Among the many steps notated by Feuillet in Choregraphie one looks in vain for one named ‘changement’ or indeed for notation of a step that is recognisable as one. This basic step is described thus in a modern dictionary of classical ballet:

‘Changements are springing steps in the fifth position, the dancer changing feet in the air and alighting in the fifth position with the opposite foot in front.’

When I wrote my PhD thesis back in the 1990s, I compiled a ‘Glossary of Terms for Early Eighteenth-Century Dance’ which, in shortened form, became Appendix II. I combed through all of the principal sources for the dance vocabulary and technique of the period, but I did not find any sign of the changement.

I obviously did not do my research thoroughly enough, for in his The Art of Dancing of 1735 Kellom Tomlinson wrote of the changement in the context of two different pas composés, although he did not use that term. In chapter XXIX, he calls it a ‘Spring with both feet at the same Time’ and describes a pas tombé ending with:

‘half the Weight [on the left foot] in the fourth Position behind the right Foot, with the Knees bent … from whence the Spring is immediately made with both Feet, … changing the right Foot backwards and the left forwards’ (p. 87)

I have omitted the references to the timing of the step. Tomlinson provides notation of the pas composé ‘Fall, Spring with both Feet at the same Time, and Coupee to a Measure’ which actually shows the ‘Spring with both Feet’ starting and finishing in the 3^rd position.

In chapter XXX, Tomlinson calls it an ‘upright Spring’, referring to it as part of ‘the Close beating before and falling behind in the third Position, upright Spring changing to the same before, and Coupee to a Measure’. He again provides notation of the pas composé.

A fresh look at Feuillet’s step tables reveals another piece of information I overlooked. In his ‘Table des Cabrioles’, Feuillet notates a ‘cabriole droitte le pied devant retombe derriere’.

This is, of course, a changement with the addition of a beat of the legs in the air.

My interest is not so much in the changement as in its use in notated dances in relation to jumps incorporating pas battus – in particular entrechats. Did female professional dancers of the early 1700s really only ever do changements while their male counterparts did entrechats-quatre and entrechats-six? Do the notated dances perhaps suggest otherwise?