Great question! As much as I love digging into square & contra dance history, I have to say I don't know.
In Beth Tolman and Ralph Page's 1937 "bible," The Country Dance Book, "balance partners" is defined as taking 4 bars (= 8 beats), but the description is of a 4-beat balance, with no indication that it is to be repeated. (Incidentally, it begins "step to the side with right foot," so I don't know where the present-day New Hampshire custom of balancing left comes from.) Still in Tolman and Page, under "balance and swing partners" (8 bars = 16 beats): "Originally the balance step was performed before the swing, but nowadays this has been almost universally abandoned, and the call now means only to swing, or turn, your partner." So it appears that in at least some parts of New England, they went straight from an 8-beat balance and an 8-beat swing to a 16-beat swing with no balance. Margot Mayo, in The American Square Dance (1943, revised 1948), gives "Boston Fancy (as danced in Maine)," with figures identical to what I learned as Lady Walpole's Reel. The first call is "Balance and swing with the lady below" (which of course is incorrect for the first lady and second gent), but the description reads, in full, "Each gent swings the lady on his left." So when Mayo visited Maine, they must have been calling the balance but not dancing it. When I danced contras to Ralph Page's calling in the 1960s and '70s, he taught a 16-beat swing in the dances that traditionally began with "balance and swing," such as Haymakers' Jig. In fact, I don't recall his ever using a balance in a contra (he did in the 5th figure of the Lancers and in one or two other squares). I heard via the grapevine that he hated the way modern contra dancers, especially around Boston, stomped their balances, and that was why he omitted the balance. Can anyone else shed light on this? Tony Parkes Billerica, Mass. www.hands4.com<http://www.hands4.com/> New book! Square Dance Calling: An Old Art for a New Century (available now) From: John Sweeney via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> Sent: Thursday, October 5, 2023 10:10 AM To: contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net Subject: [Callers] When Was the 12-Beat Swing Introduced? Hi all, Does anyone know when the Balance & Swing as we know it today become popular with a 12-beat Swing instead of the more standard 8-beat or 16-beat Swing? Thanks. Happy dancing, John John Sweeney, Dancer, England j...@modernjive.com<mailto:j...@modernjive.com> 01233 625 362 & 07802 940 574 http://www.contrafusion.co.uk for Dancing in Kent
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