Some Rules to be observed in writing of Dances.
You must resolve in what part of the
Room
the
Dance
is to begin, and there place the beginning of the
Tract
; then trace out the
Figure
, and mark thereon the
Position
; then describe the
Steps
, as I have shewn in the foregoing Examples; and if you find any Difficulty in writing any of the
Steps
, you must make Use of your
Table
of
Steps
; and in finding the
Step
you have Occasion for, you ought first to consider what
Step
it is, whether
Courant, Coupee, Bouree, Bound, Contretemps
, &c. Suppose, for Example, the Step to be a
Bouree
, turn then to the Table of
Bouree’s
or
Fleurets
, and having found the
Step
you want, observe after what manner it is describ’d, and then write it down in your Dance.
On the Top of each Page, on which your Dance is describ’d, you must prick down as many Barrs of the Tune, as there are Barns or Measures in the Dance.
Altho’ the Tract serves generally for the explaining the Figure of the Dance, yet it often happens that many Steps are to be perform’d in the same Place, and then (as I have shewn before) the Tract is to have regard only to the Steps. This Tract is only a borrow’d Tract, and which may be drawn any way, as shall be most convenient. As for Example, from A to B, altho’ the Tract is drawn out in length from A to B, the Dancer nevertheless removes not from A, which may also be well understood by the Steps, which are from A to B, which can only be perform’d in the same place.
You must observe at the end of each Page, the place where the Dancer finishes, and to what part of the Room the Face directs, by which means you will readily know where to place the beginning of the Tract in the following Page; and so continue from Page to Page, to the end of the Dance.
But if in the beginning of a Page, two Dancers should happen to be close together, and some Steps to be perform’d in the same place; which Steps cannot be conveniently described, neither on one side, or the other, and that the Closeness of the Dancers, will not admit of advancing of the Tracts, one towards the other; you must then be oblig’d, instead of placing the Tracts at C D, to retire as far back as will be necessary to describe the Steps, so that the Steps may end at C D.
Or else the contrary may be done, by placing the beginning of the Steps at C D; and instead of describing the Steps one towards the other, they must Separate, as from C to E, and D to F.
You will find these are perform’d without the Dancers moving out of their Places; and both these Examples are equally good, in considering only which agrees best with the Figure of the Dance that follows.
If in the Dances in the second Volume, you find some of the Steps longer than others, you must have no Regard to them, as to their Length in the Description of them, but judge of their Extension by the Distance of Positions, (as I have already shewn in the Termination of the Steps, in their Positions;) so that you are not to conclude any thing from the Length or Shortness of Steps.