Well Alec, you sent me back to page 284 of my book to look at how the sixth
part of the dance, Les Confitures, is performed. Men and women for an inner
and an outer circle respectively and then each couple swings around with
their partner before progressing (one circle clockwise and the other
anticlockwise). The whole thing carries on and perhaps, at some time in the
past, it reminded people of stirring jam. Who knows - I dance with one foot
nailed to the ground!
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: <cal...@aol.com>
To: <nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 7:11 PM
Subject: [NSP] Re: la Grande Chaine
Oh, thanks Richard! Now we'll have to figure out what the heck
"confitures" (confections, candies, jams, etc) have to do with a
quadrille! Big dogs weren't bad enough!
Alec MacLean
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Shuttleworth <rshuttlewo...@sympatico.ca>
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu; bri...@aol.com
Sent: Thu, Jul 8, 2010 2:25 pm
Subject: [NSP] Re: la Grande Chaine
Hi Sheila,
Being neither a dancer nor a fiddler, I hesitate to answer your question.
Having made that disclaimer I will jump in with both feet. Many Quebec
traditional dances are in the form of a quadrille and are made up of
several parts. The Grande Chaîne is one such part. For example, the
Quadrille de Rimouski is made up of six parts: la Chaîne, le Changement
de compagnie, le Salut par le main, la Grand Chaîne, la Galope and
finally les Confitures. The tune we know as The Grand Chain is the tune
that is played to the 4th part of the dance. The tunes played to the other
parts of the dance also take the name of their particular part.
In case anyone is impressed by this show of knowledge, all this
information comes from a book entitled "La Dance traditionnelle dans l'est
du Québec" written by Simonne Voyer and published by l'Université Laval.
Our tune The Grand Chain appears in a recognizable form on page 275 as
l'air de quadrille (4ième partie): La Grande Chaîne. When did it become
popular? I've no idea but it is still being danced today.
Cheers,
Richard
ps Sheila, you haven't registered for the Pipers' Gathering yet - are we
going to have the pleasure of your company this year?
www.pipersgathering.org
----- Original Message ----- From: <bri...@aol.com>
To: <nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu>; <bri...@aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 4:23 PM
Subject: [NSP] la Grande Chaine
La Grande Chaine seems to be a very popular tune on both east and west >
sides of the Atlantic, so I was most surprised, when looking through "The
> Fiddler's Fake Book" , published in 1983, which lists almost 500 of the
> most played tunes, not to find it there. Does anyone have any idea when
> it became popular? Richard, living in Quebec, maybe you can throw some
> light on this? I had always assumed that it was an old, very >
traditionally French Canadian.
Sheila
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