Focus on a dance Red House – Book 7 Marjorie McLaughlin, originally from Glasgow, and now a member of the San Diego Branch, has long had an interest in the history of our dances. In this article she looks at the origins of Red House and its subsequent interpretation by the Society. Red House is a fascinating example of how a dance can be interpreted in various ways. Book 7 (1931) gives the source as Walsh’s Collection, 1731, but it had previously appeared in John Playford’s The English Dancing Master in 1695. The English Folk Song and Dance Society (EFSDS) had published it two years before us in 1929. The directions in both Playford and Walsh are virtually identical. Within the English country dance community, the tune, the number of bars, and the general flow of the figures has remained roughly the same. Bruce Hamilton, a long-time friend, has commented that the English and Scottish country dance traditions share river-like streams of continuity, though the English tradition has a wider range and tolerance for variations. However, our Book 7 differs in three major respects. We eliminated 8 bars of music The same tune has been used in every publication of Red House, but the Society omitted 8 bars of the A part, leaving the tune unbalanced. The dance in Playford, Walsh, and the EFSDS is a 48bar reel. Ours is 40. A tune of 40 bars is a challenge for musicians when planning arrangements, more so in our modern Scottish tradition in which multiple tunes are set to one dance. Tunes tend to balance themselves. As English Dance historian Colin Hume notes, ‘A1 and A2 are a matched pair, as are B1 and B2, and C1 and C2’. So why did we cut 8 bars of the music?
The 1. cu. meet and set and cast off into the 2. cu. Place. Then meet and set again and cast off into their own places. This describes 16, not 8, bars. The English interpretation of this is: 1st couple advance and retire, set, then cast off. 1st couple advance and retire, set, then cast back up. There seems little reason for us to have eliminated the advance and retire as retaining it would have allowed the tune to maintain its balance. Another peculiar decision about our version is the admonition that the 2nd couple does NOT step up on bars 3 and 4, and down on 7 and 8. The Playford version states that the 1st couple casts off ‘into’ the 2nd couples place – a challenge should 2nd couple still be occupying it! All the English dance interpretations specifically include stepping up then down. Some modern English groups have the 1st couple advancing, retiring, setting, and the 2s stepping up as the 1s cast, then the 2nd couple repeating the first 8 bars from 1st position, thus avoiding the 2s doing very little for the first 32 bars.
Red House instructions from the EFSDS
The reels should have been across the set Perhaps the most baffling interpretation in Book 7 is the reels in the last 16 bars of the dance. In Won’t You Join the Dance Miss Milligan states emphatically, ‘The reels in this dance are difficult’. This flies squarely in the face of our advice to all trainee teachers that one never tells the class that something is ‘difficult’. The reason they are ‘difficult’ might be because Miss Milligan made them difficult by placing them on the sidelines between 1st and 2nd place! Playford describes the reels thus: The 1 cu. and 2. Man go the hey, till they come into their own places. No progression occurs in this description. The EFSDS description is clearer and far more easily danced than our Book 7. Both versions have 2nd man dancing the reel (hey) with the 1st couple, and then 2nd woman dancing with the 1st couple, which includes the progression, but in the English version the reels are danced across the set, not on the sidelines, and the difference is dramatic. The progression in the last two bars is much easier than what we have substituted: 1s end the hey by casting down into 2nd place, 2s leading up to first place. The last two bars with the 1s casting and the 2nd woman joining hands with her partner to dance up to 1st place are elegant and graceful and certainly not ‘difficult’.
Red House in Walsh’s Compleat Country Dancing Master
The first 8 bars were originally 16 The original Red House is a beautifully balanced tune and dance, consisting of three distinct 8-bar figures, each repeated. The first 8 bars of our Book 7 version has the 1st couple setting, casting off one place, setting and casting back to top place. The source instructions are:
Conclusion Dance is a living, evolving tradition, and yet some practices are long-standing and not easily changed. Red House continues to be a popular dance in both the Scottish and English traditions, and it is not necessarily my intent to say that we need to modify the way we dance it, although my personal preference would restore it to its full 48 bars, restoring the advance and retire, and make the reels across the dance. Having more complete information and access to historical material can and does change established practice, but at the very least it seems worthwhile to be aware of varying interpretations and perhaps more open to adaptation. And, perhaps, less adamant about not stepping up!
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