Arkansas Traveller is an American Country Dance. It was published by Elias Howe in 1858 in The Complete Ball-Room Hand-Book. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2022. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars.
Balance first 6, chassa half round; balance again, chassa round to place; first 4 cross hands half round, swing partners; cross hands round to place; 1st couple swing quite round; down the centre, back cast off, right and left.
Balance first six, chassé half round (4); balance, chassé back to place (4): first four cross right hand, half round (4); left hand back (4); down the centre and back, cast off (8); right and left (8).
(Note: Schell's version does not have a partner swing)
Burchenal writes:
(1-4) Balance Six
(5-8) Six Hands, Half Around
(9-12) Balance Six
(13-16) Six Hands, Half Around
(1-4) Right-Hand Mill
(5-8) Swing Partners
(9-12) Left-Hand Mill
(13-16) 1st Couple Swing
(1-8) Down the Centre and Back
(9-16) Right and Left
Mill is a translation into English of the French term Le Moulinet which they used for a hands-across star (I guess it looks like a windmill).
The animation plays at 120 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. 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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
A1 | 1-4 | Lines of three, forward and back |
5-8 | Circle six left half | |
9-12 | Lines of three, forward and back | |
13-16 | Circle six left half | |
A2 | 1-4 | 1s+2s Right hands across |
5-8 | 1s+2s Partner swing | |
9-12 | 1s+2s Left hands across | |
13-16 | 1s swing, ending improper, facing down | |
A3 | 1-8 | 1s lead down, wheel around, lead back and cast down as 2s lead up |
9-16 | 2s+1s right and left four |
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=ArkansasTraveller
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2022 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021-2025 by George W. Williams V 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.