Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-04-26
he aa1ehta nau Eagle: ghursdau gorimo april 26 1885,
THE PICTURESQUE PAvANE.
A Revival from the Ball Rooms OF BY
pone Times.How 1t Is Danced.

gone Times-How 1t Is Danced.
The pavane is to be the next revival
from the ball rooms of the bygone times.
To dance in character, the performers
should wear Louis XIII dresses, with
their large pulled sleeves and wide van
dyked lace turned back from the Shout
ders and dropping over the arms. The
overdress and petticoat would cot be any
novelty in these days Of Louis XIV gowns,
and the lace wired high at the back OF the
neck would be becoming to many and by
no means a startling innovation. The
style of hair, however, would be rather
| trying. The couture Of that period was
perfectly fat on the top. The back hair
was arranged around a comb, while a
! thick bunch of curls hung over either ear,
concealing both. The buckled or rosetted
shoes, with pointed toes and high heels,
are familiar enough to US all
The mems dress is sufficiently psctur-
| esque, with silk stockings, rosetted shoes,
knee breeches ending in a frill Of rich lace
and tied with ribbons at the knees, tight
Jacket of silk or velvet, with slashed
sleeves and short coat hanging loose from
the shoulders. Their deep cavalier collars
and long lovelocks are inseparably con-
nected in our minds with later period Of
our own island history.
The dance itself is a graceful one with
much sinuous turning and twisting of the
dancers, many sliding steps, deep courte-
sizes and pretty pointed toe brought up to
the recover. The music is in triple time,
like that of the minuet, and the first re-
markable feature in the dance is the start
! ing off of two out of each four couples to
the very end of the room in the minuet
step, and their slow dance back again to
place themselves as vfs-a-vis to the other
| two couples. Immediately after the lat
ter set off on q similar expedition, return
I ing to their original positions. This pre-
/ liminary canter concluded, the real busi-
ness of the dance begins, strangely enough,
! by scattering the four couples to the very
! extremities of the room.
| Brought together again in the center,
| still holding hands, they content them
| selves with more limited space ranging
themselves as though for quadrille. The
! third figure is pretty one, but one in
/ which men in modern costume would
probably feel themselves to be ridiculous.
Each gentleman kneels on one knee, his
sword well out at the back, his right hand
resting-palm upward-on his right knee.
Each lady, taking scrap Of her overdress
in each hand, sets off with the left foot
and glides coquettishly in front of the
partner opposite her own in diagonal di-
rection.
Then the men rise, lady and cavalier
making each other low reverence, the
whole four couples in the same moment.
Much Of the beauty of this figure con-
sists in the courtesy being made exactly
simultaneously by the eight dancers.
This was the only point in which the
/ dancers at the costume bali failed in their
/ gavot. Some of them were rising after
! their low bow, at the moment when others
/ were making the descent. This reverence
! over, the cavaliers go down again on one
| knee, while the ladies dance off, each ar
irving before her very own partner, when
there are fresh courtesies, the men rising
/ and giving their right hands to the ladies,
who pirouette without letting go the hand,
being supported by the other arm of their
/ partners, which is passed round their
waist.
In the last figure the four dancers form
a circle by taking hands and then letting
go, but still holding the arms raised high
in the air, each couple turns TO each other
with a step TO the right and then one to
the left, repeating this double movement
four times After this each couple stands
ranged behind the first and dances off out
of the room by door on the opposite side
to that by which they danced into it
London Society,