I've had a father in the center take both - his daughters. I use a teddy
bear. I had a lady look at the two gents and decide
to dance to the bottom with the bear.
Bob LivingstonMiddletown, CT
On Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 04:15:48 PM EDT, John Freeman via Contra
Callers <[email protected]> wrote:
I used to occasionally throw a twist or two into this dance, depending upon my
mood and that of the dancers. I would sometimes suggest to the center person
that he/she either dance alone to the bottom or take both of the other dancers
along. Or, I would sometimes insert myself into the dance. These always added a
bit of fun into the proceedings.
John B. Freeman SFTPOCTJRetired
Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS
On Thursday, July 27, 2023, 2:06 PM, Allison and Hunt Smith via Contra Callers
<[email protected]> wrote:
This is a very interesting article. I would be very grateful if someone here
would share their version of it as done today, especially for a wedding. I have
a wedding coming up in (eek, less than a month) between two regulars at our
contra dance series. There will be a lot of our dancers at the wedding, and I
think it would be a fun way to get some of the friends-and-relations who don't
dance into the fun. There will be no alcohol served at the event, so no
champagne glasses, please!Thanks in advance,The Other Allison
On Thu, Jul 27, 2023 at 1:58 PM Ben A via Contra Callers
<[email protected]> wrote:
I was curious about the origins of the "Brooms/Fan/Roses/Umbrellas" being
used as props, and found this. Looks like others have wondered about the
origins of this silliness - but no mention of rubber chickens! Ben
https://www.kickery.com/2008/04/three-chairs-a.html#more
Three Chairs: A Genre of Civil War Era Dance Games
- Era: America, 1840s into early 20th century
"My friend Patricia asks in email: Do you know of any
documentation for a dance that is known to many as the "hat", "flower",
"broom", "paddle", or "fan" dance? It is described as having two lines of
people (usually men in one line and ladies …
… He/she looks back & forth between them, hands the item to one of them and
sashays or dances down the between the lines with the other person. Sometimes
it's done with three chairs, sometimes with no chairs. I know several dances
with most of those names (all but paddle), none of them what Patricia had in
mind. The dance she's describing is a variation on several of the mid-19th
century cotillion figures also known as "Germans". These were not cotillions
in the 18th-century sense of a chorus/verse-structured dance for couples in a
square. Instead they were party games with dancing, some of which were quite
silly and seem to us today more like children's games than pastimes for a
formal ballroom. By the end of the 19th century, the role of these games had
evolved from an amusing way to end a ball into the entire point of the evening,
and hostesses vied to run the best "Favor-Germans", with elaborate trinkets as
game props and party favors for their guests. American dancing master
Allen Dodworth, writing in 1885, explained the nomenclature of these dance
games as follows:
This dance was introduced in New York about the year 1844. At that time the
quadrille was the fashionable dance, but was known as the cotillion. To make a
distinction between that and this dance, which was known in Europe by the same
name, this was called the "German Cotillion;" gradually the word cotillion was
dropped, the dance becoming simply "The German."
The German connection is not fantasy: the earliest definitive source I have
for the this sort of dance game is an 1820 manual published in Berlin and does
include a version of what I call the "three chairs" genre of figures as part of
a larger list of figures under the heading "Cotillion" or "Codillon".
Given Dodworth's dating of their introduction, these games are appropriate for
Americans reenacting the mid-19th century (Civil War era) and later 19th
century. While many of the games used in Germans were probably in existence
earlier (musical chairs, blind man's buff, etc.), there is no evidence of their
incorporation into ballrooms of earlier eras outside of Germany. Their history
there, to the best of my knowledge, awaits further research. The hat - or
other object - dance as described above is clearly folk-processed.
19th-century dancers would not have lined up like that for a German; they would
have waited patiently in their chairs for the dance leader to direct them a few
at a time. Sashaying down the room would not have been used; couples would
have taken the opportunity to really waltz or polka. Dance manuals from the
1840s onward often contained lists of cotillion figures, sometimes hundreds of
them, often identical from manual to manual. I don't pretend to have done a
comprehensive survey, but there are clear roots for the hat dance in at least
four different Germans, all of which use three chairs as a setup, as shown at
right in an illustration from Coulon. Note that the outer chairs face in the
opposite direction from the middle one. This is also specified in some of the
descriptions below. All the dancers would be seated in a large circle.
The dance leader, or conductor, selects the figures and directs the dancers,
choosing a small group (as few as two, depending on the figure) to start each
figure, which is then repeated until everyone in the company has had a chance
to participate to the extent practical given size, balance of ladies and
gentlemen, etc. Each figure is done to music - polka, waltz, and mazurka were
common - and involves actual dancing around the room with whatever dance fits
the music...." _______________________________________________
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