WESTFIELD — The Small Planet Dancers will give several free performances of their holiday show “Wassail! A Victorian Holiday” across the region this month. The 90-minute program, which will celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, and the New Year, features dances, costumes, music, and poetry from 1870s America.
Audiences will see formation dances like the Virginia reel, polkas, waltzes, and quadrilles, “cultured” and “elegant” predecessors to square dancing. Quadrilles began in European courts and were performed with horses in parades, before traveling to the United States. They look nothing like the square dances they evolved into.
