Tag Archives: Charles Mason

The Brisé in the Ballroom

Leave a reply

Among the steps listed for use in the cotillon, when the dance became popular in the 1760s, were a sissonne brisé (Josson, 1763) and brizé à trois pas (Gherardi, 1769?). Neither source describes how these steps should be performed, nor does the brisé turn up in earlier dance manuals (at least not under that name). It does appear later among the steps recommended for quadrilles  (where it is described) and it does, of course, also form part of the vocabulary of modern classical ballet. What was a brisé in late 18th and early 19th century social dancing?

The earliest description of a brisé that I know comes from Gennaro Magri’s Trattato teorico-prattico di ballo of 1779. Apart from appearing some ten to fifteen years later than Josson and Gherardi, Magri deals principally with stage dancing. Here is what he has to say about the brisé:

‘The brisé done in its true form has nothing in common with the capriole; indeed an assemblé to the side is more like a capriole than a brisé. This step is greatly used by the French, and although it might be a little thing in itself, none the less it appears to have more value by being a brilliant step, as it makes more effect done by those ballanti with supremely lively footwork than a capriole done by another. In truth then, referring to the subject of the capriole, it is executed as though it were a fourth capriolata to the side, but since it is done on the ground it becomes a step and not a capriole, whence in calling it a capriole the teachers of the art commit an error, showing that they cannot distinguish this from the step. It may be done forwards, backwards, sideways, turning, repeated, or doublé.

To do it forwards, if you wish to take it with the right leg, place yourself in any position except the first and the second, but the best is always the fourth; placed then in this with the right behind, bending, extend the foot to second in the air from where, with the calf of the same leg, beat in front of the instep of the other, which by the same strike is chased to fourth in front.’

(Magri, Theoretical and practical treatise on dancing, translated by Mary Skeaping, 1988, p. 138)

A footnote explains that ‘The right foot cuts in front of the left, which is simultaneously snatched up to touch the calf of the right’. Magri’s remark that ‘it is done on the ground’, without a jump, is particularly interesting in the context of cotillons and quadrilles. Steps that we would today associate with jumps seem to have been done simply with a rise in the ballroom. Magri’s caprioles include the entre-chat and cabriole, i.e. they are steps with both jumps and beats.

Magri also has a step called the demi-sissonne, described thus:

‘The sissonne, whether it be simple or with a rise and of whatever other category except the repeated, may be halved by ending it with a bend of both knees, without rising after the landing.’ (Skeaping translation, p. 106)

He adds that ‘This demi will have its place whenever another different step which begins with a plié has to be attached, either a jump or a capriole’ and tells us that serious dancers ‘add a pas brisé to it’. Might this shed some light on Josson’s sissonne-brisé?

The sources for quadrilles do explain how to perform the steps they mention. Here is what Gourdoux-Daux has to say in his De l’art de la danse of 1823 about the ‘pas ou tems qu’on nomme brisé dessus et à trois tems’. He begins ‘Pour faire ce pas, les pieds étant à la troisième’ and continues:

Gourdoux-Daux seems to be suggesting that the brisé is followed by a sissonne (the early 19th-century version) and then a close in third position. Was this, in fact, Gherardi’s brizé à trois pas?

Mason describes a jeté brisé dessous in his A Short Essay on the French Danse de Société of 1827 as follows:

‘Jeté devant upon the right foot, passing the left to fourth position behind; make a little battement forward and back; jeté devant upon the left, and continue.’

The pas battu seems to have no jump, in keeping with the conventions of social dancing.

Modern dictionaries of ballet describe the brisé as a small travelling assemblé with a beat. The earlier versions I have been discussing here seem not to travel and to have been executed with a rise and not a jump. Otherwise, the 18th and 19th-century brisé is clearly the ancestor of the modern step. Reading the various early descriptions, I can begin to see how the brisé could be incorporated into the perpetuum mobile of the cotillon and be performed within an early 19th-century quadrille.

Cotillon Steps and Quadrille Steps

1 Reply

The Cotillon

Cotillion Dance 1771 (2)

A few years ago, I wrote a series of posts about the cotillon steps recorded by London’s dancing masters in the 1760s. In 1762, De la Cuisse (who began the cotillon craze by publishing these dances) listed six steps in his Le Repertoire des bals ou theorie-pratique des contredanses – balancé, rigaudon, contretems, chassé, pirouette and pas de gavotte (the demi-contretems, which he described as ‘un Pas naturel; C’es le Pas fondamental de la Contredanse’). All are familiar from the dance manuals of the early 1700s. Between them, Gallini, Gherardi and Villeneuve added another six – assemblé, glissade, ‘brizè à trois pas’, ‘chassé à trois pas’, double chassé and sissonne.  Three of these were also described in the earlier manuals, while three – the brizé and chassé ‘a trois pas’ and the double chassé were apparently more recent.

The Quadrille

Quadrilles - Practising at Home

The step vocabulary for the early 19th-century quadrille was more extensive and some of the steps were certainly more challenging than any used in the cotillon. One of the earliest works to deal with the quadrille was Notions élémentaires sur l’art de la danse by J. H. Gourdoux-Daux, published in Paris in 1804. The second edition was titled Principes et notions élémentaires sur l’art de la danse pour la ville and appeared in 1811. It was presumably this edition that was translated into English for publication in Philadelphia in 1817 as Elements and Principles of the Art of Dancing as used in Polite and Fashionable Circles. This translation describes nine steps for use in quadrilles – the ‘change of foot’ (changement de jambe), assemblé, jeté, sissonne, échappé, temps levé, grand coupé, chassé and glissade. Only one, chassé, is among the cotillon steps prescribed by De la Cuisse, while three more appear in the collections published in London – assemblé, glissade and sissonne. The last of these occurs only in Villeneuve’s Collection of Cotillons and he does not describe it. By the time Gourdoux-Daux was writing, the sissonne had become a spring from two feet to one, beginning in third position and ending with the free foot either extended to second or fourth position or brought into the ankle. It is recognisable as the second part of the pas de sissonne recorded in the early 1700s.

Gourdoux-Daux published a third edition of his treatise titled simply De l’art de la danse in 1823, which is accessible digitally. It adds a tems du balonné, pas de bourrée, tems de cuisse, demi-contretems, brisé and entrechat. His third edition is described as ‘revue, corrigé et augmenté’, indicating that it contains new material. However, without access to Gourdoux-Daux’s earlier editions, it is not possible to know whether he included any of these steps before 1823 or whether his American translator simply omitted them as either not generally used or, perhaps, not appropriate for social dancing.

In 1822, Alexander Strathy published his Elements of the Art of Dancing in Edinburgh. His list has twelve quadrille steps – assemblé, jeté, glissade, sissonne, temps levé, chassé, échappé, pirouette, changement de jambe, pas de Zéphyre or pas battu, jeté tendu and jeté du côté. His vocabulary overlaps with that of Gourdoux-Daux, but both have steps not included by the other.

The only other treatise I will look at here is Charles Mason’s A Short Essay on the French Danse de Société published in London in 1827. His vocabulary overlaps with both Gourdoux-Daux and Strathy and also includes steps they do not list. Mason’s list has twenty of what he calls ‘Les Mouvemens’ – changement de jambes, assemblé, jeté, sissonne, tems levé, chassé, glissade, jeté ballonné, tems de Zéphyre, coupé, pas de basque, pas de bourrée, tems de ‘coudepied’, jeté brisé, pas tombé, fouetté, contretems, pirouette, emboîté and petits battemens. Some of these may have been embellishments to steps, rather than steps in their own right, and some may have been used only within the ‘Differens Enchainemens de Pas’ Mason refers to on his title page.

In the following table I have tried to set out the steps recommended for the cotillon and quadrille respectively, with the name of each dancing master to include it listed in order of the date of their first publication in which it appears. For the purposes of this investigation, I have omitted the Allemande step used in so many cotillons – it is probably worth another post of its own (although I did write about it a few years ago). There were, of course, several other works on dancing – and the quadrille – published in the early decades of the 19th century, so my list of steps is probably far from complete and it is certainly not definitive. How and why did the step vocabulary change and expand so much as the cotillon gave way to the quadrille?

Table of Cotillon and Quadrille Steps

 

Mlle Théodore and the Pas de Basque

Leave a reply

I have been discussing quadrille steps with an historical dance teacher of my acquaintance and he has been wondering about the origins of the pas de basque. In 1827, Charles Mason described it thus in his A Short Essay on the French Danse de Société:

Mason Pas de Basque (2)

There are several versions of this step in both modern and historical genres of dance, some of which can be traced back a long way – although, so far as I know, none are given the name pas de basque before the early 19th century.

I am sure that there are various theories about the origins of the step, although from my perspective it seems likely that the versions used in early 19th-century quadrilles owe something to the vocabulary of early 18th-century ballroom dancing. Recognisably related steps can certainly be found in the notated dances of the early 1700s. Where did the name come from and when did it start to be used?

In the course of another piece of research, I came across an advertisement for a performance at the King’s Theatre on 11 January 1783 which might provide a clue. The bill that evening declared that the ballet to accompany the evening’s opera (the King’s Theatre was London’s opera house) would include ‘two Pas de Basque by Mlle Theodore’. In this case, the ‘Pas de Basque’ were evidently solo dances given by the French ballerina. She repeated her Pas de Basque several times that season. The following season, the bill for Mlle Théodore’s benefit at the King’s Theatre on 13 May 1784 announced that she ‘will also dance the favourite Pas de Basque’.

Mlle Théodore had begun her career at the Paris Opéra, where she made her debut in 1777. She had first come to London, and the King’s Theatre, for the 1781-1782 season where she had quickly become popular with critics and audiences alike.

Mlle Theodore

In 1783, she married the dancer and choreographer Jean Bercher, known as Jean D’Auberval, who would later create La Fille mal gardée with his wife in the title role.

Is it possible that these dances performed in 1783 and 1784 could have given a name to a step that would become part of the quadrille vocabulary? She seems to have made a mark with these solos. A critic in the Public Advertiser for 18 January 1783 wrote ‘The Theodore, in her two Pas de Basque, especially the latter, is every Thing that is meant by the Words Liveliness, Vigour, and Agility’. Another critic, in the Morning Herald a few days earlier on 13 January, gave additional details of the performance:

‘As long as the Theodore confines herself to those light and skipping motions in dancing, which have so powerfully recommended her to public notice, she will ever remain unrivaled. She was greatly and deservedly applauded in her two Pas de Basque; but especially in the last; when there happening a little accident of her shoe slipping off, she went on with her dance, and convinced the spectators, that shod or unshod, she is the liveliest of the lively train.’

Apart from the evident vivacity of her dancing, the mishap may well have drawn extra attention to her steps and ignited a desire to imitate them.

These Pas de Basque were performed in ‘an entirely new Ballet’ Le Tuteur trompé; or, the Guardian outwitted by Charles Le Picq, being performed for the first time on 11 January 1783. It was taken, in part, from Beaumarchais’s Le Barbier de Séville and according to the Morning Herald had dancing ‘which was mostly in the Spanish stile, and of course a novelty on this theatre’. The early 1780s were also a period when quadrilles were being danced both on stage and in the ballroom in London. Quadrilles were still quite new and may well have been establishing and extending both their steps and figures.

I don’t actually believe that Mlle Théodore and her dances introduced this step and gave it the name pas de basque. However, could they have played a part in its adoption into the ballroom and addition to the vocabulary of the newly emerging quadrille and even influenced its naming?

Charles Mason, Charles Beaupré and Steps for the Quadrille

1 Reply

Last weekend I attended (if that is the right word) a virtual festival of historical dance. One of the sessions was given by a young dancing master I have worked with over several years. He was looking at steps for the early 19th-century quadrille. I have written elsewhere about my difficulties with these – they are very similar to modern ballet vocabulary, except that they aren’t quite the same. He finished with the pas de Zephyr, a step I have also written about, which shows a clear link between the stage and the ballroom. There is currently ongoing discussion about the relationship between dancing on stage and in the ballroom, with some arguing for a clear division between the two while others consider that there was often little difference between them. For what it is worth, I think that the truth is rather more complicated. Much more research is needed before we can understand the various, and varying, relationships between stage dancing and ballroom dancing.

For the pas de Zephyr, the dancing master drew on a treatise by Charles Mason who described himself as ‘Professeur de Danse’ on the title page of his A Short Essay on the French Danse de Société published in 1827. The title page goes on to tell us that the treatise offers ‘No. I. of Different Enchainemens de Pas: being a Complete Analysis of a Modern Parisian Quadrille for Ladies’ and that this was composed by Monsieur Beaupré ‘Premier Sujet Pensionnaire du Roi, et de l’Académie Royale de Musique, à Paris’. Charles Mason may have been English, but for the purposes of his dance treatise he looked to the French. Here is the title page of Mason’s treatise.

Mason Danse de Societe Title Page (2)

Who was Monsieur Beaupré? At the end of his treatise Mason tells us that Beaupré taught ‘many of the French as well as the English nobility who visit Paris’. The title page tells us that he had enjoyed a dance career at the Paris Opéra, where he had attained the rank of ‘Premier Sujet’ and had earned a pension on his retirement. So, when was he dancing at the Opéra and what did he dance? As luck would have it, the answers to these questions can be found in two recent works of dance history – Ivor Guest’s The Ballet of the Enlightenment (London, 1996) and Ballet under Napoleon (Alton, 2001). Both are invaluable for exploring ballet at the Paris Opéra between 1770 and 1820.

According to Guest, Beaupré’s real name was Charles-Florentin Richer de la Rigaudière and he lived from 1764 to 1842. He made his debut at the Opéra in 1789 and finally retired (Guest uses the term ‘pensioned off’) in 1818. Beaupré was short in stature and evidently had a powerful virtuoso technique, which he put to good use in comic dancing. By 1793 he was a ‘senior comic dancer’ and by 1808 he had become the leading dancer in the genre comique. Guest also describes Beaupré as one of several ‘exceptionally gifted silent actors’ at the Opéra (Ballet under Napoleon, p. 482).

Beaupré’s development from virtuosic comic dancing to teaching the refinements of social dancing to the nobility calls to mind the similar trajectory of Francis Nivelon. The latter was a leading comic dancer in London during the 1720s and 1730s and, after he retired from the stage, became a teacher of social dancing. Nivelon wrote The Rudiments of Genteel Behaviour (1737) for aspiring members of the English gentry. Such careers raise many questions about the relationship between dancing on the stage and in the ballroom.

When Beaupré made his debut in 1789, a reviewer wrote of his ‘brilliant execution, great lightness and precision’ (Ballet of the Enlightenment, p. 298, citing Affices, annonces et avis divers, 15 October 1789). Beaupré may have made his career in the genre comique but he had a refined and sophisticated dance technique. Ivor Guest mentions several of Beaupré’s roles, but here I will focus on only one of the ballets in which he appeared, La Dansomanie, first performed at the Paris Opéra on 14 June 1800. Gardel’s ballet recounts the story of M. Duléger, who is obsessed with dancing, and the effects of his dansomanie on his daughter Phrosine and her suitor Colonel Demarsept. Duléger gets carried away as he watches the Gavotte de Vestris and decrees that Phrosine may only marry a man who can dance. Colonel Demarsept admits that he cannot dance and so an elaborate ruse is required to ensure his marriage to Phrosine. The joke behind this folie-pantomime was that Colonel Demarsept was performed by Auguste Vestris, the foremost danseur noble of the day.

La Dansomanie includes a dancing lesson for M. Duléger, with Louis-Jacques Milon as Flicflac the dancing master and Beaupré as his assistant Brisotin. The latter was depicted in his costume for the role a few years later.

Beaupre in Dansomanie 1

Flicflac tries to teach M. Duléger not only the jeté battu, but also tems de cuisse ‘doublés’, ‘triplés’ and even ‘quadruplés’, as well as pirouettes sur le cou-de-pied. The lesson includes several jokes about the differences between social and stage dancing. As Brisotin, Beaupré presumably assisted Milon in demonstrating the latest, and most difficult steps to be seen on the stage of the Paris Opéra for Duléger to copy! La Dansomanie was first performed in London at the King’s Theatre on 15 May 1806 and was revived several times over the next few years. Mason may well have seen it both in Paris and in London, and probably taught pupils who had seen it too.