Basket Swing

Bars: 8.

In a basket swing with 2 facing couples, the women take both hands with each other. Then the men bow under the women's hands and take both hands with each other. Then then women duck under the men's hands. And then you circle left.

When I was a teenager the goal was to spin so fast the girls' feet left the ground.

History

Elias Howe published a quadrille called Basket Set in his Complete Ball-Room Handbook of ~1858:

No. 4. (2 strains) First two forward and back, cross over — chassee across, back — balance and turn partners — four ladies forward and back, join hands and swing quite round, keeping hold of hands — four gentlemen balance, join hands and swing quite round outside of the ladies. Here the music makes a while the basket or wreath is formed, then all balance in that position and turn partners to places next two the same, and so on.

This isn't the basket swing that I grew up with, because the basket doesn't turn, it just balances, but it's a start.

Four ladies in the center.

Four gentlemen hands round on the outside. Eight bars

Gents' hands over ladies' heads. Four bars

It's not clear what happens in the four bars that the gents' hands are over the ladies' heads...

The "Basket Swing" is a figure described in Ralph Page's The Country Dance Book, 1937 (page 38)

With ladies in the center... facing each other, the men walk forward, so as to stand at the left hand of their partners. Gents now join hands, the ladies bow slightly forward, allowing the men to raise their joined hands over the ladies' heads, the ladies now step back one step and join hands.

Further instructions and diagrams are given on pages 75-78 Cross eight hands, gents bow, the ladies know how and round you go and we finally have the figure I grew up with.

It is not mentioned in 1956 (The Contra Dance Book), nor in 1993 (CDSS 75th Anniversary GEMS) but is present in 1983 in Zesty Contras.

Some dances which (probably) use this figure

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.