Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents two online excerpts about the history of the Quadrille dance in the Caribbean.
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the people in the past and present who helped develop and help maintain these dance traditions. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to all those who research/ed this subject.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/03/caribbean-quadrille-dancing-dominica.html for a 2017 pancocojams post that provides information and YouTube videos of Quadrille dancing throughout the Caribbean.
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ONLINE EXCERPT #1
From https://www.flickr.com/photos/28320522@N08/8167028080
National Library of Jamaica
Uploaded on November 8, 2012
Taken on May 2, 2012
"Quadrille
Quadrille is one of the European influenced dances that have
acquired African-Jamaican elements. It began as a popular dance in France and
gradually spread through Europe and the colonies. In the early 19th century, it
was introduced to the island. At first it was danced by only the gentry at
social occasions such weddings, balls and banquets, but was later taken up by
the Africans. Slaves who worked in the great houses were able to watch and copy
their master. Though it was primarily used as a way of mimicking the master, it
became popular with the slaves and was soon used at celebrations such as
Christmas and Easter as well as other gatherings.
Quadrille has two distinctive styles, one very formal and elegant, the ballroom style and the other more lively and energetic, the camp style. The Jamaican Ballroom style is based on the square formations of the European ‘Cotillon.’ It is a more rigid style and set in form as if dancers are gliding between formations while retaining an upward mobility like the military. In this style unity is emphasized. Ballroom style was more popular in Kingston. The Jamaican Camp style however, contains longway formations with couples standing in lines rather than square and contains more variety and improvisation. Its style is more bouncy and earthbound in quality, “reflecting the strong African influence.” This style, unlike Ballroom was more popular in the rural areas.
Quadrille is normally accompanied by a band consisting of instruments such as guitar, fiddle, fife, violin, trumpet and rhumba box. The quadrille is no longer a popular social dance but it is one of Jamaica’s traditional dances that are still performed at Festivals."
ONLINE EXCERPT #2
From
"Follow the Signs – The Quadrille
The Quadrille was danced throughout the eighteenth century, and became a symbol of European refinement and enlightenment. It was during this century that the rapid expansion of European colonisation of the Americas and Caribbean took place, and along with it the establishment of the plantation based economy based on the free labour of enslaved African peoples. During this period, many examples of creolisation, the cultural transference between African and European cultures, still survive. It can be thought of as surprising to find that amongst these examples that the Quadrille, a formal eighteenth century style of dancing and music, remain part of the Caribbean intangible cultural heritage of many Caribbean communities, and still danced as part of celebrations and festivities which take place around Carnival, and other celebrations, including in the Caribbean diaspora in the UK.
[…]
The Quadrille, although not directly linked to Caribbean Carnival, is part of the many activities which surround Carnival, and in which many British Caribbean Carnivalists participate.
[…]
Both Carnival and the Quadrille are superficially viewed as creolised versions of European cultural activities, which the enslaved Africans appropriated. However on closer examination, both Carnival and the Quadrille retain close ties to the cultural heritage of the enslaved Africans transported to the Caribbean, This discussion of the Quadrille centres on the recognition of the Quadrille as a sign which is recognised by a specific social group, who are able to decode its specific meaning (Chandler, 2002). Semiotics explores the signs we use to negotiate and understand the world. For the Quadrille, there are many interpretations of this sign, which are discussed below.
[…]
In A Critical Analysis of Caribbean Contredanse, Daniel (2009) writes that the intention of the paper is a study of:
‘the values that inform dance behaviours…that have marked the Iongevity and pervasiveness of contredanse – derived dancing throughout the Caribbean region . . . .values concerning identity, ancestor reverence and the colonial experience’. (Daniel, 2009, p148)
Here Daniel points to the complicated history of contredanse in the Caribbean. The French word contredanse itself, is an example of this mixing of histories.
Daniel begins by discussing contredanse across the American region, but focusses on the uniqueness and continued popularity of Caribbean contredanse, which has performed since the eighteenth century. Daniel writes that it is curious that a ‘structurally European dance form is still performed…. by the descendants of enslaved and free Africans’ throughout the Caribbean, and by people of all ages’ and continues by referring to contemporary Quadrille dancing as African- descended contredanse.
Daniel describes the development of contredanse in eighteenth century Europe, and its rigid performance style which ‘focussed keenly on manners, sociability and courting practises which were taught by expert dance masters‘. (Daniel, 2009, 147) and the acquisition of contredanse skills became a symbol of high social status. Daniel cites the works of Rameau (1977), and Sharpe (1924) who wrote that by the eighteenth century, the French minuet and English square dance, had both become important elements in contredanse. This early European form of the dance developed into different sub-dances or formations, which are often danced together, and are collectively referred to as contredanse. The square formation, developed into the Quadrille; the circle formation in contredanse became Ronds, and the line dance formation remained as the original dance formation of contredanse. Each of these formations were dance in sequence at balls and other social gatherings, and migrated to the Americas and Caribbean with the plantocracy. Daniel writes that the Quadrille remains widely known across the Caribbean but has become known by a variety of names including the Bele, the Quadrille, the Haute – Tailed, Affranchise and Tumba Francesca. Between 1997 and 2004, Daniel observed contredanse in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Carriacou, US Virgin Isles, and Pruerto Rico. From my research, I also know that the Bele and Quadrille are also danced in Grenada and Carriacou, which I will discuss later in this paper.
[…]
Daniel believes that the importance of dance in both African and European societies collided in plantation society. For both cultures dance was a means of communicating social status, cultural values and identity. This reinforced the role played by contredanse in the Caribbean, and the layers of social stratification that existed: contredanse performed in the Americas projected differentiated statuses between Europeans and Europeans, between Europeans and Africans and between free and not free’. (Daniel, 2009, p149)
The ability to perform contredanse, Daniel and Cyrille believe conferred an elevated status on those enslaved Africans who could follow the strict dance steps needed to execute the dance. I believe that this would have added to the already stratified nature of the enslaved population on the plantations, which Zobel Marshall classified as a hierarchical structure of plantation owner at the top, then estate manager (overseer), slave driver, domestic slaves, skilled slaves and lastly at the bottom of the hierarchy, the field slaves (Zobel Marshall, 2012).
Daniel believes that Enslaved African contredanse dancers in the colonial Caribbean, implied and sought a different social different and elevated social identity, and also became a symbol of the concealed rebellion against degradation of enslavement. It differentiated between those who could dance the complicated and precise European movements, than those who could not, and therefore identified those enslaved Africans who were able to acquire skills and ability to equal those of the European plantocracy. In an environment where such a high status was given to these skills, the ability to perform contredanse was ‘an affront to slavery and colonisation’ (Daniel, 2009, p 149) and Entioppe describes this as ‘camouflaged resistance’ and one of methods which the enslaved Africans used to sabotage slavery, assert their dignity and covertly strike back against the plantocracy, including working slowly, poisoning and suicide. Scott (1985) discusses this form of resistance in his work on hidden transcripts, which looks at how those without power find covert ways to subvert and disrupt the powerful. The ability to out dance or outperform the plantocracy in public or private displays of contredanse would have been a means of asserting or restoring dignity for the enslaved Africans.
Daniel then discusses how ancestor worship has always and
remains an integral part of Quadrille dancing. For the early enslaved African
dancers, the steps to the Quadrille connected them with African ancestors and lost
family, and this ancestor reverence and connection is still important to contemporary
Quadrille dancers, both in the Caribbean and in the UK. So much so, in fact Daniel
writes that contredanse has lost its associations with slavery and oppression, and
is no longer seen as a European dance. I argue that Daniel’s interpretation here
that Daniel’s focus on the creolised Quadrille does not explain why several forms of
traditional African dance such as the bongo and the temne, both of which have been
preserved, or whether they would have a greater impact on the connection with
African ancestors enslaved in the Caribbean, which I do believe it does. However Daniel
does acknowledge the
essential role of orality has in preserving and transmitting
Caribbean Quadrille dancing skills, cultural values and knowledge about an
African ancestral heritage in the Caribbean and the diaspora.
Daniel believes that modern contredanse ‘points to the superficial irony involved in African performance of European dances for centuries’ (Daniel, 2009, p149), but conduces that contredanse continues to be a strategy to fight the continuing effects of colonialism and degradation.
Miller (2006) then goes on the give a vivid and accurate description of how creolisation and its effect on the development of the Quadrille dance and music, might have worked in practise in the early Caribbean of the seventeenth and eighteenth century:
Perhaps, for example, at an informal soirée in 1790 in Port-au-Prince one might encounter some local whites dancing a French-style contredanse to English jigs …on a plantation in the nearby countryside, three musically inclined slaves from Dahomey, Yorubaland, and the Congo are playing together on some drums….while their own traditional rhythms are all somewhat the distinct from each other, they soon settle on one based around a pattern—the cinquillo—that is at least implicitly extant in the traditions of all three….with their master’s encouragement, [have] learned to approximate a few contredanses (Miller, 2006, p33)
Meanwhile, the cultivation of such European-derived genres as the contradance and Quadrille—like the adoption of European languages—also served to facilitate socio-cultural interaction between ethnically diverse segments of the slave population. In other words, in sharing the able to develop equally unknown languages and cultural practises of their captors, the enslaved Africans were able to begin to develop a unified and new culture in the Caribbean. This belief in the power of creolisation has been embraced by academics such as Burton (2008), Tancons (2012) and Riggio (2015), and dominates the discourse around the extent to which the enslaved Africans were able to preserve and transmit their culture in any significant way.
Like Daniel earlier, Manual also discusses the importance and popularity of dance in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe, and in particular the Quadrille and contredanse and how this was partly fuelled by the growing availability of printed books, and Manuel cites the example of The English Dancing Master by John Playford, (1658 and subsequent editions until 1721). The development of African Quadrille dancing occurred very early in slavery in the Caribbean. Manuel discusses this early creolisation of dance in the Caribbean, and uses a contemporary report from 1707 (cited in Abrahams and Szwed, 1983) which describes Africans in Jamaica dressed in European court dress, dancing in Quadrille style lines and the spinning and twirling the petticoats African women slaves.
Interestingly in this work, Manuel also cites a rare example of an African dance, the calenda, which was popular with early Spanish Caribbean settlers and enslaved Africans alike, and was danced frequently by the Europeans, with no adaptations, using original African steps. The description of the calenda given by Manuel is of a dance which involved gyrating, thrusting pelvises and kissing to the accompaniment of drumming. This was very different to the rigid structures of the European dances which were being performed at this time. When a description of a performance of the calenda was recorded by the French priest R.P. Labat in his work Nouvelles Voyages in 1724, he wrote about the scandalous nature of the calenda dance
One can well appreciate, then, how immodest this dance may be, in spite of which it is so pleasing to the Spaniards and creoles of America, and so in use among them (Labat 1724, in Manuel 2012)
The calenda remained popular in the Spanish Caribbean, and Manuel cites a report by Saint-Mery in 1797, of the calenda still being danced, and which describes the same movement and steps which had been recorded 70 years earlier by Labat.
Manuel continues that this form of calenda can still be recognised in the contemporary calinda which is danced in Martinique, and the tumba francesca which is dances in Cuba.
Manuel, like Daniel, also addresses the issue of status in the dances of the Caribbean, and of the Quadrille in particular, and writes that it is the complexity of the Quadrille dance that has given it and its dancers such a high status throughout its history in the Caribbean
[…]
Miller writes that it is unclear when the Quadrille arrived in Carriacou, or how the enslaved Africans learnt how to perform the dance and music, and whether the enslaved Africans acquired the dance skills when they directly instructed to learn the Quadrille dance and music by their European masters, or if the slaves learnt their skills by imitation, when watching and listening to the plantocracy at play. Miller cites an article in an 1832 edition of the anti-abolitionist newspaper, the Grenada Free Press and Public Gazette, which discussed the condition of life for the slaves on the Grand Sable plantation and describes the slaves dancing during the Christmas Celebrations:
On these occasions, they spend the greater part of the day and night in dancing, with their usual characteristic ardour and agility……….. with so much time and precision the time and tune that their performance would often do credit to the more practised elegante (Miller, 2005, p422)
This supports the descriptions provided by Daniel and Carty (1988) which describe the skilled and accomplished dancing of the enslaved Africans.
It is extremely surprising to find a public acknowledgement in a newspaper, of a higher level of dancing skills of enslaved Africans, as in the value system of the plantocracy, this would suggest equality and perhaps even social superiority with Europeans, as I discussed earlier when examining the hierarchy of plantation societies.
Miller then examines the changing nature of intangible cultural heritage on Carriacou and the demise of the Quadrille on the island, where until the 1960s, Quadrille dances were important community social events. However, by the time of Miller’s study in 2005, the Quadrille was reduced to a small group of dancers, most of whose were members of L’Esterre village Quadrille Group, who dance for exhibition at formal events, such as during the annual August Regatta Festival. General participation in the Quadrille amongst the general population has diminished to such an extent that ‘the tradition is not actively being passed on to the younger generation’ (Miller, 2005, p403) and the average age of Quadrille dancers at the time of Miller’s study was between forty and sixty years old. Also, even more challenging to the survival of Quadrille dancing on Carriacou, Miller found was the growing scarcity of musicians who able to play Quadrille music, and describes the group’s violinist, bass (a two headed drum) tambourine and triangle (steel) Quadrille musicians, two of whom are over 75 years old. During my visit to Carriacou in 2018, I interviewed Clemencia Alexandra, daughter of Canute Caliste who was one of the last fiddle players on Carriacou. Clemencia told me that when her father died in 2005, the Quadrille fiddle skills died with him, and now recordings and not live music is used for Quadrille dance performances.
Miller examines the African overtly African rather than creole influences in thedance, and describes the ancestor worshipping ritual of libation that takes at the beginning of the L’Esterre group performances:
Miller also writes about Canute Caliste, his belief that it was his dream messages which taught him to play the Quadrille music. By describing the African influences on the dance, such as the interpretation of dreams and the pouring of libations, Miller emphasises the creolisation of the European dance, rather than the European influence on the Africans, as often occurs. As with other examples of preserved intangible heritage on Carriacou, a great deal of African culture has been retained from the enslaved Africans.
Miller describes the music played for the Quadrille dancing as reminiscent of traditional French and English country music, and of American square dancing music, all of which Miller writes is another indication of the legacy of British colonialism in the Americas. From the many Quadrille styles that flourished in the Caribbean, the remaining dominant style which is still danced is the English Quadrille; the Caledonian, Lancers and Albert Quadrille are no longer performed at dances. L’Esterre group dancers follow a traditional form ‘with few adaptations or changes’ (Miller, 2005, p408), except the notable exceptions of innovations introduced by celebrated dancer, Mr. Joseph, in the 1960s. However, underpinning this European musical style Miller also describes the African ‘polyrhythmic underpinning to the European-derived violin melodies’ (Miller, 2004, p407). Like Carty (1988), Miller describes the African influences on the dance movements and ‘The emphasis on syncopation and on this rhythmic and gentle hip sway are both commonly found in many Caribbean dances derived from Africa’ (Miller, 2005, p407).
However, the Quadrille dance continues to contain some of the formal and courtly European elements, including the formal dance steps of the wheel, chaining and the paisade. In addition, there are courtly manners displayed between the dancers and musicians, such as the lead male dancer laying of his hands into the violinists lap to signify the end of that dance, and that a new one should begin. In this, Miller continues, the Quadrille danced on Carriacou is ‘both sonically and visually link Kayak [Carriacou] African ancestry with the historical legacy of European colonisation’ (Miller, 2005, p407).
Therefore, the Quadrille as danced on Carriacou is evidence of creolisation which has been preserved in Grenada, using the orality, but is in danger of being lost as it is has not been able to maintain its skills or intergenerational support.
However there is a great deal of ambivalence about the Quadrille on Carriacou. Miller writes that:
Because of its European origins, its links to slavery and with subsequent years of Colonial rule, Quadrille today has an uncertain status in Carraicou.
(Miller, 2005, p403)
Because of these associations, Miller writes that the Quadrille is a dying tradition on modern day Carriacou, with few new participants performing the dance, although during my visit to Carriacou Clemencia told me that it is now taught in schools, which will help to preserve what is left of this intangible cultural heritage.”…
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