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📂 **Category**: Dance,Stage,Culture,Jane Austen,Bridgerton
✅ **What You’ll Learn**:
IIn the Bank of England Museum’s high-arched atrium, rows of women in flowing satin dresses wrap around men in stiff collars and black coats. The room is filled with the sounds of violins and conversations. Feathers and flowers sway on the heads of the dancers as they laugh and chatter.
This Jane Austen-themed ball, celebrating the author’s 250th anniversary, is one of many held by dance historical societies across the country. Regency enthusiasts, including fans of Netflix’s Bridgerton, come together to learn and perform dances enjoyed by Austen and her contemporaries.
David Symington, 73, and Irina Porter (above left) became friends through such gatherings. “People who participate in these events get a lot of personal interaction — and that’s something we’re gradually losing,” Porter says. “We often change partners and introduce ourselves to other people. This beautiful feeling of community and personal interaction is very special.”
“It’s an effective space for socializing,” says Jemima Lodge, 40. “You see the same faces and start making connections.”
Fashion is an important element, with attendees commissioning specialist tailors, hand-making their dresses, or sourcing Bridgerton-inspired outfits online. Mary Davidson, 26, and Leanne Cooper, 37, sew Regency-era dresses together using old bedsheets, curtains and used sarees. They became friends through their mutual love of historical dance and costume making. “Everyone is so disconnected and stuck behind their phones now,” Davidson says. “We’re going back to ancient times. People have been doing this for hundreds of years, and it’s really fun and social.”
Carrying out these events requires careful interpretation of 18th-century manuals, which instructed how to perform various social dances (or contredanses, due to the partners standing opposite each other). Some, such as John Playford’s 1651 “Master of the Dance”, have written instructions for the dances below the sheet music. Others, like Thomas Wilson’s, are full of swirling diagrams known as dance notations, which represent a dancer’s movements on the floor.
The Beauchamp-Feuillet system, first published by Raoul Auger Feuillet in his Chorégraphie in 1700, recorded the steps of court dances in spiral and geometric patterns. In his 1706 manual for oppositions, Vouet omitted individual steps and established patterns for how dancers moved on the floor—a system known as simplification. The book was translated into English by John Essex in 1710.
“It’s the first visual evidence we’ve had,” explains Jennifer Thorpe, dance historian and honorary archivist at New College, Oxford. “You could have the tone at the top of the page and then these floor plans that told people where they were going to go. Sometimes there were special symbols, because in some contrasts you might clap your hands or wag your finger at your partner. In fact, people had the freedom to choose which steps they were going to use.”
Dance notation is still used today, especially in ballet. Benesh’s movement notation uses five lines, like a baton on a sheet of music, to record the movements of a dancer’s head, shoulders, waist, knees, and feet.
Paul Cooper, a member of Hampshire Regency Dancers, turns written instructions and diagrams into animations of Regency dances, making it easier for others to learn. “The instructions, as written, are almost a computer program,” Cooper says. “There’s an iterative activity and a kind of algorithm in it. There are these little conditional statements: If one dancer does this, the other one does that. It’s all very mathematical in the way it’s expressed. Maybe some of these dance masters would do well in the modern world as computer programmers.”
Part of his work involves explaining some of the ambiguity left by written instructions. “It’s often very brief, and it always leaves you with many questions and answers. What does this mean? Is there something implied here that hasn’t been said? How can I explain this?”
Some dances also need to be adapted to modern tastes. The Triple Minor, a popular country dance of Austen’s time, involves three couples in a line slowly alternating positions. The first couple does most of the steps, while the third couple does little or nothing – a rare opportunity for young men and women to exchange a few words, out of earshot of their companions.
“But that’s not something we’re particularly concerned about in the modern world,” Cooper says. “We’re more interested in having fun dancing. So we’ve adapted that into a group of three couples, where we all have the role of being the first couple, one at a time. Everyone gets about an equal amount of activity.”
Cooper met his partner and fellow Hampshire Regency Dancers member, Jorian van der Boer, at a historic dance event. “We were dancing, and I kept tripping on the carpet, and he kept pinning me,” she laughs. “I remember looking at him and saying, ‘Oh, he’s cute!’
Van der Boer is considered a master – a term in country dancing that refers to someone who teaches the dance to a group, calling out the different moves as the music plays. “You’re styling the room,” she says. “Sometimes you give instructions like a metronome all the way through. But I’ve also had groups where people know what they’re doing, and you call it out once or twice, and then it gets quieter and quieter as everyone goes on.”
These societies offer history lovers the opportunity to revive dances that may have been underappreciated at the time. The Duke of Kent’s Waltz, dating from around 1802, was considered a “very silly” dance for Hampshire Regency dancers, according to van der Boer. “It may not have been well known at the time, but it has become a favorite among modern society.”
Another favorite is Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot, the slow, stately dance performed by Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. “From a strict historian’s point of view, maybe we shouldn’t do it,” she says. “It goes back over a century. But a lot of people in our community love this special adaptation.”
Helen Davidge, caller to the Bank of England Museum event, lists her favorite as the Duchess of Devonshire Rhyl. It was choreographed by Charles Ignatius Sancho, who was sold into slavery as a child and later became a prominent composer and abolitionist. “It’s very intuitive,” Davidge says. “You’ll do a move and you’ll get your partner’s right hand, and the next part also needs your partner’s right hand. So it’s already in place.”
Davidge founded the Georgettes of Oxford Dance Society in 2023. Her interest in historical dance began as a way to build community, marry her love of history and ballet, and enjoy a little escapism. “The world is a very busy, and sometimes a very scary place,” she says. “Having the space to focus on your body, dance, and share that with others is a little break from the busyness of life.”
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