The gavotte (also spelled gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance named after the Gavot people from the Pays de Gap region in Dauphiné, southeast France, where the dance began, according to one source. Another reference says the word "gavotte" refers to a group of French folk dances and may have started in Lower Brittany in western France, or in Provence in the southeast or the French Basque Country in the southwest. The gavotte is written in 4/4 or 2/2 time and usually has a medium speed, though some folk versions use 8/8 time.

In late 16th-century Renaissance dance, the gavotte was first recorded as the final dance in a group of branles. It became popular at the court of Louis XIV and was one of several optional dances in the classical dance suite. Many composers, including Lully, Rameau, and Gluck, created gavottes, and the 17th-century cibell is a type of gavotte. The dance remained popular in France during the 18th century and spread to other areas. In early court dances, the gavotte included kissing, but this was later replaced by giving flowers.

The gavotte from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries is not related to the 19th-century column dance also called the "gavotte." However, it can be compared to the rigaudon and the bourrée.

Etymology

The term "gavotte," which describes a lively dance, came into use in the 1690s. It originated from the Old Provençal word "gavoto," meaning "mountaineer's dance." The word "gavot" was a local name for people living in the Alps. This name is thought to come from the Old Provençal word "gavot," which may have meant "boor" or "glutton." It is connected to the verb "gaver," meaning "to stuff" or "to force-feed poultry," and to the Old Provençal word "gava," referring to a "crop." The word is related to the French term "gavache," meaning "coward" or "dastard." In Italian, the term became "gavotta."

Musical characteristics

The gavotte, a dance from the 18th-century French court, often begins in the middle of a bar, creating a half-measure (half-bar) upbeat. However, earlier court gavottes, first described by Thoinot Arbeau in 1589, always started on the downbeat of a duple measure. Later composers also wrote gavottes that began on the downbeat instead of the half-measure. An example is Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Gavotte Variée in A minor for keyboard. Various folk gavottes found in mid-20th-century Brittany are danced to music in 4/4, 4/8, and 8/8 time.

In the ballroom, the gavotte was often paired with a preceding triple-time minuet. Both dances are stately, and the gavotte’s lifted step contrasts with the minuet’s shuffling step. The gavotte has a steady rhythm, not broken into faster notes.

In the Baroque suite, the gavotte is played after (or sometimes before) the sarabande. Like most Baroque dance movements, it is usually in binary form but may include a second melody in the same meter, often called the musette. The musette has a pedal drone to imitate the French bagpipes and is played after the first section to create a grand ternary form: A–(A)–B–A. A Gavotte en Rondeau (“Gavotte in rondo form”) appears in J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E Major for solo violin, BWV 1006.

The gavotte could be played at various tempos. Johann Gottfried Walther wrote that the gavotte is “often quick but occasionally slow.”

Renaissance

The gavotte was first mentioned in the late 16th century as a type of dance performed in a line or circle to music with a steady, two-beat rhythm. Dancers used small bounces, similar to a dance called the Haut Barrois branle, and included steps that were split into parts, borrowing some movements from the galliard dance.

According to Arbeau, the basic gavotte step is similar to the double branle, a dance where a line of dancers moves alternately to the left and right. Each movement, called a "double à gauche" (to the left) or "double à droite" (to the right), takes four beats. These steps include four parts: a "pied largi" (a firm step outward), a "pied approche" (the other foot moving close to the first), another "pied largi," and a "pied joint" (the other foot moving against the first).

In the gavotte's "double à gauche," a small jump (called a "petit saut") is added after each of the four steps. The second "pied largi" is replaced by a "marque pied croisé" (the next foot crosses over the left, touching the floor with the toe). The final "pied approche" is replaced by a "grève croisée" (the right foot crosses over the left, lifted slightly).

The "double à droite" begins with feet together and a small jump, followed by two quick steps: a "marque pied gauche croisé" (left foot crosses over the right) and a "marque pied droit croisé" (right foot crosses over the left). On the second beat, the right foot crosses over the left (a "grève droit croisée") and another small jump occurs. On the final beat, the feet are brought together again, ending with a "capriole" (a leap into the air with a jumping motion).

Baroque

The gavotte became popular at the court of Louis XIV, where Jean-Baptiste Lully was the main court composer. Gaétan Vestris played an important role in shaping the dance. Later, many composers from the Baroque period included the gavotte as an optional part of the standard instrumental suites of that time. Examples of this can be found in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

In some musical pieces from the early 18th century, movements named "Tempo di gavotta" suggested the rhythm or style of a gavotte, but they did not match the usual number of measures or sections found in the actual dance. These examples appear in the works of Arcangelo Corelli and Johann Sebastian Bach.

George Frideric Handel composed several gavottes, including the fifth and final movement, "Allegro," of the Concerto Grosso in B-flat major, Op. 3, No. 2, HWV 313.

Later examples

In the 19th century, composers wrote gavottes that began on the first beat of a measure, just like the gavottes from the 16th century. For example, the Gavotte in D by Gossec and the Gavotte in Massenet's Manon follow this pattern, but the gavotte in Ambroise Thomas's Mignon does not. A gavotte also appears in the second act of The Gondoliers and in the Act I finale of Ruddigore, both by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Edvard Grieg's suite From Holberg's Time, which is based on dances from the 18th century, includes a "Gavotte" as its third movement (1884).

Australian composer Fred Werner created a gavotte specifically for teaching students.

Igor Stravinsky's ballet Pulcinella includes a "Gavotta con due variazioni" as number 18 and in movement VI of the suite (1922).

Sergei Prokofiev used a gavotte instead of a minuet in his Symphony No. 1 (Classical), Op. 25 (1917). He also included a gavotte as the second piece in his Ten Piano Pieces Op. 12 (1913) and as the third piece in his Four Piano Pieces Op. 32 (1918).

Leonard Bernstein's musical Candide includes a "Venice Gavotte" in Act 2.

"The Ascot Gavotte" is a song in the 1956 musical My Fair Lady, written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

In popular culture

• In the early 1900s, musician Samuel Siegel recorded a ragtime mandolin piece called "Gavotte."
• The song "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon includes the line "You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte." In this context, the word means "moving in a pretentious manner."
• In the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George, the word "gavotte" is used in the song "It's Hot Up Here" as a satirical device to begin the second act, with the line "We're stuck up here in this gavotte."
• The Johnny Mercer song "Strip Polka" includes the lyric "Oh, she hates corny waltzes and she hates the gavotte."
• Geneticist W. D. Hamilton, in his 1975 paper titled "Gamblers since life began: barnacles, aphids, elms," described the strict formality of reproduction mechanisms as "the gavotte of chromosomes."
• Philosopher Stephen David Ross described metaphysical aporia as "the disruptive side of a tradition that needs both repetition and its annihilation for intelligibility. It is a site at which same and other dance their unending gavotte of life and death."
• Agustín Barrios composed a solo guitar piece titled "Madrigal Gavotte," which blends two musical styles.
• In the anime Kiniro no Corda (La Corda d'Oro), the piece "Gavotte in D" by Gossec is played multiple times, though it is referred to only as "Gavotte."
• In the 1990 novel Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, it is noted that angels do not dance, except for the Principality Aziraphale, who learned the gavotte in a gentlemen's club in the late 1880s.
• In the Broadway musical 1776, during the song "Cool, Considerate Men," the term "Mr. Adams' new gavotte" is used to refer to John Adams' ideas for a declaration of independence from Great Britain.
• In the 1967 film How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the song "A Secretary Is Not a Toy" mentions a gavotte. The reference is ironic, as the original dance in the Broadway show was a modified gavotte.
• In the manga One Piece, the character Brook (and the zombie Ryuma, brought to life by Brook's shadow) has a signature technique called "Gavotte Bond en Avant."
• In the poem "Impossible To Tell" by Robert Pinsky, the word "gavotte" is mentioned in the first line.
• In John Updike's novel Bech at Bay, the protagonist describes American writing as "a lively gavotte, prancing carefree into the future."
• In the mid-19th-century novel The Scout by William Gilmore Simms, a lonely sentry is described as dancing a gavotte, similar to a British soldier's movement.
• Author Norman Podhoretz, describing American foreign policy after the September 11 attacks, wrote that the U.S. was "dancing a diplomatic gavotte" in an attempt to gain support from France, Germany, and Russia.
• Polish resistance fighter Jan Kamieński described the chaos of a German air strike on Poland as "dancing some crazy gavotte," with objects moving violently.
• In the poem "Wakefulness" (1998) by John Ashbery, the line "A gavotte of dust-motes / came to replace my seeing" is included.
• In the poem "12/2/80" from Waltzing Matilda (1981), Alice Notley writes: "A leaf if local / only when falling. // 'What? like a gavotte?' / the common evergreen rustle: / hours & regulations & so on."
• Chas & Dave's 1982 song "Give it Gavotte" on their album Job Lot uses the gavotte style.
• In The Wild Wood, the third chapter of Kenneth Grahame's 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, the arrival of spring is described as "string-music had announced it in stately chords that strayed into a gavotte."