1900s

Dance Title	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
Bonnets So Blue	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Duple Minor
Brighton Camp	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Longways as many as will
The Butterfly	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Duple Minor
The Flowers of Edinburgh ~ Sharp	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909	Colin Hume	Duple Minor
Galopede	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Longways as many as will permutation: 23451
Haste to the Wedding ~ Sharp #1	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Triple Minor
Haste to the Wedding ~ Sharp #2	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Duple Minor
Hunt the Squirrel ~ 1909	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909	A Playford Ball Bare Necessities	Triple Minor
Nancy's Fancy	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Duple Minor
Pop Goes The Weasel ~ Sharp #1	English Traditional 1852 Cecil Sharp 1909	Colin Hume	Duple Minor
Pop Goes The Weasel ~ Sharp #2	English Traditional 1852 Cecil Sharp 1909	Colin Hume	Duple Minor
Ribbon Dance	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Longways as many as will permutation: 23451
Speed the Plough	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Duple Minor
Step and Fetch Her	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Triple Minor
Three Meet or The Pleasures of the Town	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Triple Minor
Tink-A-Tink	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Triple Minor
The Triumph ~ Sharp	Preston 1793 Cecil Sharp 1909		Triple Minor
We Won't Go Home Until Morning	English Traditional ~1909 Cecil Sharp 1909		Duple Minor

1910s

Dance Title	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
Circassian Circle ~ Burchenal	G.M.S. Chivers 1822 Elizabeth Burchenal 1918	Colin Hume	Duple Minor
The Merry Haymakers ~ Burchenal	Elias Howe 1858 Elizabeth Burchenal 1918		Duple Minor
Sicilian Circle ~ Burchenal	G.M.S. Chivers 1822 Elizabeth Burchenal 1918	Colin Hume	Duple Minor

1930s

Dance Title	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Formation
Bonny Breast Knot	English Traditional (date unknown) Maud Karpeles & Cecil Sharp ~1930	3 Couple Longways permutation: 231
Meg Merrilees ~ Karpeles	J. P. Boulogne 1827 Maud Karpeles 1936	Duple Minor
Grapevine Twist - Coffman	Charlotte Coffman ~1930 Lloyd Shaw 1939	Square

1940s

Dance Title	Type	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
The Girl I Left Behind Me #1		Duke Miller 1949 Ralph Page 1949		Square

1950s

Dance Title	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Formation
Hull's Victory ~ (Swing)	Essex Manuscript ~1830 Cracking Chestnuts	Duple Minor
Tom Pate	Joseph Binns Hart ~1819 Sibyl Clark 1954	Four Face Four
Banks of the Dee	Ralph Page 1949 Rickey Holden 1956	Duple Minor
Good Girl	John Schell 1890 Rickey Holden 1956	Duple Minor

1960s

Dance Title	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
Miss Sayers' Allemand	Thomas Budd 1781 Bernard Bentley 1962 Playford Ball		3 Couple Longways permutation: 231
Nottingham Swing	Traditional (date unknown) Douglas Kennedy 1964	Colin Hume	Duple Minor
Genet's Recall ~ Duple	Traditional 1799 Ralph Page ~1965 Cracking Chestnuts		Duple Minor
Genet's Recall ~ Triple	Traditional 1799 Ralph Page ~1965 Cracking Chestnuts		Triple Minor
Dandies' Hornpipe ~ Duple	Traditional ~1820 Ralph Page 1968 Cracking Chestnuts		Duple Minor
Dandies' Hornpipe ~ Triple	Traditional ~1820 Ralph Page 1968 Cracking Chestnuts		Triple Minor

1970s

Dance Title	Type	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
The Installation		Thompson 1772 Tom Cook 1979 Playford Ball	Bare Necessities	3 Couple Longways permutation: 231

1980s

Dance Title	Type	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
Kernan's Contra		Ken Kernan 1977 Al Olson ~1983		Triple Minor

2000s

Dance Title	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
The Young Widow ~ Smukler	John Griffiths 1788 David Smukler 2005 Cracking Chestnuts	Bare Necessities	Triple Minor
Beaux of Oak Hill	Elias Howe 1862 Smukler & Millstone ~2008		Duple Minor
French Four	Elias Howe 1858 Smukler & Millstone ~2008 Cracking Chestnuts		Duple Minor
Green Mountain Volunteers	Elizabeth Burchenal 1918 Smukler & Millstone ~2008		Duple Minor
Lady of the Lake	Elias Howe 1858 Smukler & Millstone ~2008 Cracking Chestnuts		Duple Minor
Lady Walpole's Reel	Elias Howe 1862 Smukler & Millstone ~2008 Cracking Chestnuts		Duple Minor
Morning Star	Elizabeth Burchenal 1918 Smukler & Millstone ~2008		Duple Minor
Soldier's Joy ~ Chestnuts	Elias Howe 1858 Smukler & Millstone ~2008 Cracking Chestnuts		Duple Minor
Washington Quickstep	Elias Howe 1858 Smukler & Millstone ~2008 Cracking Chestnuts		Duple Minor

2010s

Dance Title	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
Moll Peatly, the New Way	Henry Playford 1701 Michael Barraclough ~2017		Duple Minor
Kettle Drum	John Playford 1651 Scott Pfitzinger ~2019	MGM and Reunion	Square
Misunderstood Loon	Nathaniel Jack 2019 SBCDS 2019		Becket

2020s

Dance Title	Deviser (or Editor/Publisher), Date, Interpreter	Music Performers	Formation
Mountain Hornpipe	Elias Howe 1862 George Williams 2021		Triple Minor
Arkansas Traveller	Elias Howe 1858 George Williams 2022	Colin Hume	Triple Minor
La Belle Frêne	Hezekiah Cantelo 1785 George Williams 2022		Triple Minor
Lady Round the Lady - Hume	Ralph Page 1956 Colin Hume 2022	Colin Hume	Square
Lady Round the Lady - Page	Ralph Page 1956 Colin Hume 2022	Colin Hume	Square
Lady Round the Lady - Hume	Ralph Page 1956 Colin Hume 2022	Colin Hume	Square
Lady Round the Lady - Page	Ralph Page 1956 Colin Hume 2022	Colin Hume	Square
Old Dan Tucker ~ Link	Charles Link 1893 George Williams 2022		Custom
Border Reel	Wright 1740 Bob Lilley ~2023		Duple Minor
Circassian Circle - CDM	Maud Karpeles 1928 Colin Hume 2024	Colin Hume	Circle as many as will
The Original Tampete ~ Burnton	Burnton 1851 George Williams 2024		Four Face Four
La Tempete Originale ~ Hofer	Mari Ruef Hofer 1917 George Williams 2024		Four Face Four
The Original Tampete ~ Burnton	Burnton 1851 George Williams 2024		Four Face Four
La Tempete Originale ~ Hofer	Mari Ruef Hofer 1917 George Williams 2024		Four Face Four

Number of dances	Number of versions	Number with music
58	58	13

Warning: The figures for each dance is generated programmatically by regular expression matching and may be in error. Also, for old dances, they reflect the figures used by the interpreter which may not match those of the deviser.

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:

Circle—(page 18) swing six hands round
Two hand turn—(page 27) swing to place with both hands
Hand turn—(page 31) all balance and turn partners to place — first four lead to the right, balance and swing round to place
Right hands across star—(page 34) four ladies cross right hands and swing half round
pull-by—(page 38) First lady swing the right hand gentleman with the right hand, next with the left hand — and so with the others, swinging partner last
Place someone—(page 45) the gentlemen... swing your partner to the centre
Modern Swing?—(page 85) — first four cross hands half round, swing partners —

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.

Swing

History

In summary

See Also