17
Shaker Dance and Music
The original Shaker dance was not an organized form of worship.
The "shaking" or trembling, whirling, reeling, dancing, marching, stamp-
ing, etc. were in large parts involuntary motions which other cults formed
during the revival also did--the Quakers, and New Light Baptists, to name
two. Originally, during meetings, after a period of meditation, the Shakers
"labored" to shake off doubts and "mortify lusts of the flesh." Each did it
in his or her own way--stand with arms extended, dance, hop on one leg,
lay prostrate on the floor, shake, or tremble. For a few years, between
1798 and 1805, the "laboring" ceased and the meetings became very solemn
with no movement. But Mother Lucy Wright believed in animated worship
and gradually the movements came back and the speed of the "shuffle" in-
creased. The arms became used in the songs; and in 1818 dance patterns
were introduced. In 1815 the first anthem with music attached was brought
out at New Lebanon. This was the beginning of the so-called "Kentucky
revival" and, since three of the men who led this revival all favored music,
it became very dominant in the worship service.
From 1837-1847 elaborate dance patterns were developed--with such
names as winding march, lively ring, changeable dance, square check, double
square, mother's star, cross and diamond, finished cross, Elder Benjamin's
cross, mother T s love, and marches much alike but with special titles such

10. The three were Benjamin Youngs, a liberal leader and not against
song; Isaachar Bates, a fifer in the Revolution and a great music-
lover; and Richard McNemar, a former Presbyterian, who wrote
more hymns, anthems and songs than any other Shaker.