A Trip to Islington ~ A. Shaw

A Trip to Islington ~ A. Shaw is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second. It was interpreted by Andrew Shaw in 2024 and published in The Irish Howle. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 40 bars. It is in the key: G Major.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

The first Man cast off, and the Woman go through the 2d Couple and cast up and cross over; the first Man going the half Figure at the same Time being in the 2d Couples Place The first Woman casts off going the half Figure, the first Man casts up and cross over, which brings them both into the third Couples Place Then they both cast up into the 2d Couples Place, and Setting, all Six together, then Hey on both sides Then lead through at the Top, and through at the Bottom and cast up and turn

The tune was published by John Young with the dance; and was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.

The animation plays at 109 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily (no music plays during this slow set). Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.

The dance contains the following figures: set, cast, lead, figure eight, hey, mirror hey, lead and cast (and probably others).

If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.

If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=ATripToIslington

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by Andrew Shaw. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.