Strictly Regency Ballroom
Alert Janeite and Occasional AustenBlogger Allison T. pointed us to a fascinating post at Susan de Guardiola’s blog, Capering & Kickery: “Real Regency Dancers Don’t Turn Single: Ten Tips for Judging Authenticity.” You think you’ve seen authentic dancing in period films? Most likely not, according to Ms. de Guardiola.
6. Real Regency Dancers Really Reel
Regency-era dancing was not limited to longways country dances. The Scotch Reel was also in the repertoire, though perhaps not always considered perfectly genteel, especially if others in the room were doing country dances. Mr. Darcy was not being complimentary in Pride and Prejudice when he asked
“Do you not feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?”
In its simplest form, the reel consisted of three or four people alternating between the interweaving hey figure and dancing in place, with the men in particular showing off their fancy footwork.
We cannot convey how completely delighted we are with the idea of Cranky McJerkpants doing a Highland fling. Do check out the whole post, it is just loaded with information on period dancing.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Wonderful!
I sort of wish now that someone would do a movie by movie examination of the dances. I’d be facinated to hear specifics on what’s right and wrong in each dance.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
What a wonderful idea, Diana! I’d also love to see an adaptation simply get it right!
March 17th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Diana -
I’ve had a lot of requests along those lines as well as for reviews of music CDs that advertise an Austen connection. I will try to do movies and CDs one by one over time - but it may take some time, so hang in there and keep checking back.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Does that mean if I could travel back to Jane Austen’s world no one would dance Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot with me? Darn!
March 17th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I’d like to know more about the REAL regency dances that were performed. Are they on the site?
March 17th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I have never understood Darcy’s “reel” line.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Julie-
You should take Scottish Country Dance lessons! Not that the way they do the dances now, is the way they did them then, but some of them are indeed the same dances.
March 18th, 2008 at 4:15 am
Hello.
Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth were much conversing during their dance at the Netherfield ball and if dances of that period were only “lively” jigs and reels I think that the conversations during such dances lay within the power only of robots not people.
Ms. de Guardiola is evidently good specialist in early 19th century dances but a little bit ignorant in music. Dance “Hole in the Wall” was not written in the late 17th century because then it was written by Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695) and not as a single tune or dance but as “Hornpipe to Abdelazer”. It became a single song much later and afterwards a country dance.
Thanks!
March 18th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Susan’s report clears up what has always bothered me about the Lizzy-Darcy dance-conversation sequence, which is that it really is impossible to have a conversation when moving around as they do in all the movies. Indeed, if the movies showed all the couples trying simultaneously to have conversations with each other while dancing in figures, it would be obvious immediately that everyone would be talking over everybody else.
Once we realize that dancing really meant a fairly long period of time standing across from each other, doing nothing, then it becomes obvious that conversation was not merely polite, it was necessary, to avoid an otherwise excruciating period of silence while standing in front of each other.
And this tells us more about why Darcy dislikes dancing: it is not because he doesn’t like the dance steps, it is because he doesn’t like the periods of standing still, when he is forced to talk — because he is unable to converse easily — as he confesses to Lizzy over the pianoforte at Rosings. Surely everyone has met intense young men who find it impossible to make small-talk. Darcy is that sort of young man. This explains why, at the public ball where he is introduced n the book, he refuses to dance with anyone whom he doesn’t already know — they are the only ones he feel capable of talking to during the long periods of standing cross from each other, or are the only ones who know him well enough to accept his silence as part of his nature, and not an insult.
And this explains why Darcy suggests to Lizzy that they dance a “reel: the “reel” is an active dance with no silent still periods when the partners have to talk to each other!
So when Darcy invites Lizzy to dance a reel he is really signaling very strongly to her that he likes her, and he is trying to do something with her that he feels capable of doing well, something that avoids for him the embarrassment and difficulty of making small talk. Her turning him down is thus either the result of her misunderstanding the source of his difficulty, or else a pretty deliberate rude rejection.
We miss all this because movie-makers have shown the dances wrong, because it is more dramatic to show the people always moving rather than to show a long line of standing people talking to each other.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Boris:
You seem to be a little confused about dates. Purcell was certainly writing in the late 17th century (that means the late 1600s) and did indeed compose “Hole in the Wall” during that period. There is no evidence it was ever published as a single broadsheet, though of course if you have some many historians would be interested to hear about it. Hint: folk dance websites that do not list period sources are not particularly reliable places to get information.
Darcy and Elizabeth would have talked before and after they went down the dance - one way or the other, depending on where they were in the set, there would be significant waiting-out time, possibly as much as ten or fifteen minutes if the set was long and they stood near the end. If you read the scene in P&P carefully, you will notice lines like “He made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance.” Going down the dance means the period where they are dancing nonstop, when it is indeed fairly hard to hold a conversation (I speak from experience; I don’t just write about it, but actually do this sort of dancing regularly). After that, they’d have more time to talk in brief moments as they traveled up the dance again, and then a long period again before the next dance began. There’s so much dead time that Sir William Lucas feels free to wander by and have a conversation while they are still standing in the set waiting! This is something which simply doesn’t occur in modern country dance forms - in English and contra everyone starts simultaneously, and in Scottish, they form such short sets that the waiting time is trivial or nonexistent. Nowadays people don’t have the patience to stand up for long periods doing nothing before getting to dance, and we’ve lost the need for it - unchaperoned time with the opposite sex is not hard to come by. I keep sets fairly short at balls so as to minimize the waiting-out time.
I talked about this a little in a previous post and its comments thread here: http://www.kickery.com/2008/01/how-many-times.html
I suppose at some point I should make it a separate post on Kickery since it’s another of those very common questions.
Edward:
I disagree with your interpretation, though you’re quite correct that a reel has no silent or non-moving periods at all. Dancing a reel at that point would have been somewhat rude; I think that by suggesting Elizabeth would want to do so, Darcy is implying that her manners are lower-class. He might be suggesting it in a nice way (trying to suggest something she’d be comfortable with - sort of like the very wealthy politicians who suddenly become good-ol’-boy NASCAR fans and pretend to love corn dogs at state fairs while campaigning), but I think Elizabeth reads him correctly when she suggests he despises her taste. It reads to me as condescending.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:48 am
“but I think Elizabeth reads him correctly when she suggests he despises her taste. It reads to me as condescending.”
Yes! His suggestion sounded very condescending to me, and she was right (not rude) to refuse him.
Thanks Susan, Edward and Boris for your thoughtful comments — keep posting! I learn something new each day I stop by here.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:18 am
Ms. de Guardiola,
take my apologies for the “Hole in the Wall” remark I put so hastily because You are right in everything: as for the date of publication - it was included in the Playford’s 1698 edition of “English Dancing Master” (two links are given below) as well as for the places to get information from, there is a lot of information available on many sites but a great deal of it is incorrect and false and it is not easy to get on at all.
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/lod/vol3/hole_in_the_head.html
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/lod/vol3/
Thanks!
March 19th, 2008 at 1:22 am
In light of Susan’s comment I re-read the passage about the reel and I agree with her. Caroline has been playing Italian songs, then switches to a lively Scottish piece, and this gives Darcy the idea of a Scottish reel. Lizzy’s response makes clear that she thinks Darcy sees a reel as being a lower-class kind of dance.
Whether Darcy in fact sees a reel as lower-class,in this context, is not evident from the book, however. Since they are just in the privacy of their own music-room, not at a ball, and would be the only two people dancing no matter what dance they chose, is there really any other kind of “upper class” dance that Darcy could have suggested? Perhaps Lizzy has misunderstood Darcy because in that context, only a reel or similar “lower class” dance was feasible, and thus his suggesting it should not be seen as pandering to a perceived lower-class person.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Boris: No problem. And please, call me Susan!
Edward: We can’t know for sure, of course. I don’t really see it as an invitation to dance at all, though - just a comment on the music and her (imagined) reaction to it. Reels do make one’s feet tap! Since a Scotch reel requires a minimum of three people, he could not have just danced one with Lizzy without getting someone else involved as well. But I’m having real trouble picturing Darcy with his hands in the air executing fancy steps to try to impress Lizzy (the essence of a Scotch reel) - it just doesn’t seem in character for him. He pretty much declines to display his dancing ability when given the opportunity.
(I, having no pride, have occasionally been seized with the notion of dancing a reel in the most unlikely places and if with dance friends have actually done so - most recently, in a NYC subway stop with a good fiddler busking.)
March 19th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Thanks, all your posts are very helpful. I agree it is hard to imagine Darcy doing the reel.
And as to needing a third or fourth person, this adds a whole new layer of complexity: if Lizzy had said yes, whom else would Darcy have asked — Caroline Bingley was playing, so it would be Mr. Bingley, his own sister Mrs. Hurst, or Mr. Hurst. An odd grouping no matter how it forms.