Well, it's another rainy day here, but the dancing definitely kept me warm! This morning we worked on a lovely quadrille called Le Wellington from an 1821 dance fan! We worked on a few different ways to do the balance - with chasses, glisses (for ladies to glide along the floor) and a third, more challenging version with sissone for men to show off fancy footwork. Today we discussed "masculine" and "feminine" figures in the different dances. Figures that were serpentine in nature (ie. heys and turns) were seen as feminine and the curves should be emphasized. Similarly, with figures that use straight lines (ie. changes of rights and lefts), the lines should be perfectly straight and the corners should be sharp.
We then rehearsed our performance dances for this evening.
In the afternoon, we did another quadrille called the La Charmante Anglaise from a collection of Waterloo-themed dances.
In the optional workshop, we learned waltzing with Stuart. We went through the slow waltz, sauteuse, jete, and German waltz, so now I need to work on polishing the steps. Once I do that I might post some videos or hold a workshop!
Finally, in the evening, we got to perform our dances - the reel, waltz country dance and the cotillion, which went rather well. The dances performed by Anne's class were also really pretty and had some interesting figures. It was good fun!
Well, that's all for now. I shall see what tomorrow brings. Happy dancing!
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