irst there was Playford

Well, not quite first. But Playford did publish the first collection of country dances containing both music and a description of the figures in 1651.

Slightly prior to Playford is the Lovelace (Patticke) Manuscript, a hand written document in a library at Harvard which contains descriptions of about 33 dances mixed in with random bits of poems and whatever struck the author's fancy. This manuscript is undated, but was probably written between 1621 and 1649. Several of the dance descriptions are incomplete. Some of the dance titles appear later in Playford, often, but not always, with a similar figure.

The Playford dances (and Lovelace dances) are generally quite complex and well thought out (and use quite complex sub-figures). There are also decided idioms in the style. They do not seem to be indicative of a new style, but of something well established.

A Lively Shape of Dauncing claims (without providing references) that a number of Playford dances were around in Shakespeare's day.

They suggest that the dance Dargason / Sedanny, which is like nothing else in Playford, is a survivor of a style from the 15 hundreds that predated the Country Dance.

Playford's version of Dargason uses a hey, indicating that figure may date back to the 15 hundreds.

They say that a number of other "Playford" dances were being danced around 1600, singling out Sellengers Round, The Night Peece, and Putney Ferry.

Playford's versions of these last three dances all use the Up-a-double/Siding/Arming pattern indicating that this style of dance may date back to 1600.

(I say "may" because the name of the dance is more likely to reflect the tune than the figure. There are a few dances in Lovelace with the same name as a Playford dance but a different figure. The Chirping of the Nightingale being one. Thus with just the name of a dance one can't be sure that the figure matches.)

The Playford Assembly, Graham Christian, Easthampton, Ma. 2015, also claims an early provenance for Sellengers Round, as well as Huff Hannikin, (1623) and Trenchmore.

Shakespeare mentions dance frequently in his plays, but he never names any, nor does he ever use the term "Country Dance" (or if he does, I haven't found it). He does mention other styles:

BEATRICE:... For, hear me Hero:
wooing, wedding and repenting, is as a Scotch jig,
a measure, and a cingue pace: ...

— Much Ado about Nothing, II.i

▼ Country Dance Vocabulary

How things have changed

Table of Contents

• Starting a dance
• Steps (footwork)
• Multi Part
• Improper
  • Becket
• Triple Minor
• Multiple Progression
• Formation
• Figures
• Music
• Calling
• Country Dance/Contredanse/Contra Dance
• The End of Country Dancing
• The Revival of Country Dancing
• New England Contra Dance
• Scottish Country Dance
• Square, Cotillions, Quadrilles and Squares again
• New Dances
• Social Class
• Timeline
• References

Country dances have been around for three or four or maybe five centuries now. Unsurprisingly things have changed over that time. Some changes are clear, while others are hidden from us because we don't even realize how things were done before.

Starting a dance

In modern Country Dances everyone starts dancing at once (except, possibly the bottom couple), but that is not how things were done in Playford's day.

In his day only the top two couples of a duple minor set (three for a triple minor, of course) would start. After they had danced once the top couple would go down to the next couple(s) below and dance with them. The original second couple would wait at the top until there enough couples below them, and then they would start dancing down as 1s.

No one started until the top couple reached them.

When the original top couple reached the bottom they would start up the set as 2s. When they reached the top they would stop. But the dance would not. Now the top couple would wait, and the dance would end when each couple had reached its original place. (if there are n couples then this takes 3*n-3 repetitions of the dance in a duple minor, and 4*n-4 in a triple minor).

In part this was because the top couple would choose the dance, and would teach it to each couple below by dancing it with them. They did not have walk-throughs beforehand to teach the dance.

As an example of this, for an improper duple minor see: (untitled Ecossoise), for a triple minor: The Carnival of Venice.

There is still a vestige of this style of dancing in Scottish Country's 2 couple dance in a 4 couple set, where only the top two couples dance the first time through.

Things were even more complicated when a dance consisted of two (or more) parts as Jamaica does.

In a multi-part dance, the original top couple would dance down the set as 1s doing the first part of the dance, then dance up as 2s. Then they'd wait until there were enough couples below and start the second part, even though most couples below them would still be dancing the first part.

This makes for some difficulty in calling the dance: What can a caller say when two different dances are going on at once? Of course, in Playford's day the dances were not called so that problem wasn't significant.

In the 1820s Chivers started inventing new ways to do country dances (Mescolanze, Circassian Circle dances and reintroducing improper dances) he still has only the top minorset begining the dance.

▶ Quotes and Justification

Steps

In the US, or at least in Santa Barbara, we dance everything with a walking step. occasionally slipping or skipping. I gather from Colin Hume that in England people will sometimes use other steps.

But that wasn't always the case. Playford says nothing about steps, not surprising since he says nothing about technique. John Essex has two comments on steps for country dancing in For the Further Improvement of Dancing, 1710, he says the following (on page 7):

Tho^ my designe is not to mark any steps in Country Dances, being willing to leave the Dancers y^e liberty of composing the same as they please

which I take to mean that dancers are free to use whatever steps they may have invented. However later he is a bit more restrictive (on page 15):

Advice concerning y^e steps that best sute with Country Dances

The most ordinary steps in Country Dances (those excepted that are upon Minuet Airs) are steps of Gavot, drive sideways Bouree step and some small Jumps forward of either Foot in a hopping Manner, or little hopps in all round Figures as the preeceding & following are, one may make little hopps or Bouree steps but little hopps are more in fashion.

As it is ordinary that every figure of a Dance ends at every cadence of end of the Aire, it will be proper to make a small Jump upon both Feet.

In all figures that goe forwards and backward, or backwards and forwards, you must always make Gavott steps.

In all figures that goe sideways you must always drive sideways.

When it will be requisite to make other steps than them wee have mentiond, as Rigadoon steps, balances &c. they shall be mark'd upon y^e figures.

In other words, in 1710, everything was danced, not walked.

James Morrison (in his Twenty Four Early American Country Dances, Cotillions & Reels for the Year 1976, page 9) says that There appears to have been an increasing emphasis on elaborate steps in country dances as the 18^th century progressed. This emphasis was perhaps the cause of a simultaneous trend towards less complex figures. There were a large number of setting steps known by the end of the century, although most of these have not yet been deciphered.

Cecil Sharp in his interpretations ascribes to most dances what he calls a running step.

Colin Hume suggests that this got largely lost in the UK during the Square Dance boom of the 1950s and 60s when people switched from learning dances to having them called.

In the US, complicated steps were lost long before the 1950s. In Boston, in 1802, Saltator presents 20 different ways of stepping. So they were still in use then. But by 1857 in New York, Hillgrove says:

Of late, the style has become so simplified, that nothing more than a graceful walk, with a correct musical step and a thorough knowledge of the figure is deemed requisite for taking part in any of the fashionable quadrilles.

And by 1918, as Emma Burchenal says in her American Country-dances (New York/Boston, 1918) page xii:

The invariable step used throughout these dances (unless otherwise specified) is an easy, natural walking step.

Scottish Country Dances enforce steps. Essex gave dancers their choice of steps, but Scottish does not. However, in the one case I've been able to check, these steps are not historically accurate. The Scottish dance, Petronella uses a pas-de-basque step for its signature figure, while the earliest version of the dance I've found specifies a chassé step.

Multi Part

Most of the dances in The English Dancing Master of 1651 are multi-part dances, often three part dances each part starting with either "Up-a-double", "Siding" or "Arming" (USA dances). The dances in the Lovelace Manual follow a similar pattern.

Over time new dances began to lose the "Siding" and "Arming". The fashion changed so that there was a single introduction based on leading up. And eventually even the introduction got lost.

The last "Up-a-double, Siding, Arming" dance published by John Playford was in 1670 in the 4th edition of the Dancing Master.

50 years later his grandson-in-law published one more USA dance, the Fairy Queen (John Young, 1726 in the Third Volume of the Dancing Master). Which looks like a dance from 1651.

(I have not examined every Playford dance, I may have missed a few, but the trend is clear).

In 1808 Thomas Wilson published An Analysis of Country Dancing where he describes all the figures then in use in Country Dancing. He does not list "up-a-double", "siding", nor "arming". The entire format was gone.

In 1932, Marjorie Heffer and William Porter revived it in their book of new dances, Maggot Pie.

Cotillions, a style of square dance which originated in France and were popular in England between 1760 and the advent of the quadrille in ~1815, also were a form of multi-part dance, with 10 standard changes (common to all cotillions) and a fixed figure which differed from cotillion to cotillion.

Improper

There are not many improper duple minor dances in Playford, but there are a few.

There is one in The English Dancing Master of 1651 (I don't think there are any in Lovelace), A Soldier's Life.

It is a little different from a modern improper dance: the 1s do not start improper. Instead the first time through the dance they do something different than they do on subsequent iterations: they become improper. In this dance they also progress.

In the second edition, in 1652, there is another improper dance which follows this format, Touch and Take, here, again, the first iteration of the dance has the 1s changing sides.

By 1679, in Old Simon the King the 1s started out improper.

There are (at least) six more improper dances in the various editions of the Dancing Master, right up to the end, when John Young published three in his third volume (1726). Thomas Bray (1699) also devised three improper dances, and John Essex describes how to dance improper dances in 1710 (though he does not present any of his own).

Then I have found no more until Chivers starts describing Ecossoise dances in 1821. He seems unaware of the earlier tradition from 100 years before himself, and postulates that they developed by serendipitous "mistake".

John Playford does not use the word "proper" (or "improper") in any of his dances, but his son, Henry, starts using it in the 8th edition of the Dancing Master in 1690 (the first one he edits). The last use in England I have found was by Hezekiah Cantelo in 1785. Chivers doesn't use it. But in about 1830 both Smyth and the Lowes use it in their descriptions of St. Patrick's Day.

The dance Childgrove is usually danced improper now, but Playford did not describe it that way. He draws his standard little picture of proper dancers. The Playford Ball (Keller & Shimer, 1994) says that the fashion for dancing it improper arose in the 1940s.

Henry Playford also published an improper triple minor dance, Arrundel Street. And then the Neals published another, Rossmore in about 1726. In 1926 the (R)SCDS published Lady MacIntosh's Rant which is an improper 3 couple dance in a 4 couple set. Then in the 1950s+60s there was a burst of improper triple minor contra dances.

In Greenwood, a 3 couple longways dance from 1651, Playford shows the 2s improper (he draws a little picture of the initial set up. These pictures are not always accurate but nothing in Playford is).

In Lull Me Beyond Thee, from 1651, and Ten Pound Lass, from 1670, both 4 couple longways dances, Playford shows the 3s+4s improper.

In the US, Howe, 1858, Boston, and Burchenal, 1918, US, both publish a number of improper duple minor dances (but no improper triples or whole set dances). By 1956 Holden (US) publishes a number of improper triples, and by 1983 Jennings (Cambridge, Ma.) publishes more improper dances than proper ones.

In Scotland improper dances do not seem popular. The SCDS published one improper three couple dance in a four couple set in Book 3: Lady MacIntosh's Rant; note that this is based on a dance by Rutherford, which was proper. In Books 7 & 9 the SCDS published 2 improper two couple dances in a 4 couple set: Come Ashore, Jolly Tar. I'm not aware of any other improper minor set dances, but there are a few three and four couple where some couples are improper such as Paisley Weavers,, which is a 3 couple longways dance with the 2s improper.

Becket

In a Becket style dance the dancers conceptually start with an improper formation and rotate it each minor set by ninety degrees (so that each dancer stands beside his/her partner rather than across the set). I had assumed that the eponymous Becket Reel (devised by Herbie Gaudreau in ~1957) was the first.

But in RSCDS Book 2 (published 1926) there is a dance called The Glasgow Highlanders, which uses a counter-clockwise becket formation. Being Scottish the dance starts with everyone lined up proper, and at the second chord the first minor set scurries to find their desired places. This dance has no source attribution in the original book 2, later it was said to have been found in Walter F. Gillies' Manual of Dancing, or a Companion to the Ballroom, Glasgow, c. 1885 (see SCDDB).

Gary Roodman has a few four couple longways dances where each foursome is in Becket formation.

Formation

Playford's dances start in: single lines, double lines (longways), triple lines (three face three), two couples facing, circles, squares, triangles, really all kinds of shapes. Most of the dances from 1651 are longways, but there are 18 (of 105) which are in other shapes, but these fade away. The last dances starting in circles or squares were published in 1670 in the 4th edition. In the Regency period "Country Dance" had come to mean just longways minor set dances (and mostly just triple minor dances).

The square formation (though no other form of circle) did reappear under the name of cotillion (or contredanse française), and later as quadrilles.

There are two three-face-three dances in 1651, and none after that until Chivers prints some in 1821.

Dances for two facing couples were present in the Lovelace manuscript, and new ones were printed in the first three editions of The Dancing Master (1651, 1652, and 1657), but none after that.

Three couple longways dances were present in the Lovelace manuscript, and again in the first three editions of Playford, and none after that.

Four couple longways dances were present in Lovelace, and in the first four editions of Playford (1651, 1652, 1657, and 1670). The only one published after that was Fairy Queen, which, as I've said before, seems a total anachronism.

Improper dances also fade away during the 18th century, the last I have found is from 1726.

The Sicilian Circle formation (originally called Circassian Circle) makes its debut in Chivers, 1822, as does the Mescolanzes format (four face four), and he also revives the improper dance (calling it Ecosoisse) and the three face three calling it Swedish, seemingly unaware that they existed before.

Title	# Dances	Minor Set												Whole Set
		Singleton		Duple			Triple		Trios		4 Face 4			Long	Circ	Square	Other
		Long	Circ	Prop	Imp	Sic	Prop	Imp	Long	Sic	Long	Sic	Tempest
Lovelace Manuscript ~1640	32			12%										69%	3%	9%	6%
The Engliſh Dancing Maſter London, 1651	104	1%	1%	22.1%	1%									57.7%	6.7%	8.7%	1.9%
Two Hundred Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 8 London, ~1756	199			16.6%			83.4%
The Dancers Guide London, 1821	145				10.3%		73.8%		7.6%		8.3%
American Dancing Master Boston, 1862	102		1%	38.2%	2%	3.9%	41.2%			1%	1%	1%		7.8%		1%	2%
Unique Dancing Call Book Rochester, NY, 1893	12			33%		8%	17%					8%	8%	17%			8%
Anderson's Solo Dance Guide Dundee, 1897	83			53%	2.4%	6%	24%		1%		5%			5%		2.4%	1%
The Country Dance Book, Part 1 London, 1909	18			44%			39%							17%
American Country-dances, Vol. 1 New York, 1918	28			29%	14%	11%	21%					4%		14%			7%
The Scottish Country Dance Book, Books 1-12 Edinburgh, 1924-1938	144		0.1%	23.6%	2.1%	2.1%	58.6%	0.1%		0.1%	0.1%			7.9%		0.1%	2.1%
The Contra Dance Book Newark, 1956	112			39.3%	14.3%	6.2%	16.1%	6.2%		6.2%	0.9%	2.7%	0.9%	7.1%
Zesty Contras 1983	471		3.4%	13.6%	51.8%	4.9%	4%	7%		1.1%	0.2%	1.1%	0.2%	11.9%	0.4%		0.4%
CDSS 75th Contra Gems 1993	28			4%	68%	14%				4%		4%		7%
Collection of Modern ECD 2000-2019	329		0.6%	38%	25.2%	1.2%	3.6%		0.6%	0.3%				25.2%	1.5%	3.3%	0.3%
Collection of Modern SCD 2000-2019	64			11%			58%							28%		3%
SB Weekly Contra Dance 2014-2019	~2000		2%	.1%	93%						5%			.05%

The "Modern ECDs" are the 329 English style dances devised after 1999 I had made animations of in Oct. 2022. The "SB Weekly Contra Dance" is drawn from memory (I have not recorded all the thousands of dances we danced).

Caveat: To some extent assigning a formation to a dance can be a bit subjective. For instance Step Stately is a three part longways dance, the first part is a whole set non-progressive figure, the second a duple minor progressive figure, and the third a very odd triple minor progressive figure, and it is silly for me to try to give it a single formation. For that matter, I say that one of Johnson's dances is a duple minor if the 3s are not mentioned in the instructions — however in Captain Catton's Maggot, which makes no mention of 3s, the instructions end with Right hands and Left at top. Since "top" is pointless in a duple minor when describing rights and lefts, this suggests to me that what I call duple minors were danced as triple minors with the 3s doing nothing whatsoever.

Note that 100 years after Playford's diversity of formations, Johnson has only dances in the longways minor set format, and almost all, if not all of those are proper triple minors.

Again, in the 1950s, the New England Contra Dance had a great diversity of formations, and now 70 years later almost all the contra dances in Santa Barbara are improper duple minor dances. I can recall only once dancing a three couple longways dance, never a triple minor, and rarely a proper duple minor. History seems to have repeated.

Triple (and Quadruple) Minor

The first triple minor dance in Playford is The Silver Faulken from the 2nd edition in 1652. And then no more until the 7th edition in 1686.

(I suppose you might call Step Stately, 1651, a double progression triple minor, but because it is double progression it does not work as a traditional triple minor and isn't like anything else.)

As mentioned above, in the 1750s it appears as though duple minors were danced as triple minors. In 1869 I have direct evidence that at least one duple minor, The Guaracha, was danced as a triple.

The first quadruple minor dance comes from Kynaston in 1716, when he published two of them Oswestry Wake, and The Queen of Hearts,. He published two more the next year, and John Young published two more in 1726.

Chivers published some Mescolanzes dances (four-face-four, which are minor set dances with four couples) in 1821, and Gary Roodman devised a double progression, becket, quadruple minor dance called Rational Reel in 1987.

During the 19th century it was common to have a neutral couple between each minor set (in effect, every triple minor became a quadruple minor where the fourth couple did nothing). This allowed the 2s and 3s some time to rest before switching roles. You can see this assumption in both Howe (Boston, 1858) and Wilcock (Glasgow, ~1868) when they describe starting a dance with all couples dancing (instead of just the top three) where they say every fourth couple should be active, instead of every third.

Multiple Progression

Multiple progression dances are rare before about 1957. I tend to think that most early examples are more likely to be misprints, or modern misunderstandings than intended.

Nathaniel Kynaston's The Tuneful Nightingale does appear to have two progressive moves in it.

Bolton interprets The Highlander's Wedding as double progression, but I don't think that's what Playford says.

I think Becket Reel, 1957 may be the first, but I'm not sure. There are no multiple progression dances in The Contra Dance Book, Rickey Holden, 1956.

(Zesty Contras, 1983, claims in the comments to "Judge's Jig" that Judge Merrill devised the first double progression contra. But they don't give a date, nor the name of a dance)

Zesty Contras contains about 30 double progression improper duple minors (~13% of improper duples), but only 1 double progression proper duple minor and 1 triple progression improper duple minor (and that dance, Apothecary Reel, has the 1s become improper in the first bar). It contains 4 double progression improper triple minors and 2 triple progression improper triple minors — which is odd because a double progression triple minor behaves in very unexpected ways (and an improper one is even worse), while a triple progression triple is relatively simple. There are also 3 proper triple progression triple minors.

The first dances where dancers interacted with others outside their minor set were "Contra Corners" dances that got squished from a triple minor to a duple minor. Chorus Jig is the first I know of, it was a triple minor in Howe, 1858, and a duple minor in Burchenal, 1918.

But after Becket Reel there is a great explosion of dances interacting outside the minor set. The figure "Long Lines Forward and Back", a staple of modern contras, does not appear in any dances in The Contra Dance Book, Holden, 1956, and it is the simplest way of interacting outside the minor set.

(The only Scottish Country Dance I know of where people interact outside the minor set is The Intruders, 2015)

	# Dances	Mult Prog	Outside Minor Set	Mixer	Multi Part	USA
Lovelace Manuscript ~1640	32				78%	44%
The Engliſh Dancing Maſter 1651	104			1.9%	76%	55.8%
Two Hundred Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 8 ~1756	199
American Dancing Master 1862	102
Unique Dancing Call Book 1893	12			8%
The Country Dance Book, Part 1 1909	18
American Country-dances, Vol. 1 1918	28		4%	7%
The Scottish Country Dance Book, Book 1 1924	12
The Contra Dance Book 1956	112		4.5%
Zesty Contras 1983	471	9.1%	38.6%	5.9%
CDSS 75th Contra Gems 1993	28	11%	50%	11%
Collection of Modern ECD 2000-2019	329	2.1%	22.5%	6.4%	8.5%	6.4%
Collection of Modern SCD 2000-2019	64				2%

Mixers

Mixers make sense in circle dances, and in 3 couple longways dances. At the end of each progression the women have gone one direction, and the men another.

In four couple dances mixers only work if one sex stands still while the other progresses (or if different permutations are used for different iterations of the dance, see Gary Roodman's work).

Playford has a few mixers, but there don't seem to have been any others until Old Dan Tucker which was sort of a square dance with an extra person in the middle. Then sometime between 1956 and 1983 the circle mixer evolved.

Figures

Playford in his early editions (and Lovelace before him) use a number of terms that basically vanish from dance vocabulary by 1680. These include: "Siding", "Arming", "Kiss", "Backs and Faces".

He also describes the movements of "Grand Square" in Hunson House and never again. (The "Grand Square" reappears (under that name) in Duval's Second Set of Lancers' Quadrilles, Dublin, ~1817. While Le Grand Quarré is defined on page 9 of Gallini's A New Collection of Forty-four Cotillons, London, 1772.)

Similarly he describes the movements which might be interpreted as "Open Ladies Chain" in Parson's Farewell and never again. The name "Ladies' Chain" first appears in Quadrilles (I think). Wilson in his The Art of Dancing, 1852, page 16, describes an open ladies' chain as does Hillgrove, New York, 1857. But Burchenal in American Country Dances, 1918, page xiii, describes a closed ladies' chain (gent puts his arm around ladies' waist), as does Lloyd Shaw (1939).

A number of other early figures seem to have vanished by 1808 when Thomas Wilson published list of Country Dance figures in An Analysis of Country Dancing, these include "Up a Double" and "Turn Single". Wilson also does not include "Set" as a separate figure, only as a part of a larger one (as "set and change sides").

To replace these the Regency period introduced some figures of its own: "1s lead down the center and back", "3 Couple Promenade Round", "Allemande", "Lead out Sides", "Double Triangles", "Turn Corners", and "Set and turn corners". Many of these have been taken up in Scottish Country Dancing, and a few into New England Contra ("Turn Corners" mutated into "Contra Corners").

Playford spends a lot of time describing dancer's motions, he does not have many named and standardized figures. The Regency dances, on the other hand, consist almost entirely of standardized figures, most of which take up 8 bars, so the Regency dance descriptions are much more concise.

If a Playford figure took four bars then the Regency figure would repeat it as in "Circle left and back to the right" or "Right hands across and back to the left" to make up the full 8 bars. Two bar figures often got subsumed into larger movements: "cast" became "1s lead down the center and back and cast off", setting became part of "set and turn corners" and so forth.

	# Dances	Cast	Turn Single	Kiss	Fig 8	Hey	Right Left	Ladies' Chain	Swing	Long Lines	Down Center Back
Lovelace Manuscript ~1640	32	16%	12%	12%		25%
The Engliſh Dancing Maſter 1651	104	44.2%	68.3%	7.7%	5.8%	26.9%	8.7%	1%	1%
Two Hundred Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 8 ~1756	199	80.4%	0.5%		27.1%	7.5%	81.9%				20.6%
American Dancing Master 1862	102	62.7%			2%	2%	70.6%	24.5%	13.7%		57.8%
Unique Dancing Call Book 1893	12	17%					58%	25%	58%		25%
The Country Dance Book, Part 1 1909	18	72%			6%				100%		67%
American Country-dances, Vol. 1 1918	28	39%					71%	32%	54%		71%
The Scottish Country Dance Book, Book 1 1924	12	33%				25%	8%	8%			67%
The Contra Dance Book 1956	112	58.9%			1.8%	1.8%	67%	27.7%	38.4%		63.4%
Zesty Contras 1983	471	28.5%			4.7%	18.5%	30.1%	35.2%	77.9%	20.6%	11.5%
CDSS 75th Contra Gems 1993	28	11%			7%	36%	18%	29%	86%	18%
Collection of Modern ECD 2000-2019	329	55.3%	50.2%		24.9%	32.8%	22.8%	4%			2.4%
Collection of Modern SCD 2000-2019	64	72%	2%		20%	53%	20%	6%			9%

What's in a name?

Just as "Country Dance" became "Contra Danse" so the various figures have changed their names.

Hands across star

Playford talks about "right hands across" and in England this term remained constant though Wilson in 1808 and beyond. The French called this figure "Le Moulinet" or, in English, "Little (Wind)mill" (See La Gavre) and this term came over in the Cotillion and later Quadrille. Howe, 1858, page 116, (Boston) still describes a quadrille figure called "Le Moulinet" as "hands across", but he goes on to say that it can also be called a "cross" and a "star". Burchenal, 1918, describes a figure she calls "The Mill" (not using "hands across" or "star"). Modern Square dancing and Contra dancing (and to a lesser extent modern English dancing) call the figure a "star".

The figure itself has mutated slightly, English and Scottish use hands across stars where all hands are clasped in the center. Contra usually uses a wrist clasp star (where each dancer grabs the wrist of the dancer in from of them), though sometimes a caller will specify a hands across star. And square dancers use a wrist clasp if all the dancers in the star are male, but a palms up star otherwise.

In the Regency period a right hand star was almost always followed quickly by a left hand star

	# Dances with stars	Percentage followed by star back
Lovelace Manuscript ~1640	1/32
The Engliſh Dancing Maſter 1651	20/104	10%
Two Hundred Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 8 ~1756	51/199	70.6%
American Dancing Master 1862	16/102	100%
Unique Dancing Call Book 1893	0/12
The Country Dance Book, Part 1 1909	4/18	75%
American Country-dances, Vol. 1 1918	3/28	100%
The Scottish Country Dance Book, Book 1 1924	1/12	100%
The Contra Dance Book 1956	23/112	87%
Zesty Contras 1983	145/471	56.6%
CDSS 75th Contra Gems 1993	11/28	45%
Collection of Modern ECD 2000-2019	134/329	14.9%
Collection of Modern SCD 2000-2019	18/64	17%

Hand Turn/Allemande

Playford talks of turning someone (he rarely says whether to use right, left, or both hands). Howe, Boston, 1858, uses many different words: turn, swing, allemande. In modern Square and Contra dancing single hand turns are always called "Allemamde", but two hand turns in Modern Western Squares are "single circle"

The first use I've found of "Allemande" as a hand turn is in Ignatius Sancho's Twelve Country Dances for the Year 1779. He uses it in Culford Health Camp to describe a contra corners figure, and probably in Trip to Dilington to describe a hand turn.

Figure Eight

Playford uses the turn "figure eight" or even "the figure", and this term persisted through Wilson, 1808. Saltator never uses the term or the underlying figure. Howe never uses the term either — except as the name of a dance in which he describes the movements of a figure eight but never names it.

Right and left

This term and figure have probably seen more different names and mutations than any other. Lovelace doesn't seem to use the figure. Playford uses the term "Right and left", hard to say if this involved taking hands. Thomas Bray, 1699, says "Then Right hands, and left Hands twice" so presumably this involved hands.

When the figure moved over to France it became "La Chaîne Anglaise".

Wilson in 1808 defines "Right and Left" as as having the second corners change by left, then 1st by right, and then back again with no hand clasps involved. (while he calls the old right and left figure "a chain figure for four")

Quadrilles seem to use the French term chaine anglaise for this figure.

Hillgrove's "Right and Left" (New York, 1857) seems to involve no right hand clasps, but has a left hand turn (as opposed to a pull-by).

But the "Grand Right and Left" of Quadrilles, and later, Square Dancing, does use hand clasps.

Burchenal, 1918, defines the term to mean what Smucker and Millstone call "Right and Left Four"

The two couples advance toward each other, and "pass through," the one on the right in each couple going between the opposite two.
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. All this is done in eight steps (four measures).
They then return in the same manner to their original position.

Lloyd Shaw, (in Cowboy Dances, 1939), page 127, is the first definition I've found of the modern "right and left through". He credits it to New England dancers, and though the contra dancers there were still using Right and Left Four at that point, the square dancers may have had a different tradition.

In right and left through two couples advance to each other, each lady, of course, being on the right side of her gentleman. Each dancer gives his right hand to the opposite (who, of course, is of the opposite sex as well) and passes beyond— the two couples passing through each other. Each gentleman then takes his lady's left hand in his lef hand, and putting his right hand behind her waist, turns her around him to the left while he stands as a pivot. The the two couples pass through each other again, giving opposites right hands as they do so. Then giving left hands to partners, the gentlemen again turn the ladies to place. ... Experts usually leave out the handshake, but beginners find it a help.

Cecil Sharp calls "right and left" a "circular hey". Playford may have used "hey" to describe right and left in Hit & Miss (though Colin Hume disagrees).

Scottish Country Dancing calls it "Rights and Lefts".

In modern square and contra dancing the term has mutated into "Right and left through" which now means only half the original figure. and has a courtesy turn rather than a left hand pull-by.

Then square dancing reinvented the original as a "Square through", and this term has migrated into modern contras, but in 1983, Zesty Contras used "grand right and left", see Queen's Favorite which has both a right and left through and a grand right and left (both within the minor set).

	# Dances	Rights and Lefts	Right and Left 4	Right and Left Through
Lovelace Manuscript ~1640	32
The Engliſh Dancing Maſter 1651	104	8.7%
Two Hundred Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 8 ~1756	199	81.9%
American Dancing Master 1862	102		70.6%
Unique Dancing Call Book 1893	12		58%
The Country Dance Book, Part 1 1909	18
American Country-dances, Vol. 1 1918	28		71%
The Scottish Country Dance Book, Book 1 1924	12	8%
The Contra Dance Book 1956	112		67%
Zesty Contras 1983	471	2.3%		28.7%
CDSS 75th Contra Gems 1993	28	7%		11%
Collection of Modern ECD 2000-2019	329	22.8%
Collection of Modern SCD 2000-2019	64	20%

Hey

Lovelace uses the term "hey", as does Playford and everyone after him up to Wilson and perhaps beyond. Scottish Country Dancing uses the term "reel" instead, this dates at least back to the The Register of Dances at Castle Menzies, 1749

Saltator (Boston, 1802) uses the term "olivette" (see his dances White Cockade, Tartan Plad, Gordian Knot, etc.) which he defines on page 86 with the word "reel". Wilson in his The quadrille and cotillion panorama also uses olivette when speaking French and translates it to English as "hey".

Howe (1858, Boston) does NOT use the term except in a section where he adapts dances from an English book (Probably Thomas Wilson's A Companion to the Ballroom, London, 1816). In The Contra Dance Book, 1956, there are two uses of "reel" in the sense of "hey", both of these are from Scottish imports. By 1983 more than a quarter of the dances in Zesty Contras use heys (under that name). Gary Roodman's first book of country dances, Calculated Figures, NY, 1987, uses the term "hey" in one of his ECDs, but uses "reel" in his Contra Dances; in subsequent books he always uses "hey". Somehow heys fell out of fashion in the US before 1858, and didn't reappear until around 1983.

Colin Hume, a modern deviser of Country Dances, often uses the term "reel" in his dances.

Set

Set became balancé when it moved to France, and just balance when it moved back across the channel. Various other names have been given which I think of as variants of "set": "foot it", "rigadoon", etc. Perhaps even Playford's "backs and faces".

In the March, 1955 edition of Northern Junket, Ralph Piper gives 50 variations of the balance (setting) step)

Cast

Cast became brisé when it moved to France.

Grand Square

When Playford used the grand square figure in Hunsdon House he does not give it a name, he merely describes the motions:

First and 3. cu. meet, and taking the co. wo. fall back into the 2. and 4. place, whilst the 2. and 4. fall back each from their own, and meet the co. wo. in the 1. and 2. place. As much again

-- Playford's Dancing Master, 1657

This pretty much describes half the modern grand square. The sides face and people take their opposite's hand when they join them. The only thing lacking is the second half where everyone reverses their movements.

When Cotillions came over from France the figure had acquited a name Le Grand Quarré. I do not know whether they got the figure from Playford, or invented it themselves, or whether there were an earlier source common to both...

Hurst, 1769, in his cotillion La Fracas des Medecin describes 3/8 of a modern grand square. He doesn't name the figure, and he starts with the heads facing:

then the 2^d. and 4^th. Couples advance to the middle with the 1^st. and 3^d. Couples seperate to the sides, 2^d. Man leads 4^th. Wom into the 3^d. Couples places where separating each falls back to the Corner on their own sides the4^th. Man in like manner leads 2^d. Wom into the 1^st. Couples place where they separate allso and fall back into their respective Corners; During this time the 1^st. Man and 3^d. meeting together take hands and advance into the middle with the 3^d. Man and 1^st. Wom on the Oposite side do the same

Gallini's A New Collection of Forty-four Cotillons, London, 1772, says:

Les Quarrés

Are of two kinds, Le grand Quarré is when all the Dancers move in form of a square 'till they get to their places; Le Petit Quarré is performed by four Dancers only.

Unfortunately not a complete description, but it does again suggest that there is no reverse as in the modern call.

In Wilson's The quadrille and cotillion panorama London, 1822, on page 40

39.—QUARRÉE, LA GRANDE. Chaque Cavalier, et la Dame à sa gauche, passent l'un autour de l'autre, en forme de quarrée.

39.—SQUARES, THE GREAT. Every Gentleman, and the Lady on his left, form squares round each other.

By the time Henry Ford (Benjamin Lovett) wrote about square dancing in Good Morning, 1925, the grand square had acquired its reverse. However the sides do not face, they turn away.

GRAND SQUARE — (16) All couples are moving at the same time. Call, "First four forward, and sides separate" — sides turn backs to each other, walk four steps to corner, and make quarter turn; walk four steps to head and make quarter turn; and advance four steps to center, meet partners, and take four steps to places. At the same time first four advance four steps to center, meet new partners, and make quarter turn; walk four steps to side and make quarter turn; and walk four steps forward, make quarter turn, and walk four steps to places. Movement is reversed by call, "Sides forward, first four separate" — each dancer will thus make a complete square, four steps on each side.

The Kiss

In the 16th century when a gentleman led a woman out to dance he was expected to kiss her in greeting. You can see an example of this in Shakespeare's Henry VIII I.iv.128-129 when the king leads Anne Boleyn for a dance:

I were unmannerly to take you out
And not to kiss you. (He kisses Anne.) A health, gentlemen!

Both Lovelace and the early Playford dances occasionally have kissing as a figure in the dance, but its use dwindled, and 1710 is the last example I know of in Playford. Walsh in The Second Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master, ~1740 uses it in the dance Kiss Quick, Mother's a'Coming. And Johnson copied this dance a few years later.

Long Lines Forward and Back

This is a staple call of the modern contra dance, but it requires holding hands with someone outside your minor set. This was just not done, even as late as 1956 there are no "Long Lines" figures in The Contra Dance Book, instead there are "forward four and back" (in a duple minor) or "forward six" in a triple minor.

Lead

Old dance publishers aren't very good at describing the hand clasp involved in leading. Playford sometimes adds "change hands" between leading up and leading down (See Step Stately where he says: The first cu. lead up a D. change hands and lead down a D.), so presumably his leads were handy-hand leads. At least sometimes.

Pictures from the 19th century show dancers doing right hand in right leads. Thomas Wilson, 1808, in his An Analysis of Country Dancing only says dancers join hands without specifying which hands get joined.

In 1909 Cecil Sharp in his Country Dance Book says The first woman and the first man, A and B, join and raise left hands and lead down the middle to H (four bars). They then release hands, turn round and, right hand in right hand, lead up to the top. Here they separate, return to places and bow to each other (four bars).

In modern Scottish Country Dancing the lead is always right hand in right, but they also use the term "dance" to mean using handy-hands, as "the 1s dance down the middle".

1s lead down the center, turn, come back [and cast off]

Playford in 1651 never has the 1s lead down and come back, if they lead down they are more likely to cast around the 2s and come up the outsides. This figure became common in the Regency period though, and was the standard progression in Contras between 1850 and 1950 but is almost never seen now in modern contras.

Basket Swing

The "Basket Swing" is a figure which is not mentioned in 1956 (The Contra Dance Book), nor in 1993 (CDSS 75th Anniversary GEMS) but is present in 1983 in Zesty Contras.

When I was a teenager the goal was to spin so fast the girls' feet left the ground.

The Partner Swing

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 move involves moving right while spinning approximately 360.

But if you look at the Lowes, who published in Edinburgh in 1831 they describe the move 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.

The earliest mention of pas-de-basque that I know of is in the (R)SCDS's publication of the dance in 1924.

Poussette

Playford describes movements which we now interpret as poussettes and draw poussettes. But he never actually uses the French word "poussette".

Men put the co. we. back by both hands, fall even on the co. side

Playford, 1651, Cuckolds all arow

A few years earlier, Lovelace also describes this move:

then each man shall take the woeman, that is right over against him, and the one shall draw her upwards and the other downwards; and presently draw them againe close together in theire places holding hands;

Lovelace Manuscript, 1621~49, Cuckles all a row

The Neals (1726) give a very clear description of a full poussette (again, without naming it) in 1726 (A Young Virgin of 15 Years).

The earliest use I have of the word is in Ignatius Sancho's Twelve Country Dances for the Year 1779. He uses it in Ruffs and Rhees: Le prussett or the first and second Cu. move intirely round each other till they arrive at proper places. The fact that he needs to spell out the movement suggests to me that he did not expect his audience to be familiar with it.

Then it appears again in Preston's Twenty four Country Dances for the Year 1791 in the dance Long Odds: La Poussette (with no explanation).

In Wilson's An Analysis of Country Dancing he defines whole poussette as a progressive figure, what I would call one and a half poussettes. He defines half a poussette as what I'd call a full poussette.

In 1802 Saltator defines poussette:

POUCETTE, is to give both hands to partners, by couples and dance round each other, in the time of right and left.

In his Complete Ball-Room Hand Book (Boston, 1858) Elias Howe has a small section called "Old English Dances" where he copies a few dances from Wilson's 1816 A Companion to the Ball Room, and these dances are the only ones where poussette is used. On page 4 of The American Dancing Master Howe defines poussette as Poussette — is a swing, during which the couple give hands over hands. Howe uses "swing" in about six different ways, so this isn't as helpful as it might be, but it's not my definition of poussette and makes me suspect that he didn't know what it was.

No one else (in the US) in the 1850s or 60s seems to use poussette at all.

In country dance books published in Scotland in the 19th century, dances often ended with the sequence "lead down the middle and up (cast off) and poussette", while similar books published in the US ended their dances with "down the middle and up, cast off, and right and left four". Indeed, when Petronella migrated across the Atlantic (on or before 1858) the poussette turned into rights and lefts.

The first example I know of which is similar to the modern Scottish Country Dancing's definition of poussette occurs in J. F. Wallace's The "Excelsior" Manual of Dancing, Glasgow, 1872. In his description of "The British Grenadiers", the poussette needs to be progressive and he describes it as Pousette, (using Galop step, making a half turn with each (and breaks off without closing his parenthesis).

In Dundee, in 1897, Anderson's version of Petronella requires a progressive poussette.

Double Triangles

The first reference I have to the Double Triangles figure is in Wilson, An Analysis of Country Dancing, page 113, published 1811 (note: the figure is not in the 1808 edition of this work). The first use of it that I know of is again in Wilson, 1816 A Companion to the Ballroom.

Wilson's Double Triangle is very different from the modern Scottish Double Triangles. I believe Wilson invented his figure, and the RSCDS reinvented it in their own image.

Lead Out Sides

The Regestry of Dances at Castle Menzies uses this term in Montgomerie's Rant in 1749, and Johnson is using it by 1758 in The First of January. What they meant by it is unclear.

Dukes, 1752, defines at least three figures which contain the words "lead out sides"

I know of four very different meanings for "lead out sides" in modern usage.

• The first was used by Keller & Sweet in A Choice Selection of American Country Dances of the Revolutionary Era, and by the RSCDS in The Bonniest Lass in all the World, in it the 1s meet in the center, take hands and lead out between the women, cast away from each other, looping around the corner, meet again in center, lead out between men cast away, loop corners and return home.
  

  Walsh describes this movement, though he does not name it, in a number of dances including Athol Brays in 1731.

  Sometimes there is a two hand turn half in the middle so that the woman is always on the right during the leads.

• The second is defined by Wilson in his An Analysis of Country Dancing, page 51, in it the 1s again meet in the center, lead to between the men, turn around, lead to between the women, turn around, lead back to center, where Wilson leaves them.
• The third involves having everyone face out, lead out, turn and lead back. (This seems more like a 4 bar figure rather than the 8 bars usually allocated to it).
• The fourth meaning was used by Bernard Bentley in The Happy Pair where the 1s start between the women, lead out in a line of four with them, turn and lead back, the 1s two hand turn moving to the men's line, stand between them and lead out with them in a line of four with them, turn, and lead back.

Set and Link

Set and Link is a modern figure which I believed was devised for Scottish Country Dances. According to the SCDDB John Drewry claims that it was invented by Alec Hay.

Note. 1 These dances were devised between Spring 1991 and June 1992 i.e. they come after the printing of the Donside Book. Many of them were for use during a visit to New Zealand and California in October-November 1991. The New Zealand connection is emphasised by the inclusion of "set and link" which was devised by Alec Hay of Auckland. Alec said, when I met him, that he prefers dancers NOT TO HOLD HANDS when linking.

— The Bankhead Book Part 2, John Drewry, 1991-1992

Looking at Alan Hay's dances, the first use I have found is Australian Ladies, 1966. The first example I have found in an RSCDS Book is in Book 23, 1967, again by Alec Hay, The Dean Bridge of Edinburgh. In both of these the two couple form is used.

The earliest 3 couple Set and Link I've found is in Gang the Same Gate, in RSCDS Book 36 (1990).

The only 4 couple set and link I know of is in The Library of Birmingham, devised 2015.

This figure makes an occasional appearance in English Country Dance, Andrew Shaw's interpretation of Kynaston's Well Done Jack (2002) is the first use I know of it, followed by Brooke Friendly & Chris Sackett's Home Again in 2005.

In his dance Fine Companion Waltz (2008) Gary Roodman describes the figure without naming it. When I asked him if he were using the Scottish figure, he said he hadn't heard of it when he wrote the dance. So I guess he developed it independently.

Set and Rotate

Set and Rotate is another modern Scottish figure. According to the SCDDB it first appeared in John Drewry's dance Brimond, devised in 1986 and published in Summer Collection 1986.

Figures lost in early American Contra Dances

the hey

Heys were used in the Revolutionary period, and Saltator (Boston, 1802) has heys in his dances though he calls them olivette. Howe (Boston, 1858) does not use either term (nor reel) except in a small section where he describes some dances he found in Wilson (London, 1816).

In my data there is a gap from 1802 to 1977 in which no heys appear in native dances. From what I have read they were reintroduced from English Country Dancing.

the figure of eight

Again figures of eight were used in the Revolutionary period, and then disappeared. They also reappeared in the 1970s, I presume again from ECD.

Howe has one dances called "Figure of Eight", which indeed contains a figure of eight. But the movement must be described, and the term "figure of eight" does not appear in Howe's instructions for the dance

the poussette

Again, these were used in the Revolutionary Period. Again Howe lists a dance by Wilson which contains a poussette, but there are no native poussettes until the 1990s.

back to back/do-si-do

Neither of these terms appears in the Revolutionary dances I've animated. Saltator does not list it in his set of country dance figures. The first use I've found in a Contra Dance is Ralph Page's Timber Salvage Reel.

Cecil Sharp (1918) describes a figure called "do-si-do" in The Kentucky Running Set but it is completely different from what most people mean by the term.

Figures redefined in Scottish Country Dances

Petronella Turn

The first description I have of Petronella (Lowes, Scotland, 1831) says it should be done with a chassé step and no turn is involved.

Poussette

Allemande

Double Triangles

Music

Prior to about 1800 all the dance books I have looked at have both a tune and a figure for every dance. After about 1800, people start describing figures with comments equivalent to "This dance requires a tune with 4 eight bar strains". This led to a mix and match attitude seen in Contra Dance, and (to a lesser extent) in Scottish Country Dancing today.

For example, in A Pocket Companion to the French and English Country Dancing, 1821, page 24, Chivers writes:

Although the names of the Tunes are affixed to each Figure; yet the Figures may be danced to any Tune containing the same number of parts; viz; for a FOUR PART FIGURE you may select a Four part tune, a Three part tune with D. C. or a Two repeated

I believe Sharp was aware of this tradition (and not of the earlier one) when he assigned different tunes to dances than the ones Playford specified when he published his interpretations.

In Rickey Holden's The Contra Dance Book, 1956 says:

One of the outstanding features of contras is that practically all of them are fitted exactly to the music so that the complete dance sequence lasts 64 beats — 32 measures — one AABB. Most contras have several tunes associated with them and can be danced to any music of the correct phrasing,

Calling

According to Richard Powers calling (or "prompting") appeared with the advent of the quadrille. Longways country dances can be memorized without too much effort, or learned on the spot if you use the old style method where only the top couples start the dance. The figure of the dance was short enough to be easily memorized. Even in modern called dances the caller will frequently stop when s/he thinks the dancers have learned the figure. Cotillions also had short figures and could be memorized beforehand. But quadrilles were long, containing 5 or 6 sub-dances of roughly 32 bars each.

I think prompting may have appeared earlier. In Thomas Hurst's The Cotillons, Made Plain and Easy, London, 1769 he says:

Observe also, that if at any Time the Dances are required to be shorten'd let the Performers call, and do the great Ring (wherever they have a mind to curtail it) instead of the Changes that were to have followed, and so conclude it; and, in this Manner, the Cotillons may be concluded at the Pleasure of the Dancers.

Powers lists several written examples of prompting in Paris around 1800, and several more from London starting in 1817.

The word "calling" has an ambiguous meaning. Thomas Wilson in The Art of Dancing, London, 1850, uses the term "to call the dance", but he uses it in the sense of "to choose the dance" rather than to speak out each figure before it is danced.

Set 1... call the first Dance

On the other hand, on page 42 of his The Dancers' Guide, London, 1821, G.M.S. Chivers says of quadrilles:

It being the general custom of calling the figures while dancing, all persons should make themselves acquainted with the French technical terms.

In the US early dance manuals do not mention calling in the modern sense, see Griffiths (Providence, RI, 1788), Saltator (Boston, 1802), or even Appleton (Philadelphia, 1848).

The first reference I have found in the US is in The Ball Room Manual, 1855 (printed in Boston, distributed in Maine). His section on Cotillions (in US the terms "quadrille" and "cotillion" were often confused) says:

The figures of these light French dances, are, generally, in our public ball-rooms, called out by the leader of the orchestra, as they occur in the set; or rather, as they occur to his fancy. This practice renders it impossible or inexpedient, in this work, to introduce any particular figures.

(Even at that early date square dance calling seems to have been a bit flexible, at least in New England)

Then in New York in Hillgrove, The Scholar's Companion and Ball-Room Vade Mecum, New York, 1857. He does use the term in Wilson's sense, but he also says, on page 38:

The leader may, for the first time in this figure, call "All Promenade," in order to fill out the music, or else call "Right and left all round".

Elias Howe is a little clearer than this in Ballroom Handbook, Boston, 1858, page 16:

The prompter or caller should, however, be elevated enough to be able to see all parts of the ball-room.

He goes on, on page 17-18, to describe how cotillions should be called (using the modern meaning of the word, and not Wilson's).

In learning to call, the pupil should select a set of Cotillions having easy and simple music, as he will learn much more readily than if it was difficult. The figures should also be easy. The music and figures of each number should be committed to memory, and both played and called aloud in a room alone; one number should be thoroughly learned before going to the next. There seems to be a general fault with most callers, owing in a great measure to negligence in the beginning, and that combined to carelessness, causes the player to call out of time with his music, which is very unpleasant to the dancers, as it keeps them all the while before or behind the time. The place for calling is generally about One measure ahead of the music where the figure is to commence.

De Garmo in The Prompter, New York, 1868, expects there to be a prompter for the dance (page 20):

Prompters often call figures in the "Sociable" to suit their fancy.

After this, all the dance manuals I've seen from the US describe how to call in addition to how to dance. In the US the practice spread from Quadrilles to country/contra dances but I haven't found any indication of this in the UK yet.

In American Country-dances, vol. 1 by Emma Burchenal (New York/Boston), 1918 page vii:

These Dances are more successful when "called." It has been the custom for the violinist to "call" the figures he plays, and this is quite a difficult art.

On the other hand when Cecil Sharp visited the US and published his Country Dance Book, part 5 in 1918 he feels that he needs to tell his English audience what a "caller" was. I get the distinct impression that it was not something the English did at that point (which seems odd, since Chivers used the term a hundred years earlier for quadrilles). From page 19:

THE CALLER

It is customary for one of the company, not necessarily one of the dancers, to "call" the dance as it proceeds, that is, to name the figures and describe them, movement by movement, and thus to do for the dancers what the prompter at the opera does for the singers. Normally the "caller" recites certain prescribed verbal phrases, a mixture of prose and doggerel rhyme that in the course of time has become stereotyped...

In his article on dance steps, Colin Hume suggests that calling became popular in England: after the Second World War, Douglas Kennedy changed the focus from teachers to callers... Douglas Kennedy was in charge of the EFDS so his suggestions carried great weight.

Two different styles of calling seem to have developed. The first, found in early descriptions of calling Quadrilles and Country/Contra Dances just has the caller name the next figure a little before it comes up. The second, in Square Dancing, has the caller mixing in "doggerel rhyme". It is the difference between saying "Promenade Round" or "Promenade round on a heel and toe/like a barefooted boy in the frozen snow". All US Quadrille manuals after 1860 or so describe the first method, while all the early Square Dance manuals describe the latter. The square dance manuals often have two sections for each dance, one describing the figure, and one the calls. The distinction between the two styles of calling still persists with Contra and English callers simply giving the next figure, while Square Dance callers indulge in rhyme and singing.

Country Dance / Contredanse / Contra Dance

In 1651 Playford's subtitle is "Plaine and eaſie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances, with the Tune to each Dance." Playford used the term "Country Dance" to describe his dances.

Decades later when the style migrated to France it became "Contredanse". (See The Playford Assembly, Christian, 2015, page vii for a description of this migration)

Decades after that the term migrated back and became "Contra Dance".

There are a number of other words/phrases that have made multiple crossings of the English Channel getting more mangled each time, "Riding Coat / Redingotte / Redingote" is another.

Elias Howe says in Ballroom Handbook, Boston, 1858, page 23:

The term "Country Dance," is the one invariably used in all books on dancing that have been published in England during the last three centuries, while all works issued in France within the same period, employ the term Country Dance, or in French, "Contre Danse." As the authority is equally good in both cases, either term is therefore correct.

Indeed the New English Contra Dances of 1858 are just standard triple minor dances such as you might see in a Regency Ballroom.

Hillgrove, The Scholar's Companion and Ball-Room Vade Mecum, New York, 1857 makes a distinction between Country and Contra dances. Country dances are explained at greater length while each Contra dance is described in a single short paragraph. It isn't clear to me what the distinction is though. The Country Dances start (I think) on page 66: La Tempete, Spanish Dance, Sicilian Circle, Rustic Reel, Virginia Reel, Pop Goes the Weasel, Swedish Dance, and Circassian Circle. Contra Dances are listed on page 78, and he gives three: Money Musk, Chorus Jig, and The Waterman. Possibly he views the Contra dances as being from New England, and Country Dances from Europe (though Money Musk and Chorus Jig both originated in England).

The End of Country Dancing

Country Dancing was a primary style of dancing in the UK until after the Napoleonic Wars. The soldiers brought back some continental styles, the Quadrille and the Waltz. One needs to draw a distinction between "waltz" as a style of music, and "waltz" as a style of dance. The music was accepted before close proximity dancing was. There are several dances from the 1790s which use waltz music (Miss Barrett's Waltz).

At first the Waltz dance was considered far too risqué to be danced in moral society — but by 1817 even the staid Almack's Assembly was accepting Waltzes (See The Regency Waltz)

Over the next 30 years these two styles drove out the old country dances.

The last popular country dance to come out of England (that I know of) was Pop Goes the Weasel in 1852.

De Garmo in The Prompter, New York, 1868, page 44 says:

...there are given in this book, the Spanish Dance, Sicilian Circle, and Sir Roger De Coverley or Virginia Reel—Dances that are not considered fashionable, yet are more or less done all over the country and may be taken as the bases of various local and fashionably obsolete Country or Contra Dances.

The Revival of Country Dancing

Cecil Sharp traveled around England in ~1909 collecting such country dances as were then still danced in out of the way villages, from these he published The Country Dance Book, part 1 which contained 16 dances.

(Sharp claimed that he had to struggle to find any Country Dances still extant and had to go to the most out of the way places to dig them up, yet a dance book published in Leeds in about 1900 contained descriptions of five of them.)

Immediately after that he turned to figuring out Playford's dances, and published 4 more books on them.

Sharp makes it clear that he much prefers the early Playford dances to the then current country dances, or to regency dances or even to late Playford dances. He only interpreted Playford dances.

He also founded The English Folk Dance Society in 1911 to encourage people to dance these dances.

Oddly the EFDS only promoted old dances. When Maggot Pie (the first book of new country dances in a century or so) was published, it included a foreward by Kennedy, the director of the EFDS explaining why the dances in it should not be danced at EFDS gatherings.

New England Contra Dancing

Country dancing persisted in New England long after it was dying in London, or even New York. Howe (Boston, 1858 & 1862) published more than 100 contra/country dances, while Hillgrove (New York, 1857) published about 12, of which 9 appear to be from Europe, and 3 from New England (and the native dances get short shift in Hillgrove's book, they are described only briefly).

In some ways Howe's dances are very like those of the Regency period. A lot of them progress with the sequence: "Down the centre and up, cast off, right and left", and if you look at Johnson's Two hundred Country Dances, vol.8 (1756) you will find exactly the same sequence used for many of his dances (for instance Tea for Two).

But there are differences too. The hey had almost entirely vanished from Howe's dances (Remember, heys were present in Saltator (Boston, 1802)). Actually it had vanished, but he included both a few dances from Wilson's A Companion to the Ballroom, London, 1816 and these English dances used heys, and a few Scottish imports (Highland Reel) which used reels.

Various other, previously common, figures seem to have vanished too: Back to Back, Poussette, and Figure of Eight.

The partner swing (and neighbor swing) may occur in Howe (he used swing in so many different ways it is hard to be sure).

"Right and Left" turned into "Right and Left 4" which involves no hand clasps and one person backing up every other change.

Howe expected his dances to be called, and provides instructions to callers.

And, perhaps most innovative: Howe mentions that people can all start dancing at once rather than waiting for the top couple to reach them.

---

Contra dancing continued... but it seems to have faded into the background. Burchenal in American Country Dances, 1918 implies in her preface that when she wrote there were still people who contra-danced:

For my knowledge of these dances I am indebted to friends too numerous to mention in different parts of New England, and in particular to Mr. Kimball ("Uncle Steve"), who has played the violin for country dances for over forty years, Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Durgin, Mr. and Mrs. N. M. Holden, Mr. and Mrs. Harry McKeen, Mr. Joe Farnham, and many other friends.

She did not provide any new dances, but then she was making a book of "folk" dances, which, at the time, would preclude publishing new ones.

The first contra dance with a devisor that I know of was Ralph Page's Happy Valley Reel produced in 1936.

Ralph Page was instrumental in bring contra dances out of rural New England to Boston and then through-out the US and the world.

In The Contra Dance Book, Holden, 1956, there is a burst of diversity in contra dance formation with lots of devisors producing new dances. However most of the dances still do not match my idea of a modern contra dance. They were mostly proper, mostly triple minor, no double progression, very little interaction outside the minor set, no "Long Lines Forward and Back" figures, no heys, and a lot of "Cast off"s.

It wasn't until 1983 with Zesty Contras that most of the dances were improper, and even then there were still a lot of triple minors. In fact there was a great diversity of triple minors, proper, and improper, and one with the 2s improper, also single, double and triple progression dances.

But in the CDSS 75th anniversary GEMS publication in 1993, there were no more triple minors, and the dance mix looks very much like what I dance in Santa Barbara 30 years later.

Scottish Country Dancing

In Scotland, as well as New England, Country Dancing was ignored after 1830 in the large cities but was still practiced in more rural areas where itinerant musicians bring dances to out of the way villages.

But while the New England Contra Dance has gradually evolved out of the old Country Dancing of Playford and the Regency, in Scotland there was a great saltation in 1924 when the style changed radically with the publication of the first (R)SCDS Book. While Cecil Sharp went to great effort to recreate, as best he could, Playford's dances; the (R)SCDS used old dances for inspiration and often diverged greatly from the original intent.

They:

• redesigned the dance
• redefined the figures
• replaced the steps
• reformatted the music

In the 18^th century Country Dancing was widespread in the British Isles, but it was basically the same in all parts. The dances of the Neals' A Choice Collection of Country Dances printed in Dublin in 1726 do not look very different from those Walsh or Young were printing in London at that time. The dances of the Registry of Dances at Castle Menzies (Scotland, 1749) again are similar to those printed by Johnson in London in 1750. (The Castle Menzies dances have Scottish titles and use the word “reel” rather than “hey” but other than that they are similar). Indeed, the dance The Infare in the Register refers to Playford's Jamaica by name, in an attempt to describe a figure.

The London publishers produced books of “Caledonian” dances, but the dances seem very like the non-Caledonian ones. Perhaps the tunes were of Scottish origin.

In Wilson's A Companion to the Ball Room, London, 1816, each Country Dance has a little note attached to it as: Irish, Very Old Scotch, Old English, etc.. I believe that Wilson devised his own figures so these notes must refer to the tune.

If you look at nineteenth century dance manuals they are basically the same whether printed in London or Edinburgh. Indeed the Lowes (Edinburgh, 1831) plagiarize Chivers (London, 1821) in their description of Les Ecossoises. Admittedly Country Dance was just one type of the dance styles described in these manuals, but why look for differences there when there are none elsewhere?

In both Smyth's A Pocket Companion for Young Ladies and Gentlemen, Edinburgh, 1830, and in Lowes' Ball-Conductor and Assembly Guide, Edinburgh, ~1831, the Country Dances are subdivided into three sections: "English Country Dance", "Scotch Country Dance", and "Irish Country Dance". But I'm not sure what these distinctions mean. For instance the Lowes list both Petronella and The Nut as "English" while I think of them as Scottish.

Let us look at Petronella. This is the first dance in the first book published by the (R)SCDS. Nathanial Gow (an Edinburgh composer and dancing master) published the tune. The (R)SCDS says he also devised the dance, but I can't find his original description. (R)SCDS Book 1 claims the dance comes from a book called The Ball-Room, published 1827, but I can't find this work either. The earliest I have found is from the Lowes in about 1831:

First couple chassé round to the right, and set in the middle; round to the right again, and set on the sides; to the right again, and set in places; down the middle, up again, and pousette.

If we look at some of the other dances published by the Lowes we see that “down the middle, up again” is intended as a progressive figure (ie, the 1s only move up to 2^nd place (not first) in the “up again” while the 2s also move up. Also that “poussette” is non-progressive.

The (R)SCDS version:

1-16	1s dance full petronella ending where they started
17-24	1s lead down the middle and back
25-32	1s+2s poussette

The (R)SCDS changed the chassé step called for by the Lowes into pas-de-basque. They also changed the poussette figure quite radically, and moved the progression from the “down the middle and up” into the poussette.

Or look at Thomas Wilson's Dunbarton Drums (on page 40 of A Companion to the Ballroom):

SINGLE FIGURE (Tune played straight thro')
Hey on your own sides · lead down the middle up again & set to top Cu: ·

OR THUS Set & change sides with the 2^d. Cu: set & back again · lead down the middle up again & right & left with the top Cu: ·

DOUBLE FIGURE (Each strain repeated)
The 3 ladies lead round the 3 gent: · the 3 gent: lead round the 3 ladies lead down the middle up again allemande · & set 3 across & set 3 in your places

Wilson usually publishes several different figures to each tune. When the (R)SCDS interpreted this dance they took 8 bars from the first figure, and 16 bars from the last and stuck them together. Wilson was kind to us and he carefully defined his terms in another book of his: An Analysis of Country Dancing, 1808. Rather than paying attention to this, the (R)SCDS redefined what “allemande” means, making it a) take up 8 bars instead of 4, b) be progressive, and c) involve 2 couples instead of 1. And again they redefined “down the middle up again” to be non-progressive. And they took his mirror heys and made them parallel right-shoulder heys instead. These changes extended the 16 bars taken from the last figure to be 24 bars.

I have compiled a list of Scottish Country Dances with the earliest sources I can find for them. A few of them actually follow the original, most differ.

The freedom which John Essex gave for everyone to choose (or invent) their own steps when dancing Country Dances has been lost as the (R)SCDS says exactly what steps should be used for what parts of the dance. Some steps (the rant step, for example) have been completely lost, while others (pas-de-basque) introduced.

The meaning of the terms “poussette” and “allemande” have been completely changed.

Let us look at the dances in the first (R)SCDS book. This book attributes most of its dances to an earlier book called The Ballroom, 1827 (no author nor publisher given, but presumably this is J. P. Boulogne's The Ball-Room, or the Juvenile Pupil's Assistant; Containing the Most Fashionable Quadrilles, with Les Lanciers of Sixteen, As Danced in the Public & Private Assemblies in Paris, published by Edward Khull & Sons, Glasgow, 1827). As yet, I have been unable to find this work.

The odd thing about it is that of the 12 dances in that book, 3 have figures which come from London publishers between 1790 and 1822.

• Circassian Circle — Chivers, "The Handbook of Modern Dancing", London, 1822
• Cumberland Reel — Thompson, "24 Country Dances for the Year 1786", London, 1786
• Duke of Perth —Robert Bremner, "A Collection of Scots Reels or Country Dances", Edinburgh, 1757
• Fight about the Fire — ?Nathanial Gow, Edinburgh, ~1822
• Flowers of Edinburgh — J.P. Boulogne, Glasgow, 1827
• Meg Merrilees — W. Smyth, A Pocket Companion for Young..., Edinburgh, 1830
• Merry Lads of Air — H. D. Wilcock, Ball-Room Guide; A Manual of Dancing, Glasgow, ~1868
• Nut — Lowe, "Lowe's Ball-Conductor and Assembbly Guide", Edinburgh, 1831
  Although he published in Edinburgh, Lowe calls this dance an "English Country Dance" (he also has a list of Scotch Country Dances).
• Petronella — Nathaniel Gow & Son, "The Cries of Edinburgh. To which are added Petronella and a favorite new medley", Edinburgh, 1820 (The Lowes also consider this an "English Country Dance")
• Rory O' More — J. Scott Skinner, "The People's Ball Room Guide", Dundee, ~1898
• Strip the Willow — Anonymous, date unknown
• The Triumph — Preston "Preston's Twenty four Country Dances for the Year 1793", London, 1793

In the early 19th century there was a tradition of Country Dancing in Scotland before the (R)SCDS but it was the same as the tradition in England. Or Ireland. But the arrival and of the Quadrille and Waltz killed Country Dancing in England, while it continued to mutate in Scotland.

After Cecil Sharp revived Country Dancing in England, the Girl Guides (US equivalent: Girl Scouts) started dancing Playford dances. The RSCDS history page says that the leader of the Scottish branch of the Girl Guides, Mrs Ysobel Stewart, felt that they should be dancing Scottish Dances, rather than English ones. So she made a list of dances she had known "all her life". These would therefore be more like the Regency dances than the Playford ones which Sharp preferred.

In 1951 the Scottish Country Dance Society became the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.

Square, Cotillions, Quadrilles and Squares again

In 1651 Playford published 3 dances which he labeled as "Square", and 9 more which were four couple dances in round. Hide Park is labeled "A Square Dance for eight", while Newcastle is labeled "A Round Dance for eight". (I'm not sure what the distinction was).

All of these were multi-part dances, many using the "Up-a-double/Siding/Arming" introductions, none was a mixer.

Playford's last four couple square or round dance was published in the fourth edition of his Dancing Master in 1670.

Cotillion

Cotillions, also called contredanse française, originated in France some time early in the 1700s. They were dances for four couples in a square formation. Basically a cotillion consisted of a repeated figure and several "change"s, with a different "change" danced before each repetition of the figure. Playford's "Up-a-double/Siding/Arming" would be considered three "change"s, for example. They were not mixers. I currently have one example of a cotillion, The Ridicule.

In 1767 Ignatius Sancho (an African born ex-slave) published Minuets, Cotillons & Country Dances, which is the first English publication I know of containing Cotillions.

Quadrille

The quadrille is another 4 couple square dance that originated in France, this time in the mid-1700s. It reached England in about 1815.

The early quadrille consisted of 5 parts, or "sets", each "set" being a short country dance in its own right. Often the "set" would be danced first by the head couples, and then by the side couples.

In early quadrilles, for example in The Plain Quadrille, each set was actually a two couple dance — so the heads would dance while the sides rested, and then the sides danced while the heads rested.

This meant you really only needed two couples for the a quadrille, so sometimes you would find two facing couples, but it also meant you could have a square with two head couples and two side couples, or a rectangle with two head couples and a single side couple.

Since each set of a quadrille was an independent dance, there was a mix and match approach where an original quadrille would spawn families of quadrilles each of which would substitute a different sub-dance for one of the sets of the original.

The quadrilles introduced a number of figures which have been become part of modern square dancing, the ladies' chain and grand square, and modified "rights and lefts" so it became both "right and left through" and "grand right and left".

Again these were not mixers.

---

In New England the distinction between "cotillion" and "quadrille" disappeared and both terms were used for what I would call quadrilles. Elias Howe, on page 24 of his Complete Ball-Room Hand Book (Boston, 1858) says: thus the English Cotillion and the French Quadriles are now formed precisely alike, and it is equally proper to call the dance by either name. A little later Washburn (1863, Belfast, Me) uses the term "cotillion" for what I would call a quadrille, and the term "quadrille" for a dance with 8 couples (two couples per side), which, as I said before, was a varient quadrille formation.

On the other hand De Garmo (New York, 1868) never uses the term cotillion and always says quadrille, as does Prof. L.E. Dare's Fashioable Quadrille Manual (Harrisburg, PA, 1884).

Squire's Practical Prompter (Cincinnati, Oh, 1887) contains a section of Quadrilles with only 3 figures, instead of the original 5 (these being thought to be easier to dance).

In Arthur Morris's The Pocket Dance Book (Leeds, UK, ~1900), the plain quadrilles and lancers quadrilles are presented just as they were done back in 1820.

Henry Ford's (Benjamin Lovett's) Good Morning (Dearborn, MI, 1925) presents some very odd quadrilles with the various figures more like visiting couple square dances than what I think of as quadrilles. They also usually have 3 figures rather than the original five.

If you look at Ford's Newport quadrille the first figure has the ladies progressing around the set (moving to their corners' places) just as you'd expect in a modern singing call. The second figure IS a square dance you'll find it in Sharp's The Wild Goose Chase, and in Lloyd Shaw's Grapevine Twist. And the third figure is a variant of another square dance, Ladies in the Center. (I don't know which came first, the quadrille or the square dances, but it does indicate an intermingling of the two styles.)

Rinncí Fiġte

These are round dances of Irish origin which are often danced as squares. Quoting from O'Keefe's A Hand Book of Irish Dances, Dublin, 1912

The most perfect of the Irish round dances are divided into four distinct parts, viz:—

Lead Round
Body
Figures
Finish

The lead round is the opening of the dance and is not repeated during the performance of the dance.

The body contains a certain number of sections, and is danced directly after the lead round, being followed by a figure, and then danced through again before the performance of another figure; it is also danced between the last figure and the finish.

The figures are very numerous, and there is no set rule, in the magjority of cases, as to their order in any particular dance, this being left to the fancy of the dancers, though it should invariably be settled before the dance begins. The forms of the figures are varied and require the participation of one, two, or four couples.

...

The finish which concludes the dance is executed by all couples at once; it should not be omitted, as is too often the case.

This sounds very like the early Appalachian Square Dances of the US. But unlike the US dances these are phrased with the music and require footwork.

American Square Dance

Southern Appalachian

The first record of a square dance from the Appalachians is in Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles's The Country Dance Book, Part V, published 1918 based on research done in 1917. Herein they descripe something they call The Kentucky Running Set, though this was not the name used in Kentucky. Hugh Stewart suggests that it was likely just called "Square Dancing". Ida Levin in Kentucky Square Dances clearly calls it just that.

The Running Set/Kentucky Square Dance is not a single dance but a style of dancing. Each dance consists of a standard introduction followed by a figure which is danced by the first couple with every other, the final iteration finishing with a special figure called a do-si-do (which is nothing like a back to back), then the second couple does the same with every other, and so on. Like the "visiting couple" style of a modern square dance.

In spite of calling it a "square" dance, Levin actually describes a dance in a big circle, while Sharp describes the dance in a square, and Hugh Steward describes a sicilian formation (as well as Sharp's square). A square, can be viewed as a circle of four couples so the two concepts are not that different.

Levin has the first couple dance with the second, then move on to the third. When they move to the fourth, the second couple starts with the third, and follows the first, one couple behind. When the first couple reaches the sixth (and the second the fifth) then the third couple starts with the fourth. This is just the way a Playford longways set would start, only here it is done in a circle.

Hugh Stewart suggests dancing it in a modified sicilian circle, rather like becket formation in a sicilian circle. This way everyone starts dancing at once, and the dance will be finished much faster. It has the slight drawback of requiring an even number of couples. I suspect this is a modern invention.

As with modern square dancing the figures are not phrased to the music.

These dances are not mixers, everyone sticks with their original partner.

Sharp convinced himself that this style of dance predated Playford and was an early style of Country Dancing in England which somehow hopped the Atlantic while all traces died out in England. (He offers as an example the dance Up Tailes All, a one of a kind dance published in 1651 with nothing else like it, which also has a visiting couple progression). I do not find his arguments believable. He does not seem to be aware of how the quadrille form mutated in the United States. He states that "The Wild Goose Chase" contains a figure only found in "children's games", while in fact it comes from the Newport Quadrille.

On the other hand, Hugh Thurston argues that these dances derived from an Irish style, called rinncí fiġte. And this seems a more likely explanation to me. In addition to having the visiting couple style of progression, these dances have the highly structured form found in the Appalachian Squares.

Western Square Dance

In 1939 Lloyd Shaw published Cowboy Dances wherein he describes the square dances of the Western United States. He suggests that these dances evolved out of the Southern Appalachian style (though with some figures coming over from the New England Quadrille traditions). More than half of his dances use the do-si-do figure of the Appalachians (or variants thereof).

His dances all seem to have the format:

• Introduction (where all dancers do the same thing)
• The figure, with 1st couple leading
• A symmetrical chorus figure where all dancers do the same thing
• The figure, with 2nd couple leading
• The same chorus
• The figure, with 3rd couple leading
• The same chorus
• The figure, with 4th couple leading
• The same chorus

Lloyd Shaw's most common introduction is essentially the same as the introduction described by Sharp in The Running Set.

Most of his dances are travelling couple dances, a few are travelling individual (where either 1st man or 1st woman travels the set rather than both), at least one Right and Left is based on heads and sides (and has New England influences), and some are symmetric, like Texas Star.

In most of these dances everyone retains their original partner, but the symmetrical dances are mixers where the ladies move around the set and the gentlemen remain at home.

Every dance seems to have its own specialized figures, there are not many standard ones (outside the introductions and choruses).

Modern Western Square Dance

Between 1939 and 1974 western square dancing continued to evolve. Shepherded at first by Lloyd Shaw, square dancing became very popular in the US.

In 1974 Callerlab was started to standardize the calls and adding levels of difficulty to them. So that people could go dancing anywhere in the world and be confident that if they knew all the "mainstream" calls then they could dance a "mainstream" dance anywhere.

The old "do-si-do" figure of 1939 was lost by this time (except for the much modified form of "do paso") while the "do-si-do" of the quadrille replaced it.

The format of the dance now seems to match the New England traditional format where the chorus only comes after the second and fourth iterations (note this is similar to the Irish rinncí fighte described by Thurston above.

New Dances

The English Folk Dance Society, founded by Cecil Sharp, only danced "folk" dances, or at least, dances that had a long history. New dances from a modern devisor were ruled out. The first booklet of new Country Dances after the revival was Maggot Pie by Marjorie Heffer and William Porter, Cambridge, 1932, it contains a rather remarkable foreward by Douglas Kennedy (then director of the EFDS) explaining why these dances should not be danced in a EFDS setting.

FOREWORD

One musical "maggot" is an insinuating enough creature, but a whole pie of them makes a terribly tempting and delectable disk. While recommending this dish to Country Dancers, I have to admit that certain qualms of official conscience have been assuaged by the thought that the proof of every pudding—and every pie—lies ultimately in the eating. For here we have, in fact, a pie fresh from the oven, not yet put to that proof. All the dances and several of the tunes are brand new, and must start life protected neither by the seal of tradition nor by a schedule of ancient monuments. Whether they are to be absorbed into the national repertoire, time and usage alone can determine, but there seems no reason to suppose that two ingenious people, steeped in the atmosphere of Country Dancing in the 20th century, should be any less successful than were My Lady Winwood and Mr. Beveridge in the 17th century—if indeed these were the inventors of the "maggots" connected with their names, which is very doubtful.

In a sense it may be said that even if these modern maggots are Country Dances, they are not Folk Dances; but in the same sense the same thing might be said of many of our old favourites. In any case these maggots have their analogue in the Elizabethan madrigals and ballets, and deserve the encouragement of every English Dancer, although they cannot be officially sponsored by the E. F. D. S. Who knows what may be their ultimate fate? Some may die after a short existence. Others may live to be collected, having survived the testing process of time and usage as every traditional dance has had to do in the past. But their origin and character have been clearly defined by the authors, and my part in the conspiracy is only to encourage you to put your thumb into the pie.

DOUGLAS KENNEDY

I have found few other English dances devised in 1930s, or 40s, and only a few in the 50s. I'm not sure when the EFDSS changed its mind about new dances.

Colin Hume pointed out to me that in 1937 EFDS sponsored "An evening of 'Invented' Dances.", but we don't know if people were encouraged to dance "invented" dances outside that evening.

In Scottish, the answer is well documented. The Scottish regiment which was the rearguard at Dunkirk was captured by the Germans and then danced in captivity. They even devised a dance: The Reel of the 51st Division during this period. The dance description was sent home to fiancées but was intercepted by German censors who were convinced its cryptic notations were some sort of code. Eventually a letter reached the UK and the dance became so popular that it had to be included in the next SCDS Book, #13.

After that, the RSCDS did not publish an new dances until 1963, Book 22, which is entirely new dances. Book 23 was also new dances. But then Books 25-34 (1972-1986) were again entirely old dances. I think that since then only new dances have been published in the RSCDS Book series.

Hugh Thurston points out that people were devising new Scottish Country Dances in the early 1950s, they just weren't published by the RSCDS.

As I mentioned earlier the first new Contra Dance I'm aware of was Ralph Page's Happy Valley Reel in 1936, but my data are sketchy.

Social Class

Who danced these Country Dances?

We know they were danced at court in the seventeenth century because there are records of Charles II dancing.

Then to country dances; the King leading the first, which he called for; which was, says he, "Cuckolds all awry," the old dance of England.

-- The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 31 Dec. 1662

And we know that Queen Victoria liked Country Dancing in the 1850s and Queen Elizabeth II liked Scottish Country Dancing in the 1950s.

Everyone familiar with Jane Auston knows that the gentry were dancing country dances in the Regency Period.

But if we turn to The Vicar of Wakefield (Oliver Goldsmith, ~1766, Chapter 9) an alfresco country dance is attempted, the vicar and his family and the local squire and his friends all know country dancing, but the daughters of a yeoman farmer do not.

though the Miss Flamboroughs were reconed the very best dancers in the parish, and understood the jig and the round-about to perfection; yet they were totally unacquainted with country dances.' This at first discomposed us: however, after a little shoving and dragging, they at last went merrily on.

In Emma (Jane Austin, 1816) the farmer, Robert Martin, and his sisters are not invited to the Highbury Ball.

In A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843), the ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to Fezziwig's Christmas ball where everyone dances, from the Fezziwigs, their employees, their servants and all the neighborhood.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again;

In Under the Greenwood Tree (Thomas Hardy, 1872, but set in ~1850) all the villagers seem to dance The Triumph.

So it seems to me that in the eighteenth century country dancing may have been the preserve of the gentry, but by the middle of the nineteenth (when it was dying out among the gentry) it was danced by the common folk.

Timeline

~1500s	Dargason / Sedanny devised. Maybe
~1600	Sellengers Round, Trenchmore. Halfe Hannikin. The Night Peece, and Putney Ferry devised. early Up a double/Siding/Arming dances. Maybe.
1621-1649	Lovelace (Patticke) Manuscript written Includes Up a double/Siding/Arming dances, duple minor dances, circle dances, and odd shapes.
1651	The Engliſh Dancing Maſter published by John Playford in London. Includes Up a double/Siding/Arming dances, duple minor dances, circle dances, and odd shapes. Includes an improper dance.
1651-1660	Charles II lives in exile in France, perhaps taking Country Dancing with him to the French Court.
1652	The Dancing Maſter, 2nd edition published Includes first triple minor
1657	The Dancing Maſter, 3nd edition published Includes the last dances with two facing couples, and the last 3 couple longways.
1670	The Dancing Maſter, 4nd edition published Includes last Up a double/Siding/Arming dances (except for Fairy Queen in 1726) Includes the last square and circle dances (until cotillions and quadrilles). Includes the last four couple longways dances.
1685	Louis XIV (of France) sends a dancing master to England to find out about Country Dancing. See: The Playford Assembly, Graham Christian, Easthampton, Ma. 2015
1690	The Dancing Maſter, 8th edition published Henry Playford (John Playford's son) takes over First use of the words "improper" and "proper"
1699	Country Dances: Being a Composition Entirely New devised by Thomas Bray First known devisor Includes improper dances, and multi-part dances
~1705	John Walsh starts publishing his annual collections of Country Dances. Twenty four New Country Dances for the year ????
1706	Recüeil de contredances mises en chorégraphie, d'une maniére si aisée, que toutes personnes peuvent facilement les apprendre published, Paris by Raoul-Auger Feuillet Early French collection of contredanses and introduction to a visual system for describing dance
1709	The Dancing Maſter, 14th edition published John Young, son-in-law to Henry Playford, takes over
1710	For the Furthur Improvement of Dancing translation in English by John Essex of Feuillet's work, with some original country dances.
1710	Nathaniel Kynaston is listed as the devisor of the dances Walsh publishes in his Twenty four New Country Dances for the year 1710
1710	Last use of "Kiss" (Salute) as a figure in Kynaston's Would you have a Young Virgin.
1718	Walsh publishes The Compleat Country Dancing-Master
1726	The 3rd volume of The Dancing Master is published Last improper dances until 1821.
1728	The final edition of The Dancing Master is published
1767	Ignatius Sancho published Minuets, Cotillons & Country Dances, First example of Cotillions in England
1777	The last example of a "Turn Single" in Thompson's The Spaniard. Interpreters have inserted turn singles into later dances, but this is the last dance (I know of) where it is in the original.
1785	The last example of a "proper" (in England) in Cantelo's Lady George Murray's Reel.
1788-1789	George III incapacitated, Prince of Wales gains some powers.
1808	Thomas Wilson publishes An Analysis of Country Dancing in London. First version I've found of Sir Roger de Coverley/Virginia Reel.
1811-1820	Official Regency era In 1810 George III was incapacitated again and parliament recognized the Prince of Wales as regent. George III died in 1820, and the Prince became George IV.
~1814	Waltzing at State Balls in London to celebrate the (first) defeat of Napoleon - indicating some acceptance of the waltz.
~1815	Lady Jersey is said to have introduced the quadrille to Almack's Assembly
1821	Chivers publishes The Dancers's Guide in London. Includes improper dances, three-face-three dances and Mescolanzes format (four face four)
1822	Chivers publishes The Modern Dancing Master Includes the first version of the sicilian circle format that I'm aware of.
1858	Elias Howe publishes The Complete Ball-Room Hand-Book, Boston A collection of New England Contra Dances, which at that time were standard proper duple and triple minor longways dances. A few were improper. A few contained waltzing as part of the dance, possibly the first dance(s) with a partner swing. At this point the "hey" and "figure eight" seem to have been lost from the Contra tradition.
1862	Elias Howe publishes American Dancing Master, and Ball-room Prompter
1909	Cecil Sharp collects extant country dances from around England and publishes Country Dance Book, Part 1.
1911-1922	Cecil Sharp interpreted Playford dances and published 4 further parts of his Country Dance Book.
1918	Cecil Sharp travels to the US and describes The Running Set an early example of Appalachian Square Dance, and publishes his investigations in the fifth part of The Country Dance Book.
1918	Emma Burchenal publishes American Country-dances, Boston/New York. The work is marked "Volume 1". If there be a second volume, I haven't uncovered it yet.
1924	(R)SCDS Book 1 published
1929	Douglas & Helen Kennedy publish The Country Dance Book, New Series More interpretations of old dances, including 3 published by Walsh, the first interpretations of non-Playford dances.
1932	Marjorie Heffer and William Porter publish Maggot Pie in Cambridge. First book of new country dances for seventy years or so. First Up-a-double/Siding/Arming dances since Playford's day.
1936	Ralph Page devises Happy Valley Reel. First new contra dance (for which I have a date and devisor).
1945	(R)SCDS Book 13 published Includes first modern Scottish Country Dance (The Reel of the 51st Division)
1951	SCDS becomes the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.
~1956	Pat Shaw starts devising dances and producing his interpretations of Playford in Another Look at Playford He devised Monica's Delight in 1931 and Freda's Fancy in 1949 earlier but these seem isolated dances.
1956	The Contra Dance Book by Rickey Holden published. Second improper triple minor.
1957	Becket Reel devised. First double progression dance. First Becket Contra dance.
~1957	Fried de Metz Herman starts devising dances
1983	Zesty Contras published The "hey" and "figure eight" reappear in the Contra tradition. Lots of double progression duple minor dances. A few double progression triple minor dances. A few triple progression triple minor dances. Last triple minors in contra dances.

CAVEAT: I often say that a dance is the first dance with such and such properties, or the last. This is a short-hand for "This is the first dance I have found so far". I have not looked at every dance published in England in the last ~300 years, but I have looked at enough to have an approximate feel for timing.

References

• Nick Barber, Website, scans of the British Library dance books, UK, Current
• Emma Burchenal, American Country-dances, New York/Boston, 1918.
• CDSS, CDSS 75th Anniversary GEMS, Haydenville, Ma, 1993.
• Castle Menzies, The Register of Dances at Castle Menzies, hand-written ms., Scotland, 1749.
• G.M.S. Chivers, The Dancer's Guide, London, 1821
• G.M.S. Chivers, The Modern Dancing Master, London, 1822
• Anne Daye, Frances Campbell, Hazel Dennison, Ian Gatiss, and Judy Smith, A Lively Shape of Dauncing, UK, 1994.
• Graham Christian, The Playford Assembly, Easthampton, Ma. 2015
• Mary McNab Dart, Contra Dance Choreography, a Reflection of Social Change, New York & London, 1995
• Nicholas Dukes, A Consise & Easy Method of Learning the Figuring Part of Country Dances, London, 1752.
• John Essex, For the Further Improvement of Dancing, London, 1710.
• Henry Ford/Benjamin Lovett, Good Morning, Dearborn MI., 1925
• William de Garmo, The Prompter, New York, 1868.
• Giovanni Andrea Gillini, A New Collection of Forty-four Cotillons, London, 1772.
• J. H. Gourdoux-Daux, De L'Art De La Danse, Paris, 1823 (description of French dancing terms and steps.
• Marjorie Heffer and William Porter, Maggot Pie, Cambridge, 1932
• Rickey Holden, The Contra Dance Book, USA, 1956, reprinted: Belgium, 1997
• Thomas Hillgrove, The Scholar's Companion and Ball-Room Vade Mecum, New York, 1857.
• Elias Howe, The Complete Ball-Room Hand-Book, Boston, 1858
• Elias Howe, American Dancing Master, and Ball-room Prompter, Boston, 1862.
• Colin Hume, Website, UK, ~1990-2024.
• Thomas Hurst, The Cotillons Made Plain and Easy, London, 1769
• International Music Score Library Project, Website, World, Current
• Larry Jennings, Zesty Contras, Cambridge, Ma., 1983, reprinted: 1996
• Kate Van Winkle Keller & Genevieve Shimer, The Playford Ball, 1990, reprinted: 1994
• Ida Levin, Kentucky Square Dances, Louisville, Ky., 1928
• The Library of Congress, Website, US, Current.
• Lovelace, The Lovelace Manuscript, 1620-1649, hand-written ms., England
• Lowe, Lowes' Ball-Conductor and Assembly Guide, Edinburgh, ~1831.
• Garth Notley, Regency Dances (website), UK, 2010-2024.
• John Playford, The Engliſh Dancing Maſter, London, 1651
  There are many online sources for Playford's works.
  • the International Music Score Library Project has a scan of the entire booklet (and several later editions)
  • Scott Pfitzinger has the all the dances of all the volumes and editions of Playford indexed with scans of each dance and a modern interpretation of many.
  • Robert Keller also has the all the dances of all the volumes and editions of Playford indexed with scans of each dance.
• Henry Playford, The Dancing Master
• John Young, The Dancing Master
• Richard Powers, Website, US, Current
• Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, Website, UK, Current.
• Saltator, A Treatise on Dancing, Boston, 1802
• Ignatius Sancho, Minuets, Cotillons & Country Dances, London, 1767
• Ignatius Sancho, Twelve Country Dances for the Year 1779, London, 1779
• John M. Schell, Prompting How to do it, Boston/Chicago, ~1890
• Cecil Sharp, The Country Dance Book, Parts 1-6, London, 1909-1922
• Lloyd Shaw, Cowboy Dances, Caldwell Idaho, 1939
• W. Smyth, A Pocket Companion for Young Ladies and Gentlemen, Edinburgh, 1830
• John Sweeney, Contra Fusion Website, UK, -2022
• Hugh Thurston, Scotland's Dances, London, 1954
• Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Website, UK, -2022
• H. D. Wilcock, Ball-Room Guide; A Manual of Dancing, Glasgow, ~1868
• Thomas Wilson, An Analysis of Country Dancing, London, 1808
• Thomas Wilson, An Analysis of Country Dancing, 3rd Ed., London, 1811
• Thomas Wilson, A Companion to the Ball Room, London, 1816
• Thomas Wilson, An Analysis of Country Dancing, 4th Ed., London, 1822
• Thomas Wilson, The quadrille and cotillion panorama, London, 1822
• Thomas Wilson, The Art of Dancing, London, 1852

Indeces of Scans of Original Sources

• My list
• Regency Dances: Useful Links to Sources for Reasearch
• Robert Keller's list
• Richard Powers' list

This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.