Question: I think I understand the idea of the dance set, but could you elaborate on the subject. My understanding is that in balls, dances were done in sets of two different style dances. If that’s true, were they the same kind of dance, or two different kinds of dances, such a country dance and then a quadrille? Also, did people follow that same format in less formal settings such as a country ball or dancing after a dinner party or during a house party? 

The general custom was to have dances in sets of two. They were usually the same type of dances. After every two sets there would be a fast single dance like a boulanger, jig, etc. Local assemblies could be more informal.

Either the Master of Ceremony in the local assemblies or one of the women decided which kind of dances would be included.

Formal balls and court balls still opened with the minuet, but that was otherwise forgotten by the end of the Regency.

I think dancing at a house party would be noticeably more informal than anything held in a public assembly room, even a very small assembly room like that in Jane Austen’s “The Watsons.”  One must consider how large is the house party?  If it is small enough, and the folks all know each other, I think you can do anything you want there;  ditto with impromptu dancing after a dinner party (again, if it is small and the people all pretty much know each other.)

Here is an excerpt from a period source showing that the “paired dances” thing existed outside public dances. It is a passage from Jane Austen’s “Emma,” in which Frank Churchill tells Emma that the small dance party he has been planning (which is to be hosted by his father, Mr Weston) has been moved to an inn because of its larger rooms:

     Before the middle of the next day, he [Frank Churchill] was at Hartfield; and he entered the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of the scheme.  It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement.

    “Well, Miss Woodhouse,” he almost immediately began, “your inclination for dancing has not been quite frightened away, I hope, by the terrors of my father’s little rooms.  I bring a new proposal on the subject: — a thought of my father’s, which waits only your approbation to be acted upon.  May I hope for the honour of your hand for the two first dances of this little projected ball, to be given, not at Randalls, but at the Crown Inn?”

So there it is — a pair of dances, at a private ball! 

I will note, though, that it’s clear that the entire time that no one is dancing anything but country dances. So my other suspicion, that the “paired dances” thing only applies to country dances, is still in effect. 

Oh, and if anyone is interested, chapters 28-29 of Emma have quite a nice lot of details about planning a small private ball (particularly in regard to the dancing).

Regency Dance, the Late 18th and Early Nineteenth Century tells us, “British social dancing of the 1770s had been greatly influenced by France. The Allemande and Cotillion dances were introduced to England from the late 1760s, the French Cotillion proved particularly popular, especially amongst visitors to the spa town of Bath. The Cotillion was arranged in a square format for four couples to dance a sequence of choreographed figures. A new Cotillion dancing vocabulary was absorbed into English Country Dancing from around this date; figure names such as the “Allemande”, “Pousette” and “Promenade” became common in English dances of the mid to late 1770s. A renewed interest in steps and timing accompanied this shift, dancing masters of the 1810s wrote of the perfection of the “science” of country dancing as though it was a recent phenomenon. The 1790s saw the rise of the Reel as a dance form in London, and the 1800s saw the introduction of the Waltz, especially at the Royal party town of Brighton.

“The Regency was a period of diverse dancing experiences. Strict etiquette rules were used to coordinate the dancing at the elite Assembly Rooms patronised by the rich, but riotous dancing parties might be enjoyed by a different class of dancer at a Tavern next door. Controversial dances such as the Waltz might be danced in a very different style at one such venue compared to the other.

“Cotillion dancing fell out of fashion in the early 19th century, but returned in the form of the Quadrille from the mid 1810s. The Quadrille was typically danced by four couples to a memorised sequence of figures; a great variety of choreographed routines were published from the late 1810s, but only a few major sequences survived beyond the mid 1820s: namely the First Set, the Lancers and the Caledonians.

“English Country Dancing fell out of favour with Britain’s elite social dancers towards the end of the 1810s, it was the Waltz and the Quadrille that became the preferred dances into the 1820s and beyond. A medley of minor dance formats were also invented and promoted, including Waltz Country Dances, Circular dances (Sicillian, Chivonian, etc.), Sixdrilles, and the like. The next major dancing trend to sweep the British ballrooms arrived from around the year 1830 in the form of the Gallopade and Mazurka dances; the Polka then arrived in the 1840s, a dance closely associated with the reign of Queen Victoria.”