CHESTNUT Cécile Laye, Jan 2, 2017
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Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents information about longways sets (also known as "contra dancing")
This post also presents information about and three videos each of two examples of longways sets (contra dancing) - Sir Roger de Coverly and the Virginia Reel.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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INFORMATION ABOUT LONGWAYS SETS (CONTRADANCING)
EXCERPT #1
https://bigscioty.com/how-to-be-make-contra-dance-the-most-fun-ever/
[no author or publishing date given; retrieved Nov. 19, 2023]
..."So what is contra dance?
Contra dance has origins from English country dance,
Scottish and French dances, and strong influence from Appalachia. Contra
dancing is danced in long lines of couples/pairs formed starting from the stage
and down the dance hall; couples progress up and down these lines, dancing with
every other couple in the line. The dance is led by a caller who teaches the
sequence of figures in the dance before the music starts and continues to call
through all or part of the dance. Each time through the dance takes 64 beats,
after which the pattern is repeated. Contra dance incorporates various figures,
the Balance & Swing, Do-Si-Do, Promenade and several others, each of which
will be taught as needed in a walk-through preceding each dance or during the
beginners’ lesson."...
What kind of music will I hear?
Music played for contra dances includes, but is not limited
to Irish, Scottish, old-time and French-Canadian folk tunes. The fiddle is
considered the core instrument, though other instruments such as the guitar,
banjo, bass, mandolin and percussion instruments are played as well.
-snip-
Older examples of Contra Dance don't have callers since the tradition of speaking or singing calls started in the United States.
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EXCERPT #2
From https://www.princetoncountrydancers.org/what-is-contra-dance
"Contra Dance
[…]
Contra dance is a folk dance made up of long lines of
couples usually ascribed to New England or the Appalachian region. It has mixed
origins from English country dance, Scottish, and French dance styles in the
17th century, and also possesses strong African influence from Appalachia.”…
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EXCERPT #3
From https://dancingmasters.com/dances-in-longways-sets/ by New England Dancing Masters
"Online Resources for Teachers (Covid 19)
Dances in Longways Sets
These dances are perfect for beginners. They are easy and yet their high energy will make them favorites that are often requested.
A longways set is comprised of two lines of dancers facing
each other. Each dancer stands across from their partner. Traditionally, the
‘gents’ are in the right hand line, the ‘ladies’ in the left hand line. See
CHOOSING PARTNERS. Each time through the dance the top couple progresses to the
bottom of the set while the other couples move up one place. The dance is then
repeated with the new top couple.
These longways set dances have been presented in an
approximate order according to difficulty. Kindergartners and first graders
will enjoy Chimes of Dunkirk, second graders will love Alabama Gal, while upper
elementary students with some dance experience will be challenged by Foula Reel
and Willow Tree. Remember, however, these dances are not age specific."...
-snip-
This page includes a diagram of the set which has images and word to show the following:
Bottom of the set
Bottom Couple
Men on the right hand side
Ladies on the left hand side
Top Couple
Top of Set
Music and caller.
-snip-
I'm used to referring to the couples and location that this essay and diagram refer to as the "bottom of the set" as the top and vice versa.
While most of the "traditional" Contra dance videos I've watched show the first couple as being what I'd refer to the last couple in the set, I've noticed that in most of the YouTube videos of school children performing these longways set dances don't abide by those traditional references. Instead, the couple that I'm used to considering to be the top (but is referred to as the bottom in traditional contra dancing) sashays down to what I would consider the bottom.
The two rows of dancers in the American television series Soul Train also filmed the first (couples or single) dancer/s as being at the head of the lines (the top which traditional Contra dancing refers to as the bottom).
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EXCERPT #4
From https://www.quora.com/What-is-contra-dancing What Is Contra Dancing
[reply written by] Alan Prince Winston, 2020
English country/contra/Regency/Victorian dance leader and
devisor since 1985
“Short factual version:
Contra dancing is an American community dance tradition related to English country dancing, originally done to English, Irish, and Scottish tunes, which has refreshed itself over the years by taking on new musical styles (jazz, swing, jam band, electronica) and importing choreographic detail from other forms like square dancing. The basic contra dance has a line of couples facing couples; a caller walks them through a choreography that has the couples interacting and then moving on to new couples, up and down the line, for 11–17 times through the choreography, most typically to a medley of two or three tunes. Compared to English country dance a contra dance has more physical contact because most dances include “swinging” (in a modified ballroom position) with both partner and nieghbor.
“Contra” dancing used also to be known as “contry” dancing.
It is unclear whether the root of the name is in “contrary” or “against” (as in
French contredanse) or in “country” (as in English Country dance). The dance
form, indistinguishable from contemporary English country dance up through the
War of 1812, became unfashionable in the urban ballroom by the mid-1800s but
continued in rural new England in an unbroken tradition and started
experiencing a revival in the late 1930s. It really became a national phenomenon
in the 1970 and 1980s.
Many contra dancers take the taught choreography more as guidelines than as absolute rules and introduce variations and “flourishes” reminiscent of swing dancing, blues dancing, etc. In general a sense of play pervades the dance floor.
So a contra dance evening involves touching a lot of
different sweaty people, motivated (ideally) by exciting, varied music, in a
happy room with a lot of play.
Contra dance roles were traditionally “gents and ladies” or “men and women” but a strong movement toward inclusivity - gendered role names exclude the non-binary and discourage people from dancing the side they prefer if their gender presentation doesn’t match it - has developed in the last ten years or so and a number of dances have switched over to gender-role-free terms like “larks and robins”. This is still a work in progress and some callers are experimenting with calling purely positionally and without role names.
Also there’s often a lot of tie-dye"
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INFORMATION ABOUT SIR ROGER de COVERLY (dance)
EXCERPT #1
From
“Roger de (or of) Coverley (also Sir Roger de Coverley or
...Coverly) is the name of an English country dance and a Scottish country
dance (also known as The Haymakers). An early version was published in The
Dancing Master, 9th edition (1695).[1] The Virginia Reel is probably related to
it. The name refers to a fox, and the dance's steps are reminiscent of a hunted
fox going in and out of cover.
References in modern culture
It is mentioned in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843)
when the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge a party from his apprenticeship
with Mr. Fezziwig. "...the great effect of the evening came after the
Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler ... struck up 'Sir Roger de Coverley'. Then
old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig." In the 1951 film
Scrooge, based on Dickens's story and starring Alastair Sim in the title role,
the fiddler is shown playing the tune at an energetic tempo during the party
scene. It figures in William Makepeace Thackeray's short story The Bedford-Row
Conspiracy as the musical centrepiece of a political feast pitting the Whigs
against the Tories, and in Arnold Bennett's novel Leonora as music considered
by the older gents as more suitable for a ball than the likes of the Blue
Danube Waltz. The 1985 British TV adaptation of Dickens' Pickwick Papers showed
the titular character, along with his friends performing the dance at Christmas
celebrations at the Manor Farm - Mr. Wardle's residence.
It is also played in the 1939 film version of
Wuthering Heights, during the sequence in which Heathcliff, newly established as master of the estate, visits the ball at the invitation of Isabella Linton.
It is mentioned in Silas Marner by George Eliot, when the fiddler at the Cass New Year's Eve party plays it to signal the beginning of the evening's dancing, and in the children's book The Rescuers by Margery Sharp."....
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EXCERPT #2
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iye3JoD5LUo Sir Roger de Coverly [This is the first video that is embedded in this pancocojams post.
@malcolmmcdonald9991, 2019 [comment]
"This dance was the standard way of bringing a ball to an end at the time of Thomas
Wilson, impeccably danced here, as always, by Chestnut. It is great fun to do,
and even more so if the dancers can sustain the overlapping 'perpetual motion'
style of the opening figure, so clearly demonstrated in this video. It's worth
noting that Wilson's original calls for an 'allemande', here interpreted
reasonably enough by an allemande turn. However, Wilson had his own idea of what
an 'allemande' was (see p. 12, The Complete System of English Country
Dancing, Wilson 1815) and it seems to
have been very similar to a back-to-back, which is in fact how the dance is
normally performed these days."
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ADDITIONAL VIDEOS OF SIR ROGER de COVERLEY
SHOWCASE VIDEO #2 - Sir Roger de Coverley from A Christmas Carol (1951)
makeitfolky, May 13, 2013
Country Dance tune Sir Roger De Coverley played at
Fezziwig's Ball, from the 1951 film "A Christmas Carol"
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #3 - Sir Roger de Coverley
Mary Smith, Feb 9, 2015
Sir Roger de Coverley is one of the oldest known surviving
country dances. In the 19th Century it was the traditional final dance at a
ball. and survived as a popular folk dance at private parties at Christmas time
into the next century. The name is thought to be a corruption of 'Roger the
Cavalier' and as a ballroom dance dates back to at least Charles the Second. As
'The Haymaker' it is known from centuries earlier in Ireland and in Scotland as
'The Maltman'. The older versions included a Serpentine figure or the
derivative Strip the Willow. It was danced to the 9-8 signature tune of Sir
Roger de Coverley in the ballroom but as a folk dance, more generally to 6-8
jigs and there is such a signature tune - 'Haymakers Jig' which is nursery
rhyme style sounding a little like Round and Round the Mulberry Bush. The dance
lasted well into the 1920s and the Old Time Dance revival of the 1930s in
Australia.
Video footage by dancers and friends of Bush Dance &
Music Club of Bendigo, directed by Peter
Ellis at Sedgwick, Victoria Australia, October 2014.
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE VIRGINIA REEL
EXCERPT #1
From https://www.scottishcountrydanceoftheday.com/daysoftheyear/new-virginia-reel New Virginia Reel
"Square Dancing (Scottish and English Country Dancing's American cousin) takes its name from the popular quadrille formations of Europe. The Virginia reel is a folk dance dating from the 17th century performed in a longwise formation also called contredanse anglaise by the French. Though the reel may have its origins in Scottish country dances and the Highland reel, (and perhaps have been influenced by an early Irish dance called the Rinnce Fada), it is generally considered to be taken from the English country dance, Sir Roger de Coverley . The dance was most popular in America from 1830–1890.
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EXCERPT #2
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_reel_(dance)
"The Virginia reel is a folk dance that dates from the 17th
century. Though the reel may have its origins in Scottish country dance and the
Highland reel, and perhaps have an even earlier origin from an Irish dance
called the Rinnce Fada, it is generally considered to be an English country
dance. The dance was most popular in America from 1830–1890.
The Virginia reel was a popular dance, and in each area there would be slight differences. This has given rise to a large number of dances called the Virginia reel. All of the versions have certain similarities, such as the reel figure.
[...]
The dance
Described below is one version of the Virginia reel.
The dancers usually line up in two lines of 5-8 couples, partners facing each other. Traditionally men would line up on one side, and women on the other, but that is not necessary. The lines have a head and a foot, with the head couple being the nearest the band or music source and the foot couple at the other end of the line. This formation is the same for any version of the Virginia reel.
Head lady and foot gentleman forward and back.
The head lady and the foot man advance toward each other
four steps and retire four steps backward into place.
Forward again with both hands round.
The head lady and foot man advance, join both hands straight
across and make one complete turn, then return to places. The head man and foot
lady do the same.
Do-si-do (pronounced dough-see-dough)
The head lady and foot man advance, pass each other right
shoulder to right shoulder while crossing their arms, and without turning, go
around each other back-to-back and retire backwards to places. The head man and
foot lady do the same. It is then repeated by left shoulder (also called a see
saw).
Head couple gallops four times through the aisle and back.
The head couple join both hands and chasse (side slip and
close) down inside of the lines four steps and return to the head position.
Right arm to partner and reel. (Right to centre, left to the
side.)
The head couple link right arms and turn around once and a
half. (This leaves the lady facing the men's line and the man facing the
ladies' line). The head lady turns the second man (the second man from the head
of the line) once around in his place with left arms linked, while the head man
does likewise with the second lady. This continues until the man and lady reach
the end of the line.
This is where they turn only half way around, instead of a
full turn, so that the lady ends up on her side and the man on his side. The
head couple then join hands across and chasse (side slip and close) with side
steps back to the head of the set. They drop hands and turn out ready for the
march.
The march
The head couple separate. The man turns outwards and walks
toward the foot directly behind the men's line, followed by all the men in
single file. At the same time the head lady does the same thing on her side of
the set.
Then the head couple meet at the foot of the set and walk
together to the head of the set, followed by the other couples. When all have
reached their original places, all the partners, except the head couple, join
hands and hold them high to form a long archway under which the head couple,
with hands joined, walk through the gate. The original second couple now become
head couple and the whole pattern is repeated until all have been head couple.
Variations
As said above, there are many variations. One of the most
common is this:
When the head couple reach the foot of the set, they stop,
join both hands to form an arch while the couples behind them join hands and go
under the arch and up the center toward the head position. This leaves the
original head couple at the foot and the second couple now becomes the head
couple.
[...]
Music
Music consists of lively old time reel music such as
Durang's Hornpipe or Old Zip Coon aka. Turkey in the Straw."....
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #1 - Virginia Reel
SHOWCASE VIDEO #2 - Barn Dance-Virginia Reel.mov
Geoff Groberg, May 7, 2011
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #3- Virginia Reel- 4th Grade Folk Dance
Lauren Holum ,s Dec
6, 2021
At our Fall 2021 Gratitude Assembly, students in 4th grade
at Bay Harbor Elementary showcased the Virginia Reel, which they had been
learning about with our long-term music sub, Emily Mauro. This was a part of
our Leader in Me student-led assembly.
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