ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCING English Country Dancing is believed to be the oldest form of folk dance still being danced in the world. Its origins can be traced back at least as far as 1480, or many years before Columbus sailed to America (the date of the tune of “Sellenger’s Round,” a circular or maypole dance that uses a variation on the hymn tune “All glory, laud and honor to thee redeemer King”). Many names of English Country Dances appear in sixteenth and early seventeenth century literature (including in Shakespeare), and many of their tunes appear in manuscript and published sources of the period, but the earliest surviving set of dance instructions appears on a 1648 manuscript, and the earliest published source is John Playford’s The English Dancing Master of 1650-1.

Title page of John Playford’s first book of dances.

  The earliest dances seem to have been in the form of large circles, suitable for dancing outdoors. Related to them were circles intended for three couples and four couples (the latter being the ancestors of modern square dances), and petty-squares for two couples. Early dancers also danced nonprogressive longways dances for three or four couples, and progressive longways dances for as many couples as were interested. English great houses of 1560 to 1650 developed long picture galleries to accommodate these longways dances.

Longways dance from the period of the founding of Jamestown in 1607. Dancing with swords can be dangerous!

   From the scant surviving information, most of the folk dances of Europe were so simple as to be boring. By contrast, the dances danced at court were so difficult that only the leisure classes could afford the time to learn them. English Country Dance stands in the middle between those extremes. It is simple enough that most people have little trouble learning enough to enjoy themselves, and yet challenging enough to hold the dancers’ interest. As a result, English Country Dance spread rapidly throughout Europe and the European colonies around the world, displacing the indigenous folk dances. For example, a 1770 manuscript from Mexico City, discovered in the late twentieth century, gives both tunes and instructions for many well known English dances.

   English Country Dance was one of the most popular forms of recreation in colonial America, as it was accessible to everyone from the governor and gentry (like George Washington) to slaves. In the winter, many houses with larger rooms danced almost every evening, because the heat of dancers warms a house better than any fireplace. Virginians in particular were described by outsiders as being “immoderately fond of dancing.” A scornful Presbyterian tutor on a Virginia plantation noted that the passage of a hurricane just before a scheduled ball failed to halt the event; “Blow high, blow low,” he wrote, “Virginians are of genuine blood: they will dance or die!”

Square dance or “Cotillon” at the time of the American Revolution. The woman in front is the famous Duchess of Devonshire, as in the movie “The Duchess.”

By the eighteenth century, most dances in English America were either longways for three couples or “for as many as will.” This was reflected in the longways proportions of the rooms set aside for dancing. However, when the French picked up English dances late in the seventeenth century, they particularly liked the square dances, which they called cotillons -- just at the time that the square form was dying out in English-speaking lands. When French troops came to America during the War of Independence, they taught their cotillons to enthusiastic American dancers, and this is reflected in the square architecture of dance rooms included in many post-Revolutionary mansions.

When the French Revolution erupted, many of the French aristocracy fled to England and America, where they found they had to work at a job for the first time. They often settled on teaching students to play musical instruments, and supplemented that with teaching dancing. However, they elected to make the dances much more complicated than they had previously been, so English Country Dancing faded from the scene in only a few years, to be replaced by the waltz and the polka. Country Dancing continued at a quieter level in remote areas of northern New England and the Appalachians, and in the West Country in England.

Folk art of British troops dancing a longways dance in Philadelphia in 1777.

On the eve of the First World War, English folklorist Cecil Sharp rediscovered both the surviving dancing in remote areas and some of the many published dance books of the eighteenth and late seventeenth centuries, and he started the revival of the dance on both sides of the Atlantic. English Country Dance groups are now active from coast to coast in the USA and Canada, and many of these are listed at www.cdss.org. Since about 1950, dancers have written numerous new dances in the style of historic dances. Our own Gail Ticknor, Lou Vosteen, John & Cathy Millar, and Jenna Simpson have written several, some of which have become favorites around the world.

This information from : Colonial dancing