Although Regency dancing is often a part of the programming at science fiction conventions, I had never bothered to go and watch. My loss—the exhibition of Regency dancing I saw recently was delightful. The event was the launch party for Naomi Novik’s newest novel in the Temeraire series, Victory of Eagles. Held at the Explorers Club in New York, the party included in its guest list representatives of the press, Random House sales force members and their accounts, editors, FON (Friends of Naomi), the occasional LARPer and many others. Including a squad (squad? surely not) of eight Regency dancers, who hail from various Northeast states and had gathered at the party to provide a demonstration of their skills.
Dancers, from left to right: Mary Alice Ladd, Alan Ahles, Lynn Saltonstall, Marc Hartstein, Marci Morimoto, Racheline Maltese, Irene Urban, Susan de Guardiola. Photo by Kaitlin Heller.
One person serves as the "caller" for the dance, announcing the sequence of steps and figures to be danced. The formation of the dance required that the couples constantly switch partners, thus giving an opportunity for exchanging chitchat if not downright flirtations. Since the lives of young women were highly regulated in the early 1800s, a night of dance provided hours of opportunity to meet and assess potential mates. As we all know from Jane Austen and other authors writing about the time, mothers and aunts would watch from the sidelines, drinking spiked punch, jockeying for social position and taking notes on the action.
I was reminded of my 5th-grade gym class, in which we spent numerous weeks learning to square dance. (I was inevitably paired with some boy I would not otherwise have approached within three desk-lengths.) And indeed, today's square dancing and English country dance derive from the older, formal styles of 18th and 19th-century Europe. The whole affair made me long to don some clogs. My thanks to Naomi and her friends for the lesson in days gone by.
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