston, 1868, where it is described as First couple turn round to the right, and set in centre of dance.

Some dances which (probably) use this figure

See Also

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