Some of the earliest records we have are of the 16th century Dances from the Inns of Court, known as the Old Measures. Whereas some were described as “grave, simple, chaste, and sober measures” other records say, “revellers flaunted through galliards, corantoes, French and country dances”. One dictionary entry seems to compare the Alman to a lively dance called Chiarintána: “a kinde of Caroll or song full of leapings like a Scotish gigge, some take it for the Almaine-leape”. Another implies that the alman step ended with a “saut”, i.e. jump, of some sort. The earliest source includes six dance with hopping steps: "a duble forward hoppe iiij tymes". There was a wide variety of styles and the hop step was already a standard part of English country dancing.
The hop step, or Single Step, is basically just skipping, and is the easiest way to cover lots of ground.
I sometimes find that when I teach this to beginners they focus on getting high into the air and lifting their knees; I have to remind them that the objective is to cover lots of ground and they should focus on travelling rather than height!
Basically it is three Double Steps, spring off one foot and land on both. Of course all the steps were done with very different styling in earlier centuries, with bent knees, pointed toes and different arm positions than the ones we use these days. This is how I would do these steps today:
In the early 17th century, pre-Playford "Lovelace Manuscript", for the dance The Old Man with a Bed full of bones it says: "the first man shall take his woeman by both hands and shall leade her down side long, allmost to ye bottome, very quickly"
Sounds like Galloping to me! We have been Galloping for a long time!
Playford's words for the same move in An old Man, a Bed full of Bones are:
“Lead her to the lower end”. Was Gallop generally accepted as a stylistic substitute for "Leading down"?
There are old dances called The Galop and The Galopede. That doesn't mean we should spell the word "Galop"!
As you can see from Colin Hume's article on Foot It, our understanding is that it meant that you could do any footwork you liked to fill the music. He gives an example there of some fancy footwork; another example is given here.
Northern Junket, Vol. 5, No. 1, from 1955, has an article called "50 Variations of the Balance" (pp. 13-18). How many can you do?
Here are lots of ways to impress your partner with your footwork:
There were many variations across the two centuries, with lots of fancy footwork, so we don't know exactly what instructions like that meant. Here is a simple piece of footwork that you can use for this dance and for any "Foot It" in a country dance:
Of course, the styling was very different in those days, here is a period interpretation of a Rigadoon Step by Ian Cutts.
Dances such as the Dorset Four-Hand Reel use the Rant Step and in North-East of England it is common to use a Rant Step for many traditional dances. As you can see in the article on the Dorset Four-Hand Reel, dances which alternate Heys and Stepping have been popular for over 500 years. Although the use of a Rant Step has been standardised in the Dorset Four Hand Reel, you can actually Foot It any way you like; you will see the dancers doing a variation in the demonstration at the top of this page.
As with all these steps, there are many variations of Rant Steps. Here is the basic one that I learnt fifty years ago:
Anne, please forgive me, if I have misrepresented you!
I love doing this type of stepping at ECD dances in America; usually some of the people, especially the younger ones, start copying me and having great fun!
