Last Saturday, Todd and I went to the local Playford Ball — four hours of English Country Dance performed by serious English Country Dance fans. Quite exhilirating.

I know a lot of you read my January post on the Jane Austen Ball. (And there’s another Jane Austen Ball coming up in two months! If you plan on going, get your tickets now, because they’re going fast!)

I have now danced at two Playford Balls, and five or so Jane Austen Balls — and there are of course lots of similarities.

As for differences? From what I’ve seen, the Playford Ball attendees are a bit more likely to be serious about English Country Dance, and the Jane Austen Ball attendees are a bit more likely to be serious about recreating costumes from the period.

In other words, you can’t lose either way.

The oldest dance we did at this Playford Ball was “Picking of Sticks,” which appears in John Playford’s first (1651) edition of THE ENGLISH DANCING MASTER. In this book, Playford would give the melody line of a dance, and then all the basic steps.

Sometimes his directions are clear:

Leade up all a D. forwards and back. That againe. First man change places with the 2. Wo. then with the last man. Leade up as before, then the Wo. change as the man did, every Cu. doing thus.

(At the beginning of the book, Playford explains that “D” means “Double,” “Wo” stands for “woman,” “We” for women, “2” for “second,” etc…)

Sometimes, however, Playford’s directions are a bit harder to understand:

The two We. at each end leade to each wall, while one man goe up and the other downe, the foure We. meet hands and goe round, men turning S. Goe all as before, men hands and goe round, We. turning single. The men leade the We. at one end to the wall and back, while the other We. goe up on the outside, and come each under the others armes, and turne each other, men turning each a Wo. As much with the other We.

If we go by Jane Austen, folks danced a lot. Which makes perfect sense, really! It warmed you up. It showed off your clothes.

If you were looking for a spouse, it displayed your looks and your health, and gave a chance for flirtation and a bit of touching.

If you already had a spouse, it also gave you a chance for flirtation and a bit of touching — all perfectly proper, dear, I was just doing the dance.

From Northanger Abbey:

The cotillions were over, the country-dancing beginning, and she saw nothing of the Tilneys. “Do not be frightened, my dear Catherine,” whispered Isabella, “but I am really going to dance with your brother again. I declare positively it is quite shocking.”

And later, of course, Tilney and Catherine have the famous exchange:

“I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do not chuse to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours.”

“But they are such very different things!”

“–That you think they cannot be compared together.”

“To be sure not. People that marry can never part, but must go and keep house together. People that dance, only stand opposite each other in a long room for half an hour.”

Ah, our dear Catherine…not the sharpest tack in the room, perhaps…

Someone at the ball implied that, in the day, folks who chose not to dance were likely to be thought physically infirm and unmarriageable… Which of course made me think of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightley, two gentleman who weren’t great fans of stepping out.

So, questions for today (answer any or all):

1) Was Mr. Knightley (or Darcy) nursing some infirmity in his old age? Will Emma (or Elizabeth) find her husband sadly arthritic?

2) Was Catherine Moreland really that stupid? If so, why did Tilney marry her?

3) Do you think the English language was prettier when we added random “E”s to things, and liked to “goe foure, turne, leade againe”?

4) What do you think of English Country Dance?

All comments welcome!

Cara
author of MY LADY GAMESTER, whiche is fulle of lazy folkes who prefer sittinge and playinge cards to leapinge aboute

Todd and I attended the Jane Austen Ball on Saturday, and it was, of course, utterly fabulous.

This is me — grinning.

Why, you ask, am I grinning? Because I finished the bottom of my dress. Finally. At the last moment. (With a lot of Todd’s help.)

Do admire the bottom of the skirt. Can you see the intricate pleating?

No? Well, it’s there. Took me way longer than I thought it would (I’m no seamstress!)

I could bore you all now with the entire history of the bottom of my Regency gown — but I won’t. (I was explaining it in great detail to one of my local RWA chaptermates who was also at the ball, and Todd sort of rescued her and implied that no human alive would want to hear so much about my hem.)

Here, also, are some pictures I took at the ball, mostly of people who have way better costumes than me.

And, yes, way better period hair. Though I was very pleased with my hair this year. I got some of it to curl!

Tea was first — six kinds of tea, plus lots of food (my favorite was the rosemary shortbread, though the cucumber sandwiches were very interesting — and I mean that in a good way, in an admiring way, as a woman who has tried several different recipes for cucumber sandwiches herself.)

Then there was a lecture on society in Jane Austen’s England — nothing I didn’t know, but entertaining nonetheless, and delivered (by the inimitable Walter Nelson) with a great deal of humor.

Did I mention that many of the costumes were amazing??? These hussars in particular had everyone staring in admiration!

(Apparently they are in a group that rides horses in costume every week and — er, that is, the horses aren’t in costume, of course — well, I don’t think they are — anyway, they ride, and train, and train others, and appear in movies, and all sorts of things. Their website, in case anyone is interested, is http://www.warhorsefoundation.com/index.htm)

Oh yes — and there was dancing. Lots and lots of dancing. We did English country dances most of the time, plus one waltz.

The music was live and lovely, and I performed four different types of hey!

Some of the more colorfully-named country dances were “Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot” (famous from the BBC/A&E Pride & Prejudice), “Irish Lamentation,” “Rakes of Rochester,” and “Lasses of Portsmouth.” (Perhaps the rakes of Rochester jilted the lasses of Portsmouth, causing much Irish lamentation. But I confess I have no idea where Mr. Beveridge’s maggot comes in!)

(Oh, I know — it’s a common problem on the “Dressed Ship,” and on “Auretti’s Dutch Skipper.”)

Now I know that all of you are going to attend next year’s Jane Austen Ball. Even those of you who live in other countries are going to fly out to Southern California to attend, right?

Right?

(For the date of next year’s ball, see http://www.lahacal.org/austen/index.html.)

Question for the day: if you were inventing a Regency dance with an odd name, what would it be?

Cara
Cara King, author of MY LADY GAMESTER
Signet Regency — still available through Amazon!

In less than two weeks, I’ll be at the Jane Austen Evening. I can’t wait!

For those of you who don’t know, the Jane Austen Evening is an annual event held in the Los Angeles area every January. For quite a reasonable fee, you get all-you-can-eat afternoon tea, a period performance, and then hours of Regency-era dances, with the occasional card game thrown in.

And the costumes are fabulous.

Even if one doesn’t dance at all, one can be entertained for hours just watching the dancers carrying out the intricate steps of English Country Dances, many of these dancers in equally intricate costumes.

Last year, the California Automobile Club Magazine ran an article which talked about the Jane Austen Evening, which led to an influx of a whole lot of new people.

So last year, the Evening sold out early, and this year it did as well.

The waiting list, I hear, has seventy people on it. It would have more than that, except the organizers finally drew the line at seventy. (Few, if any, of those seventy will be able to attend, after all!)

I’ve already attended one practice session for the dances, and reviewed my knowledge of dances which include “Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot” and “Shrewsbury Lasses” (a.k.a. “Wrong Way, Mr. Collins!”), which were both featured in the 1995 Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle Pride and Prejudice.

Here are some links, in case you want more info:

Jane Austen Evening. The Event of the Social Season.
Lively Arts History Association — which produces the Jane Austen Evening, and many other period events.
Links to Historical Dance Groups around the world
Previous Jane Austen Evening video on YouTube!

Have you done any English Country Dance, or other period dance? If so, how did you like it?

Have you ever attended any event which included Regency-era dance or cards? Do you wish you could?

Cara
Cara King, author of MY LADY GAMESTER, which contains no dancing, not even of any kind, but does have an awful lot of explicit card-playing