Evolution of some Country Dances

Just as the style of Country Dancing has changed through the centuries, so too have the dances themselves. Or at least some dances have remained favorites while the figure of the dance has altered.

In some cases this has been willful, as when the Scottish Country Dance Society set out to create a new tradition, while in others it has been the more gradual effect of time and inclination.

I first noticed how dances had changed when I animated The Triumph as presented in Cecil Sharp's The Country Dance Book, Part 1. When did The Triumph get a partner swing in it? That was completely outside anything I expected from an English Country dance.

Then I started animating Scottish Country dances and was again startled by how much the RSCDS had changed the figure as originally described. This is especially clear in Thomas Wilson's dances, because he defines each and every figure he uses fairly clearly, so you know what he means when he says "poussette" or "double triangles". The RSCDS appears to have ignored this.

Table of Contents

• RSCDS Book 1
  • Petronella
  • The Triumph
  • Circassian Circle
  • The Nut
  • Flowers of Edinburgh
• RSCDS Book 2
  • La Tempête
• RSCDS Book 10
  • Montgomeries' Rant
• RSCDS Book 11
  • Monymusk
• RSCDS Book 12
  • The Machine Without Horses
• RSCDS Book 17
  • Donald Bane
• RSCDS Book 19
  • None so Pretty
  • Rakish Highlandman
• RSCDS Book 34
  • Open the Door to Three
• Cracking Chestnuts
  • Careless Sally
  • Chorus Jig
  • Money Musk
  • The Tempest
• Old Squares
  • Grapevine Twist / Wild Goose Chase
  • The Lady Round The Lady / Chase the Squirrel
  • Ocean Wave
• Other Sources
  • Mr. Beverige's Maggot
  • Pop Goes the Weasel
  • Row Well Ye Mariners
  • Sicilian Circle
  • Black Dance
  • Zorinsky

RSCDS

I quote from the bottom of the title page of RSCDS Book 1

The dances published by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society are traditional both in steps and formations. Their present form has been arrived at from available manuscripts, old books, and from the experience of dancers during the last 150 years. The reference given at the bottom of each dance is the oldest known form.

I take issue with this statement. The dances may have had traditional names but for the most part they did not use traditional steps nor figures. In some cases they used the then current figures in some parts of Scotland, but these were often rather different from the traditional ones.

In the dance Petronella the every single figure is different from the oldest source I can find. The petronella turn is not done the way it was done in 1831. The modern pas-de-basque setting would be very unnatural after the original version of the petronella turn. "Down the middle and up" actually carried an implied "and cast off" in the early 19th century. And the 20th century Scottish "poussette" has almost no relation to the "poussette" which Chivers or Wilson describe in 1821 or 1809, nor to what Ignatius Sancho sort of described in 1779.

There are exceptions. The Guidman of Balangigh (RSCDS Book 30) is essentially the same as what Playford wrote back in 1696. And is the essentially the same as what Sharp interpreted back in 1922. But these exceptions are rare.

I am not saying that the RSCDS produced bad dances. I enjoy dancing them. But I don't think they were traditional dances when they were published. There's nothing wrong with starting a new way of dancing, but then claiming that new way to be old seems wrong.

To some extent the purpose of the society was to create dances which were different from the English dances then being taught to Scottish Girl Guides. But the 19th century dances were all of the Country Dance tradition which originated in England. They could not be both traditional and distinctly Scottish.

The revival of Country Dancing in England was an attempt to match, as closely as possible, the way the original dances were danced 250 years before. In this tradition new scholarship has led to new ways of looking at previously interpreted dances (Witness Cecil Sharp's redefinition of "siding"), and new generations of interpreters produce new versions of old dances. But nothing like this happens in Scottish, the dances are frozen in their untraditional tradition.

So I pick on the RSCDS a lot here because I consider their approach somewhat hypocritical in claiming that their dances are traditional (when they aren't) and that theirs is the only way of dancing that dance (when it isn't). And yet I enjoy dancing their dances.

This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 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.