Branle

A branle (/ˈbrænəl/ or /ˈbrɑːl/; French pronunciation: ​[bʁɑ̃l])—also bransle, brangle, brawl, brawle, brall(e), braul(e), or in Scotland brantle—is a type of French dance popular from the early 16th century to the present, danced by couples in either a line or a circle. The term also refers to the music and the characteristic step of the dance.

The name branle derives from the French verb branler (to shake, wave, sway, wag, wobble), referring to the side-to-side movement of a circle or chain of dancers holding hands or linking arms (Enc.Brit 2016). Dances of this name are encountered from about 1500 and the term is used for dances still danced in France today (Heartz 2001). Before this the word is encountered in dance only as the "swaying" step of the basse danse.

The branle was danced by a chain of dancers, usually in couples, with linked arms or holding hands. The dance alternated a number of larger sideways steps to the left (often four) with the same number of smaller steps to the right so that the chain moved gradually to the left.

Although originally French dances of rustic provenance, danced to the dancers' singing, the branle was adopted, like other folk-dances, into aristocratic use by the time that printed books allow us to reconstruct the dances. A variety of branles, attributed to different regions, were danced in sequence, so that the suite of branle music gives one of the earliest examples of the classical suite of dances. Such suites generally ended with a gavotte, which seems then to have been regarded as a species of branle.

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