An American Ballroom Companion presents a collection of over two hundred historical social dance manuals. The list begins with a rare late fifteenth-century source, Les basses danses de Marguerite d'Autriche (c.1490) and ends with Ella Gardner's 1929 Public dance halls, their regulation and place in the recreation of adolescents. Along with dance instruction manuals, this online presentation also includes a significant number of antidance manuals, histories, treatises on etiquette, and items from other conceptual categories. Many of the manuals also provide historical information on theatrical dance. All illuminate the manner in which people have joyfully expressed themselves as they dance for and with one another.

Below you will find a detailed of each of the manuals included on this CD.

CREATED/PUBLISHED London : Sold by I. Walsh & P. Randall ... I. Hare ... I. Culen ... & by ye author ..., 1710.

SUMMARY This is a translation of Raoul-Auger Feuillet's treatise Recueil de contredances mises ... (Paris, 1706), by English dance, dancing master, and writer John Essex. Through the use of diagrams, the manual gives s of floor patterns and motions for the feet and arms, indicates how the dance corresponds to the music, and provides rules for performance of English country dances, known in France as the contredanse (also spelled contredance). Diagrams and music for ten dances are given. Performed as a series of figures by a column of men facing a column of women, the English country dance was one of the most popular ballroom dances during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Paris, Chez le sieur Fe 1/4illet, 1704.

SUMMARY This treatise includes six solo dances for women; eight for men; and seventeen duets for a man and a woman, two women, or two men, all choreographed by French dancer and choreographer, Guillaume-Louis Pecour (c. 1653-1729). Feuillet notes that several of the dances were performed by some of the most famous theatrical dancers of the time including Marie-Pers e, and Cadmus et Hermione as well as Trancr de and L'Europe Galante by Andr Campra. The dances are notated in a system first published by Feuillet in 1700 and based on tract drawings that trace the pattern of the dance. Additionally, bar lines in the dance score correspond to bar lines in the music score. Signs written on the right or left hand side of the tract indicate the steps.

OTHER TITLES Premier recueil

CREATED/PUBLISHED Paris, Le sieur Fe 1/4illet etc. 1702.

SUMMARY This treatise contains two duets choreographed by French dancer and choreographer Guillaume-Louis Pecour (c. 1653-1729) and notated in the eighteenth-century notation system first published by Raoul-Auger Feuillet in 1700. The system is based on tract drawings that trace the pattern of the dance. Additionally, bar lines in the dance score correspond to bar lines in the music score. Signs written on the right or left hand side of the tract indicate the steps.

CREATED/PUBLISHED St. Louis? Mo. 1882.

SUMMARY Created for the Esmeralda Club of Saint Louis, this short pamphlet consists of five figures of a waltz quadrille with a brief explanation of each figure.

OTHER TITLES Few sketches of the interior and work done at Foreman Hall, Portland, Oregon, 1894-1895

CREATED/PUBLISHED Portland, Ore. : Peaslee Bros., c1894.

SUMMARY This is a book of twelve photographs showing Mrs. Foreman's dance students in a variety of dance poses including "The Persian Vestal Dance," "The Minuet," "Society Skirt Dance," "Butterfly Skirt Dance," "The Cacucha," and "Scarf Dance."

CREATED/PUBLISHED Boston: Printed by D. Bowen, at the Columbian museum press, for the author 1796?

SUMMARY Although the title of this manual would indicate a collection of cotillions (figure dances usually performed by four couples), the dances are, in fact, English country dances, performed by a column of men facing a column of women. The collection includes directions for 50 English country dances.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Philadelphia, Pa., The Beacon Academy, 1922.

SUMMARY This is a series of three pamphlets, each from sixteen to twenty-four pages, that describes the waltz, foxtrot, and the one step. Designed for those who "know nothing at all about Modern Dances," each pamphlet provides preliminary exercises and basic lessons for execution of the steps.

CREATED/PUBLISHED London etc. Longmans, Green. and co., 1907.

SUMMARY Originally published in 1895, Mrs Grove's account of dance history was considered one of the most important books on dance during the late nineteenth century. Although based on previously published materials, the book maintained popularity for several decades. Using a formula employed by many writers, Mrs. Grove writes about the dances of antiquity, ritual dances, and the dances of "savages." The remainder of the book is devoted to the dance of many lands and cultures indcluding Scotland, Wales, Hungary, Russia, Lapland, Spain, and Portugal.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Boston, London, O. Ditson company; etc., etc. c1893.

SUMMARY Similar to other prompter's books published during the last half of the nineteenth century, French gives instructions for calling the figures of quadrilles including examples of how the calls correlate to the music. The book also covers the calling of contra dances (progressive figure dances performed by a column of men facing a column of women).

CREATED/PUBLISHED London, Printed for the author and sold by R. Dodsley etc. 1772.

SUMMARY Originally published in 1762 and reissued in 1765, this work borrows heavily from previously published materials, including the works of Locke, Goldini, and especially John Weaver's 1712 An Essay towards a history of dancing. Gallini (1728-1805) presents a history of dance, arguments for learning the art of dance, and a discourse on the minuet. Especialy interesting are Gallini's comments on European and non-European dance and discussion includes practices in Britain, Spain, Naples, the peasants of Tirol, Russia, Turkey, China, Africa, and the Americas.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Washington, U.S. Govt. print. off., 1929.

SUMMARY This pamphlet discusses the legislative regulation of public dance halls in twenty-eight states. Some of the regulations undertaken by the states include restrictions on attendance, hours of operation, supervision, and regulation of the physical and social conditions of the hall. The author also discusses some of the regulations and ordinances of 100 cities including one from Lincoln, Nebraska that required patrons to keep their bodies at least six inches apart.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Louisville, Ky., Baptist book concern, 1893.

SUMMARY This antidance tract was originally a sermon presented by the author in Maysville, Kentucky in 1849 and repeated in 1866. It was published as a circular in 1874 and revised in 1887. The arguments are typical of this genre of literature. The author concludes that, based on his interpretation of the Scriptures, dance is dangerous to health, piety, and usefulness.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Mobile, Ala.? c1876.

SUMMARY This small aide de memoire for the waltz provides separate instruction for the woman's part, the man's part, and three versions of the pursuit step.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Milano, U. Hoepli, 1922.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Paris, Taride, 1858.

SUMMARY An excellent manual for of mid nineteenth-century social dances, Gawlikowski also discusses steps and figures for the mazurka, a dance performed in the manner of a quadrille in Europe's ballrooms. is also given for other popular ballroom dances including the waltz, polka, schottisch, polka-mazurka, and redowa. Gawlikowski provides 38 figures for a contillon-valse, (known elsewhere as the cotillon or German), and a popular group dance performed as a series of party games usually to waltz music.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Portland, Me., M. B. Gilbert c1890

SUMMARY Gilbert, a well-known dancing master, notes that his book will deal only with round dnaces and for other dances or rules of etiquette, the reader should turn elsewhere. After a brief discusion of the positions of the feet, the author discusses, in some length, the waltz position. The manual gives the directions for a large number of waltz, polka, galop, redowa, and mazurka variations--many of which are not described in other contemporary dance literature.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Paris Imprimerie A. Veutin, 187-?

SUMMARY This is the seventeenth edition of a popular French manual that was revised into a larger edition in the mid-1880s entitled La danse, la tenue, le maintein... The manual gives a short history of dance, appropriate etiquette, and describes many of the popular ballroom dances such as the waltz, quadrille, and polka. However, the Giraudet includes many curious dances, schottisch polk e saut e, ganlovienne, and a tarentelle for twelve performers, as well as several dances from previous centuries such as the gavotte, pavane, and bour e.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Paris 1885? -1900.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Paris 1885? -1900.

CREATED/PUBLISHED Philadelphia, Printed by J. F. Hurtel, 1817.

SUMMARY A translation of Gourdoux-Daux's Principes de la Danse (Paris 1804 and 1811), this manual is important for its of step and step sequences appropriate in the performance of the popular ballroom dance, the quadrille (called contilion by the author). The quadrille is a series of figures, organized into sets and performed by sets of four couples. The manual begins with discussions on deportment, positions, and continues with s of various steps including assembl , jet , echapp , chass , and glissad . Step combinations are given for nineteen quadrille figures, such as "right and left," "hands round," "English chain," "ladies' chain," and "balanc ."

CREATED/PUBLISHED Buffalo? N.Y. c1895.