Regency Dance!

I absolutely love when I get an opportunity to learn new things - especially when that new thing is a pile of new dances from a time period I don't know as much about. In this case, I have been lucky enough to be invited to perform with Past Tyme Dancers here in Columbus. Last night was the first evening of rehearsal for the City of Dublin's Bicentennial Celebration. In honor of that, we will be performing a series of dances from the Regency period.

The Regency Era, when applied to broader, non-UK sources, can be stretched to approximately 1790 - 1820. This is a period of dance history with some of the most complex steps and trace patterns (which is reflected in the clothing - cut high up to show off the footwork and well-turned calves). I've done a little bit in this time frame, but most of my experience has been with dances just before or just after. I'm extremely excited about learning more about it.

Last night, we covered quite a few new dances, and one or two I already knew. We opened with The Duke of Kent's Waltz, which luckily I was familiar with. Here is a short video of the dance - it is really an enjoyable, relatively simple piece:



Notice how one couple moves up the dance, and the other moves down - that is a hallmark of later English Country Dance called progression. In earlier dances, many times you had a position within the dance and you stayed there. In this time period (and earlier - they were very popular in the mid 18th Century) this progression style is very common. It made for learning a dance you were unfamiliar with quite easy - you could stand at the bottom of the line and work your way to the top!

The other dance that stood out for me last night was Mr. Beveridge's Maggot. Before I go any farther, I should explain that the word 'maggot' previously didn't mean a wriggling little bug - it meant a fancy or an eccentric idea. There are a lot of dances from the 18th - 19th Century named someone's Maggot - and I was quite confused until I thought to go look up the word.

This is actually quite a famous dance. Almost every film or television production of any of Jane Austen's works includes a performance of this piece. For our production, we are going to be doing the BBC Pride and Prejudice Choreography. Here's a look at it:



I cannot tell you how excited I am to have this dance in my repertoire! It was so much fun to learn!