Cotillion

It was for some fifty years regarded as an ideal finale to a ball but was eclipsed in the early 19th century by the quadrille.

[6] The name cotillion appears to have been in use as a dance-name at the beginning of the 18th century but, though it was only ever identified as a sort of country dance, it is impossible to say of what it consisted at that early date.

In the 1790s, the cotillion was falling from favour, but it re-emerged in a new style in the early years of the next century, with fewer and fewer changes, making it barely distinguishable from the newly-emerging quadrille, which was introduced into English high society by Lady Jersey in 1816[7] and by 1820 had eclipsed the cotillion, though it was recognisably a very similar dance, particularly as it also began to be danced by four couples.

In the United States, however, the opposite was true: quadrilles were termed cotillions until the 1840s, when it was realised that all the distinctive figures of the earlier dance had been taken up into the newer.

The German cotillion was introduced to New York society at a costume ball with a Louis XV theme given by William Colford Schermerhorn in the early winter of 1854.

[13] Here, too, waltzes, mazurkas, fun, games and boisterous behaviour at private parties took on a more important role,[14] and only some figures of the earlier dances survived.