La Tempête

The Tempest ~ Hillgrove

The Tempest La Tempête The Tempest ~ Thompson

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, New York. 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.

Thompson calls his dance, The Tempest, and writes:

Right hands across quite round left hands back again cross over one Cu. Right & left

The original dance is a duple minor. Mescolanzes (a four face four dance) and circassian circle dances were invented (or at least brought to England) by Chivers in about ~1821. I do not know when The Tempest aquired those two attributes.

By 1857 it had reached the New York in the US, and become a mescolanze (with a rather different figure), and Thomas Hillgrove's The Scholars' Companion and Ball-Room Vade Mecum, where he writes:

This dance was lately introduced into Paris, and is now in high repute in the soirées dansantes and the fashionable circles in England, and may be truly represented as a general favorite, as it only requires an intimate knowledge of the figures to make it both agreeable and suitable for all ages; and like the Country Dance, it establishes a cordial feeling amongst all who engage in it.

The figures of this dance admit of only two couples in breadth; as many sets of four couples as the room will hold may be thus arranged, as follows:

Arrange two couples in a line across the room and see that each gentleman has his lady on his right hand, standing with their backs to the end of the room; opposite these, arrange two other couples vis-a-vis, and so on with any number of four couples that the room and the company will admit of. Accordingly four new comers can always an additional line. The dance is commenced by all the couples at the same time who advance and retire twice, with hands joined.

  1. ALL FORWARD, and back twice (hands joined, forming two lines of four). (8 bars).
  2. ALL CHASSEZ ACROSS, and back, the right couple passing in front each time. (8 bars).
  3. ALL FORWARD, and back twice (hands joined). (8 bars).
  4. CROSS RIGHT HAND, round and back. Here the four in the centre dance together, while the couples on the ends dance separately. Thus: the four in the centre and the outside couples cross right hand and turn half round to the right, change hads and return with the left hand back to place. (8 bars).
  5. HANDS ROUND, and back. Thus: the four in the centre join hands, forming a circle; the two outside couples do the same, and all turn to the left, passing round in a circle, and back again to places.
  6. ALL FORWARD, and back; forward again, and pass through between the opposite couples into the next set, where they meet a new vis-a-vis, with whom they recommence the figures as above described. (8 bars).

    As the dancers are passing through to the adjoining sets, the head couples pass underneath, and each set, as they pass to the top, or end of the dance, must turn round and wait for the next set to join them as vis-a-vis, the gentlemen taking care to have the ladies always on the right hand. And thus, at the conclusion of each figure, a general change of vis-a-vis has taken place: for as the top lines are passing down the bottom lines are passing up till the top line reaches the bottom and the bottom the top, where they turn round and proceed in the similar manner to their original places. Here, if the party be large, the dance terminates; but it may be repeated at pleasure, by going down and up again.

    It may be well to remark that when the first pass or exchange of places is made, the new top and bottom lines are left without a vis-a-vis to each.

    When the figure is properly performed the dance is particularly social, cheerful and amusing, and combines the excitement of the country dance with the grace and elegance of the quadrille; while, at the same time it symbolically illustrates the singular visissitudes of the social condition of the land which gave it birth — or at least celebrity — the top going down and the bottom going up.

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.

1-4Lines of four forward and back
5-8Lines of four forward and back (again)
9-16Couples chassez, right couple in front
17-20Lines of four forward and back
21-24Lines of four forward and back (again)
25-28Center four right hands across, end pairs right hand turn...
29-32...and back by the left
33-36Center four circle left, end pairs two hand turn...
37-40...and back counter clockwise
41-44Lines of four forward and back
45-482s 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.

If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=LaTempete

< Prev Top Next >

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 © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
Creative Commons License 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.