Lovely Nancy is unusual in that its figures were published by Henry Playford with one name and tune in 1690, then published in 1744 with a different name and tune. It is in 3/4 time. It has become a favorite of the Wayside Inn Steppers, and we do it as our last dance every week.
Continue reading“Dutchess of Brunswick”, also spelled “Dutches of Brumswick” and “Dutches of Brunswick”, is a lively dance and tune which the Waysiders have been enjoying since the latter part of 2016.
Continue readingPea Straw is a dance that was described in several manuscripts and publications in the early United States, and we enjoyed dancing it for many months (before the pandemic paused our dancing together.) It features a version of the contra corners figure, done with colonial-style allemandes.
Continue readingPleasures of the Town is a dance that we have been enjoying for a few years. Reconstructing it raised some interesting issues about the different ways the term “allemande” was used, and about how to interpret manuscript versions of dances.
Continue readingWe haven’t danced together indoors since March of 2020 due to COVID-19. We have danced weekly on Zoom but danced together a little both last summer and early fall, and last week. We are very much hoping that we can continue to dance together in 2022!
We are posting an article on a dance that we have danced in the past, and danced last week. We hope to post (and dance!) more regularly.
We found Black Dance in a manuscript written by Jeremiah Brown of Seabrook, New Hampshire, in 1782. It was described in several manuscripts in the United States late in the eighteenth century and early in the nineteenth, and various versions appear in English sources (sometimes called “Black Dance”, and sometimes “The Black Dance”). Continue reading
The tune The Swiss Allemande was published in London by Mr. Werner in Humbly Dedicated to the Gentlemen & Gentry Subscribers in 1780, and by Charles and Samuel Thompson in 24 Country Dances of 1782, published in 1781, as well as in Thompson’s compleat collection of 200 favourite country dances: etc. (Volume 5) published in 1788. It crossed the Atlantic rapidly and Continue reading
The tune Allemande Swiss, and the dances written to go to it, were extremely popular in late eighteenth century America. (It is not to be confused with the tune “Swiss Allemand”, and the dances which were written to go to it.) Approximately 20 dance manuals and hand-written manuscripts from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century include both country dances and a cotillion with the name Allemand Swiss. As spelling was not standardized in the 18th century, we find many varied spellings of the title, like Continue reading
We found “None so Pretty” in a collection of country dances from Walpole, New Hampshire entitled A Collection of Contra Dances of Late, Approved, and Fashionable Figures, Walpole: Museum Press, 1799. Continue reading