Right And Left 4

Right and left 4 is a figure for two couples, usually from a proper formation. Pass through by the right, taking right hands and dropping them. Then standing next to the same person you were next to originally (but on the other side of the set), the person on the left walks backward while the person on the right forward and you wheel around to face in. It's like a right and left through but without taking hands in the courtesy turn.

History

Elias Howe in the 1850s+60s uses the term "Right and Left 4" and "Right and Left" interchangeably, but he defines neither, and I suspect he probably has the traditional definition of Right and Left in mind.

Right and Left

This is executed either by two opposite couples (as in The Circle), or by two women with two opposite men (as in Hull's Victory, Old Zip Coon, etc. It consists of two dancers' exchanging places with the opposite dancers in the following manner:

The two couples advance toward each other, and "pass through," the one on the right in each couple going between the opposite two (Diagram 9.)

Then, keeping side by side as if their inside hands were joined, each couple continue to the opposite side, wheeling half around (to do this, the one on the left makes a left-about-face and walks backward, keeping the right shoulder toward the other's left shoulder), thus finishing on the opposite side with the right one still on the right and the left one still on the left. (Diagram 10.) All this is done in eight steps (4 measures).

The then return in the same manner to their original position (4 measures).

In 1956 Rickey Holden says much the same thing on page 44 of his The Contra Dance Book.

Finally Smukler & Millstone define it on page 14 of Cracking Chestnuts, 2008. But they were reviving old traditions, not specifying current behavior.

Right And Left 4

History

Right and Left

Some dances which (probably) use this figure

See Also