Drawing Room Dances 1847 XVII

See images of the original pages of this chapter starting at

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=musdi&fileName=037/musdi037.db&recNum=104

XVII.
THE COTILLON.

Having described all the dances and waltzes that belong to the present fashion, it remains for me to speak of the cotillon, that, from the numerous elements of which it is composed, may be considered as the abstract of all the principal dances already detailed. The important place held by it in ball-rooms is well known. We are all aware of the variety and animation it throws over the conclusion of balls, which can hardly be considered complete if they have not a cotillon for the epilogue, that always ends too soon to please the dancers. I think it my duty therefore, as I have said in the preface, to devote particular attention to the description of the cotillon, that I look upon it as the groundwork of the dances of high life, and in regard to which it is well to have, once for all, a clear understanding.

To form a cotillon it is necessary to be seated around the room in a semi-circle, or circle, according to the number of dancers, being careful to keep close to the walls, so as to leave in the middle of the room the greatest space possible.

The dancers are arranged in couples, the gentleman always having the lady on his right, and without leaving an interval between the seats.

The gentleman, who rises first to set, assumes the title of the conductor; the place, which he occupies with his lady, represents what is called the head of the cotillon.

The cotillon may consist of the waltze alone, the polka, or the mazurka. It often happens that the three are mingled, and that the dancers pass from one to the other for the sake of variety.

When the beginning is made with the waltze, the conducting couple set out first, and make the round of the room, followed by the others, who successively return to their places. The first couple rise again, and execute a figure according to their fancy, which the other couples must do one after the other to the extremity of the circle.

I do not hesitate to say that the fate of a cotillon is in a great measure in the hands of the conductor. Upon him more particularly depend the more or less animation and fire that prevail in the whole. It is he who gives the signal to the orchestra to begin, and warns the musicians when it is requisite to change the air in the cotillons blended with the waltze and polka. The orchestra should play on through the whole cotillon without ever stopping till it has been so ordered by the conductor.

For a cotillon to have order and movement, it is essential that all the couples should implicitly recognize the authority of the conductor. If all wish to interfere with the conducting after their own fashion, if the figures are not determined by a single individual, every thing soon becomes languid and disordered; there is no longer unity nor connexion. It is desirable that this discipline of the cotillon, so well observed in Germany, should be perfectly established elsewhere, when it would soon be found how much the regularity of figures contributes to the pleasure of the whole assembly.

It is the duty of the conductor never to lose sight of the other couples, and by clapping his hands to warn the tardy, or those who, by prolonging the waltze, would occupy the ground too long.

I need not remind those, who are likely to read this work, that the office of the conductor, however strict in appearance, requires in its details both tact and moderation, and that it would be out of place for him to attempt directing the cotillon with the least degree of pretension. For the rest it may be imagined, that with dancers accustomed to the cotillon, the part of the conductor is much simplified, and is confined rather to indicating than directing. To lighten yet more, if possible, the duties of the conductor, and to spare the memory of those who can not always in the bustle of a ball-room, recollect a new figure, above all when it is not pointed out by a fixed term, I have collected all the figures that can enter into the composition of a cotillon. For each of them I have chosen the shortest and simplest name, so that the conductor has only to call out the title of a figure with loud voice, for the other couples to know at once what they have to do. This indication will be particularly useful to extemporizing mazurkists, and can alone assure their success. I have been careful also to mark, between parentheses, at the head of the figures those which may apply indifferently to the waltze, the polka, and the mazurka, and those which belong especially to one or two of those dances.

Without having attempted to fix a precise order in this nomenclature, I have yet pointed out in the first place, the most usual and simple figures, and which in the development of the cotillon, should necessarily precede the more complicated, and of a nature to excite the animation of the dancers.

See images of the original pages of this chapter starting at

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=musdi&fileName=037/musdi037.db&recNum=104