Four Ladies to the Center ~ Ford is a Square Dance. It was published by Benjamin B Lovett in 1925 in Good Morning: Music, Calls and Directions for Old-Time Dancing as Revived by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford. It is a Square dance. In this dance the men are permuted by: 4123 and the women by: 1234. It is a mixer. The minor set lasts 112 bars.
Good Morning was originally published in 1925, my version was printed in 1943.
Lovett writes
Four ladies forward and turn backs to the center 4 bars Gentlemen promenade on the outside and pass by partner 4 bars Balance and swing next ladies to a square formation 4 bars Grand right and left half round and promenade back 4 bars Begin again, ladies turning backs to center, and so on, continuing until this has been completed four times in all. Note: In this call gentlemen progress.
Lovett has three different definitions for "balance" the one which I think is most likely to apply here is BALANCE PARTNERS (4) Partners face each other and execute a swing step (gentleman steps to the left and swings right foot then steps to right and swings left foot, lady steps with right foot to side and swings left foot, and so on.)
Lovett appears to have a modern swing in mind when he uses that term.
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.
Lovett does not say anything about an introduction, middle break, or finalle, so I'm assuming there was none.
The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.
Figure repeats 4 times | |||||||||||
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The dance is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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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.