Albion's Queen ~ Andrew Shaw

Albion's Queen ~ Andrew Shaw or Barksheir is an English Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in 1706 in Twenty four New Country Dances for the year 1706. It was interpreted by Andrew Shaw in about 2018. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars. The tune is a slip jig.

I do not have a copy of Walsh's publication, so I fall back on John Young's copy from 1710.

John Young writes:

The first Man cast off below the 2d Man, and go the Hey with the 2d Man and 2d Woman, till the first Man comes into the 2d Man's Place Then the first Woman cast off below the 2d Woman and do the like The first Couple being in the second Couples Place, the two Men lead to the Wall, and the two Women do the some at the same Time; then the first Couple lead up, and the 2d Couple lead down at the same Time, then Right-hands a-cross all Four half round, and Left-hands back again, till the first Couple comes into the second Couples Place The rest do the like

Andrew Shaw points out that this choreography was used earlier by Playford for Edinburgh Castle (Playford, 1698).

John Walsh published the tune with the dance, Albion's Queen, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.

The animation plays at 110 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: gypsy, cast, lead, hands across (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=AlbionsQueen

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2018 by Andrew Shaw. 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.