Making your dancing look effortless, smooth and steady.

In his 1822 book Elements of the Art of Dancing the Edinburgh dancing master, Alexander Strathy recommends the following exercise as a way of mastering this skill.

“PLACE your feet in the fifth position, keep the body upright, rest on the leg that is behind, raise the heel of the foot that is before, and slide the foot on the point slowly to the second position. The knee should be straight, as the foot arrives at the second position; place the heel of the foot which you have moved, keeping it forward; rest the body on it, and at the same time raise the heel of the other foot, which you now slide on the point into the fifth position before, keeping the knees straight, and the heel forward, that you may form the position closely; then do the same thing to the other side. This exercise should be also performed, by entering the foot behind in the fifth position.

Then, in the same manner;' from the fifth to the fourth position forward.-Place the feet in the fifth position, balance the body on the leg that is behind; raise the heel of the foot that is before, slide the foot on the point to the fourth position forward, keeping the knees straight; place the heel, and rest the body on the foremost leg, then slide up the foot that is behind, to the fifth .position behind.
Continue to do this several times forward, then backward. Do the same thing with the other foot before.”

Feet Positions

A tale of minuets and social climbing

On his arrival in Bath in October 1731, The Earl of Orrery's first port of call was naturally the Pump Room, but as soon as possible after he took himself off to the Terrace Walk and the shop of James Leake, the bookseller, who ran Bath's first circulating library and indeed one of the first circulating libraries in the country.

This is surprising as he had a very low opinion of Leake.

John Boyle, 5th Earl of Cork and Orrery
 by Isaac Seeman

"This Leake is a most extraordinary Person. He is the Prince of all the coxcomical Fraternity of Booksellers: and, not having any Learning himself, He seems resolved to sell it as dear as possible to Others."

His reason for visiting Leake's shop is interesting as it sheds light on the operation of Bath societies and assemblies.

Leake was a snob. As the Earl relates:

“He looks upon every Man, distinguished by any Title, not only as his Friend, but his companion, and he treats him accordingly: but he disposes of his Favours and Regards as methodically as Nash takes out the Ladies to dance, and therefore speaks not to a Marquiss whilst a Duke is in the Room.”

The mention of Nash is a reference to how the minuets were managed at balls. The Minuet was a couple’s dance where one couple danced at a time before an admiring or, more often, critical company. After the first couple had danced, the man retired, and Richard Nash, as the then Master of the Ceremonies, would bring the woman a second partner. The minuets continued until all the ladies who had stood up for them had danced with two men. The succession of dancers was governed by strict rules of precedence arbitrated by the Master of the Ceremonies.

This preoccupation with precedence and class motivated the Earl’s visit to Leake. Orrey’s Earldom was of the Irish nobility. Irish titles were considered inferior to their English counterparts.

He was anxious to discover if his secret was known in Bath and was relieved to discover:

“As yet he is ignorant that my Earldom lies in Ireland,”

This allowed him to implement a plan he had hatched

“to keep him so, I have borrowed the only Book of Heraldry He had in his Shop : by this method I shall be served many degrees above my Place, and may have a Squeeze of his Hand in presence of an Earl of Great Britain.”

Anne Bland music publisher

Anne Bland is an important figure for those interested in the dance music of the period of Jane Austen's life and novels. Anne Bland, who has no connection with the music publisher John Bland, began her music publishing business in London 1784. 

Anne Bland was established at 23 Oxford Street prior to 1790 and issued sheet music and yearly sets of dances.   Anne partnered with E. Weller in 1792, forming Bland and Weller. In addition to their publishing activities, which included a large number of country-dance collections, many of which survive, and the first English edition of three Mozart piano sonatas (k280, 282, 283), they were also piano and wind instrument makers. Anne Bland as "Music Seller, Oxford Street" is given in the Musical Directory for 1794. 

Early English pianoforte by Bland and Weller
23 Oxford Street

In 1805, the firm purchased from Dibdin, the composer, musician, dramatist, novelist and actor, the copyrights of 360 of his songs together with his musical stock, which they then reissued. Anne Bland retired in about 1818, and a sale of plates and copyrights took place though Weller carried on the business as Weller & Co. until 1820.

Typical surviving dance collections include:

24 Favorite country dances, hornpipes and reels with their proper figures for the German flute or violin as performed at court and all public assemblies 1807
24 Favourite Country Dances, Hornpipes and Reels with their proper figures for the German flute or violin. As performed at court and all public assemblies.A typical country dance tune and instruction book printed in London in 1803
Bland and Weller’s Annual Collection of Twenty-four Country Dances for the year 1797, with their proper Figures. For the Violin
Bland and Weller’s annual Collection of twenty-four Country Dances for the year 1798, with their proper figures, for the violin
Bland and Weller’s Annual Collection of twenty-four Country Dances for the Year 1799, with their proper Figures. For the violin and German flute, etc.

Bland and Weller
Clarinet

Bath Fashions Autumn 1761

Mid 18th century French Silk Brocade
with silver thread highlights

During this period, silks were often woven to order from a chosen pattern.

Galloway Buildings Today

 On the same page of the Bath Chronicle, Warren and company, the London perfumers, were advertising the wares they had on sale at their perfume shop at the upper end of Orange Grove in Bath. These included "Warren's true prepar'd [sic] French Chicken Gloves, for cleaning and whitening the Hands and Arms, for Ladies and Gentlemen, as usual, at 5s a pair." Chicken Gloves were made from a thin, strong leather derived from the skin of cattle fetuses or, as the name suggests, chicken skins.

Mr De La Main - Dancing Master

The European Magazine and London Review Volume April 1797 obituary  “Lately, at Bath, Mr De la Main, formally a wine-merchant and dancing master".

There is some evidence of Thomas De La Main operating as a dancing master in Bath as early as 1757.

Thomas De le Main opened a public dancing academy in his house in Westgate Street, where he taught both ladies and gentlemen in September 1768. Prior to that, he had been teaching private pupils and the students of a local boarding school.

By 1774, he was also trading as a wine merchant out of 4 Westgate Street. Sometime in early 1775, the wine business was in the hands of Robert De Le Main, probably Thomas's son.

By 1775, De La Main was organising balls at the New Rooms to show off his students' skills. These seem to have been held on Saturdays with a 6:30 start time.

By 1776, when the business was sold, Robert had acquired a partner in the wine merchants called Mr. Higgs.

In the winter of 1778, Thomas De La Main from Bath was running a dancing academy in Dublin.

Thomas was still running dancing classes in Bath as late as 1786.

In April 1797, the Chronicle announced, "died, in a very advanced age, Mr De La Main, formerly an eminent wine-merchant and dancing master of this city."

Artists and the Rooms

The Assembly Rooms were magnets for the rich and fashionable of the Georgian age. Consequently, those who made their living from the rich wanted to be close to the rooms.

This effect can be seen most clearly from moves by three famous Bath portrait artists when the Upper Rooms were opened and became the most fashionable of the Bath Rooms.

Thomas Gainsborough moved from near the Abbey to the Circus, where he lived at number 17; William Hoare moved from Queen Square to Edgar Buildings, and Thomas Lawrence's father brought his young genius of a son to live at 2 Alfred Street, where he built his reputation by painting small pastel portraits of the visitors to the Assemblies.

A pastel portrait by Thomas Lawrence from the 1780s

William Hoare was the first fashionable portraitist to settle in Bath, and he remained the leading portraitist there until the arrival of Thomas Gainsborough in 1759. He remained the favourite of his powerful patron, the Duke of Newcastle, his family, followers and political associates. Included amongst his other important patrons were the Earls of Pembroke and Chesterfield and the Duke of Beaufort. With Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, he was a founding member of the Royal Academy.

Sir Thomas Lawrence was the second president of the Royal Academy. Lawrence was a child prodigy. He was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper. He moved to Bath at age ten in 1779, where he supported his family with his pastel portraits.

the body is in motion, and is thrown into all postures, frequently into very indecent ones

In his book “TRAVELS THROUGH PORTUGAL AND SPAIN, In 1772 AND 1773” RICHARD TWISS, F. R. S. (1747-1821) describes the Fandango being danced an inn in Mafra in Portugal,
“The dance itself is for two persons, and much like the Dutch plugge dansen. I imagine the Dutch, by having been so long under the Spanish dominion, have retained this dance, as well; as many other customs. For instance, the veils ; which are large square pieces of black silk, that the women, when walking, throw over their heads, and keep nearly closed over their faces. The Spanish name is velo the Dutch call it saly. The custom of smoking tobacco the inhabitants of the Netherlands have probably also derived from the Spaniards. The pronunciation of the two languages in the harsh and guttural G, is exactly the fame.

But to return to the fandango. Every part of the body is in motion, and is thrown into all postures, frequently into very indecent ones.    Stamping the time with the feet, and playing all the while with the castanets which are a kind of small shells of ivory, or hard wood, of which two are rattled together in each hand.    When they have not these instruments, they snap with their fingers and thumbs.    The dancers approach, turn, retire, and approach again; the man with his hat on.    I afterwards saw this dance to greater perfection on the stage, to the music of the whole orchestra.   It seems the tune is always identically the fame. When these dancers were tired, and in a profuse sweat with the violence of the exercise, their place was immediately supplied by another couple, as the room was  by this time filled   with most of the decent people of the village, who having danced in their turns, I disregarded the musician,  and passed the remainder of the evening in playing a rubber at whist with my landlady, her husband, and her sister.”

In his book The Code of Terpsicore in 1830 Carlo Blasis Italian dancer, choreographer and dance theoretician

"A young girl, of bold character, places in her hand two castaguettes of sonorous wood. By the aid of her fingers she produces a clattering noise, and to that she keeps time with graceful motions of her feet. The young man holds a tambourine (or a tambour de basque, which, however, is now out of use), this he strikes with little bells, seemingly, as it were, to invite his companion to accompany him in gesticulation. While dancing, both alternately playing the same air, both keep time to its measure.

Every description of lascivious motion, every gesture that is offensive to modesty, and whatever can corrupt innocence and honesty is represented by these dancers, to the life. Alternately do they salute, exchanging amorous looks; they give their hips a certain immodest motion, then they meet and press their breasts together; their eyes appear half closed, and they seem, even while dancing, to be approaching the final embrace."

Given these descriptions it is not surprising to discover that in Georgian Bath performances of the Fandango seem to have been largely confined to the circus and the theatre.

Bath Chronicle 1822

The Giroux sisters who performed on the 3rd February were from a family of the theatrical dancers but had settled in Bath and Bristol where they ran successful dance academies.