Abergenny ~ Kennedy

Abergenny ~ Hume Abergenny ~ Kennedy

Abergenny ~ Kennedy is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1657 in The Dancing Master, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Douglas & Helen Kennedy (mod) in 1929 and published in Country Dance Book, New Series. It is a proper 4 Couple Longways dance. There is no progression in this dance. It is a multipart dance. The dance lasts 112 bars. It is in the key: G Minor.

Playford writes:

Lead up and fall back, that again Set and fall back, that again The first and last cu. cast off into the middle, the 2. cu. slip up, and the 3. cu. slip down at the same time, the 2. and 3. cu. cast off and back again into their own places at the same time.

The 1. cu. take hands betwixt the 2.cu. and the last cu. take hands betwixt the 3.cu. and meet the 1. and 2.cu. all abreast and fall back; the 1 man turn the 2. man up into his place, and the 1. wo. turn the 2. wo. into her place; the last man turn the 3. man into his place and the last wo. at the same time turn down the 3. wo. into her place; the 2. and 3. cu. do the like. The 2. and 3. cu. hold up hands, and let the first and last cu. go under into their places; the first and last man lead out to the wall and the first and last wo. lead out to the wall, and the 2. cu. lead up and the 3. cu. lead down; and lead back again at one time; change places all with your own and turn round S. the 1. and 2. cu. hands half round; the 1. cu change places with the 2. cu. and at the same time the last cu. change places with the 3. cu. and the 3. cu. do the same all over.

The first and last cu. meet and change places with your own; 2. cu. slip up, and 3. cu. down; the 2. cu. cast off into the 1. cu. place, and the 3. cu. cast off about the last cu. into the last cu. place and stand all at one time; then 1. man change places with the last wo. and the 1. wo. with the last man; the first and last man, and the first and last wo. give right and left hands to the next: then 1. cu. turn into 2. cu. place, and the 3. cu. turn down into the last cu. place, the 2. and 3. cu. doing the same.

In I.B2 both Playford and the Kennedies have people setting and falling back twice. But it makes more sense to have people come forward after the second set, so that everyone is back home.

Both the Playford and the Kennedies have the lines of four falling back, but if you do that then you will face the wrong direction after the following gates, so I have introduced a turn around.

The tune was published by Playford with the dance. The music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software

The animation plays at 92 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, turn single, circle, cast, lead, hey, circular hey, cast and lead (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=Abergenny

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1929 by Douglas & Helen Kennedy (mod). My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
Creative Commons License My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.