La Tempête
The Tempest ~ Hillgrove
La Tempête or The Tempest ~ Hillgrove is a European Contredanse. It was published by Thomas Hillgrove in 1857 in The Scholar's Companion and Ball-Room Vade-Mecum. It is a Four Face Four dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars.
In the CDSS book, Cracking Chestnuts, there is a later version of the dance with a different quadruple minor starting formation.
Hillgrove claims "This dance was lately introduced into Paris, and is now in high repute in the soirées dansantes and the fashionable circles in England."
Unlike modern four face four dances, in this one couples do not switch from right to left and vice versa as they progress.
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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| 1-4 | Lines of four forward and back |
| 5-8 | Lines of four forward and back (again) |
| 9-16 | Couples chassez, right couple in front |
| 17-20 | Lines of four forward and back |
| 21-24 | Lines of four forward and back (again) |
| 25-28 | Center four right hands across, end pairs right hand turn... |
| 29-32 | ...and back by the left |
| 33-36 | Center four circle left, end pairs two hand turn... |
| 37-40 | ...and back counter clockwise |
| 41-44 | Lines of four forward and back |
| 45-48 | 2s drop hands, 1s arch, pass through |
If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023 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.