Box The Gnat
An online definition may be found here.
Bars: 2.
This figure involves a facing couple, they join right hands and raise them, then they trade places. The woman turning left 180° as she passes under the raised hands, the man turning right 180° as he walks around her. The right hands remain joined afterward.
History
Box the Gnat is a figure in Cecil Sharp's Running Set from 1918. However that box the gnat has very little to do with the modern figure.
First man turns his partner half-way round with the right hand and once round with the left.
Lloyd Shaw does not mention it in his Cowboy Dances from 1939.
In Sept 1949, Sets in Order published a list of standardized calls agreed at a recent callers' meeting. It describes box the gnat as:
BOX THE GNAT—Opposite right, opposite left, opposite right and pass her behind him to his left side. Partner left, Partner right, Partner left and pass her behind him to his right side. It is suggested that other words be used for Partner to avoid confusion, e.g., Box the Apple, Box the Pear.
In March of 1951 Sets in Order published how box the gnat was danced in California, and in Texas. In the California version there is both a dance called "box the gnat" and a figure inside the dance, also called "box the gnat", but the figure inside the dance looks like the modern figure:
Now you box the gnatGive right to corner and exchange places, walking past each other, the lady turning with a left-face turn under the man's right arm.Box the fleaPertains to the left hand with the same person, girl walking forward does a right-face turn, back to original position.
Note that this figure is very different from the standardized figure published a year and a half before.
In June of 1951 there's another dance where a left handed box the gnat is still called box the gnat (nothing about a flea).
In Northern Junket, June, 1970, page 29, there is a reference to "box the gnat". I presume that means it had reached the East Coast by 1970.
Recently I have seen the term "Twirl to Swap" used to mean a non-gendered version of "Box the Gnat".
Some dances which (probably) use this figure
- Dances for which I have animations
Note: This list may be incorrect or incomplete.
See Also
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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.