Swedish Masquerade barndance

This is not my own version of it, but I was surprised that it wasn’t already here!

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Ah! Here is it, that damned dance! My brain blows up every time I try to dance it. March, waltz and polka in one tune…

Sweden - Is this a county in Ireland ????

Sweden is a country and not a county (believe it or not). This is one of my favourite dances, I must say… but one that I don’t see very often.

Notice the ??‘s phreskull? I think ’ceili‘ is taking the ’P’
I love Swedish tunes and there are some good ones to be found on this sight but I would have avoided contributing this one, not only because it is not ITM but because it is neither a strong or interesting Swedish tune. My reaction was to think “Ugh!! whose put that on here?” I have a similar reaction when people place Morris dance tunes on the session without linking them to ITM as variations etc. This tune would accompany the dance that goes with it at many an English Ceilidh/Barn Dance but certainly NOT at an Irish session.

Hi. This IS danced in Ireland.

I think the Community Dance Manual say’s it’s a Danish tune even though it has Swidish in its title

I’m not surprised at that, Alan, and wouldn’t argue with you, I haven’t set eyes on a CDM for years and in the days when I did I was usually looking at the tunes and not the dances. I often wonder about the social dance scene in Ireland and how many of the ‘non-Irish’ dances are done there that are regularly done here.

We learnt this from a bunch of Danish musicians in the 1980’s and they explained that the title of this Danish dance (and tune) refers to the walk section where the dancers are poking fun at Swedish people as they promenade.

I believe that the third section is actually a hopsa, rather than a polka.

Swedish Masquerade is included in Freeland Barbour’s “Footnotes. The Dances” a booklet giving the steps and figures to 17 dances current in the Scots ceilidh scene in 1992.

“poking fun at Swedish” ~ and the part where the near arms are joined and extended and you march forward in a haughty manner, almost with a jackboot kind of step, with your nose in the air, pretending to be aristocratic… ~ very strange! 😏

It is all in fun, a ‘masquerade’, and some versions of it have many different dances woven in, including the walz, mazurka, polka, hopsa, schottische, rheinlander, pols ~ etc… If taken in the good humour intended, not serious, it can be a fun dance… If my memory is serving me reasonably, which is rare, I believe one version incorporated as many as seven different dances. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere here I had the sheets for it…

NOTE: As I remember it, the short and longer versions, the first part given here, the march/marsch, was repeated between each dance, so you’d do the march, you’d do a dance, and then you were back to marching again before you did the next dance… The smallest version I’d ever come across had three dances, whereas the version here has only the march, the A-part, followed by two dances, the first in 3/4 and the second in 2/4.

I’ve also stumbled across this and have danced it in dear ol’ Eire…

http://www.folkdance.com/
http://www.folkdance.com/federation/dances/swedish_masquerade.pdf

http://living.scotsman.com/
http://living.scotsman.com/recommends/Best-ceilidh-dance.3589333.jp

Article: Best Ceilidh Dance by Liz Leydon

4 (of 5) THE SWEDISH MASQUERADE

One of the funniest ceilidh dances, this is actually a Danish folk dance, combining a haughty slow march, graceful waltz and maverick polka.

HOW TO DO IT: Often more fun to watch than dance, unless you really know what you are doing.

Here is a link to an alternate tune for the Swedish Masquerade dance: “The Old Man of Jutland”

https://thesession.org/tunes/12266

… and here is a link to yet another alternate tune:

https://thesession.org/tunes/12272

This should have clicked previously, as the same basic structure occur in this music and dance, a march chorus and different tune/dance forms for the verses…

In translation…

X: 2
T: Maskerade
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
R: march
Q: 1/4 = 100 - 105 bpm
D2 |:\
G2 G>G G2 Ac | B2 B>B B2 ce | edBd dcAF |[1 G2 G>G GDB,D :|[2 G2 G>G G2 z2 ||
M: 3/4
R: waltz
Q: 1/4 = 155 - 160 bpm
|: Bc |\
d2 B2 g>e | d2 B2 e>d | c2 A2 B>A | GF GA Bc |
d2 B2 g>e | d2 B2 e>d | c2 A2 f2 |[1 g2 z2 :|[2 [M: 2/4] g2 z d ||
M: 2/4
R: hopsa
Q: 1/4 = 150 - 155 bpm
|: dB ge | dB GB | dc Ac | ed Bd |
dB ge | dB GB | dc AF |[1 G2 z d :|[2 G z =F2 |]

Submitted on October 31st 2012 by ceolachan.
https://thesession.org/tunes/12275

My version is a mixture of the two, both rhythmically and melodically. I heard it first at a wedding ceilidh near Birmingham, and was struck as I watched by how elegant the dance appeared - reminding me of the crossover between a ceilidh and a ballroom dance from a Jane Austen adaptation. There is a definite vein of comedy which runs through both the dance and the tunes, and I maintain it is fun to do. It gives people an opportunity to catch their breath, too.

Are there any zweifachers here? The descriptions of this dance & music bring to mind the challenging dances that include waltz steps then a few measures of pivoting, also called totring? in some countries.

I just listened to it for the first time, by the Yetties. It’s excellent!