Blac Dans ~ Landrin is a European Contredanse. It was devised by Landrin in about 1770 and published in Recueil Danglaise: Arrangees Avec Leurs Traits Telle Quel Se Danse che' la REINE. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2023. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars.
Landrin's works are undated. The Library of Dance says it was printed circa 1760. The Library of Congress says that Landrin was "active approximately 1760-1785". If we look at the list of English Country Dances we find the title "Black Dance" appearing first in Bride's Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1769, with the same figure continuing until Longman & Broderip in 1781. So I shall assume this was published after the first English occurance.
Landrin writes:
- Lors que l'air Commance, le premie Cus. Croisse les mains avec sa dames, il décende d'un Couple, dans le millieu
- Le Cus. en quittant sa dames, Croisse les mains avec la 3me. dame remonte a sa place, et de suite la remênent a la siene
- il reprend sa dames, et vient faire un rond de 4 entier, avec Ceux qui sont remontré a sa place et il se trouve - avoir gagnez une place
L'on Continue la même Figures alternative
Or, as I translate it...
I can't find Bride's version, but Straight & Skillern published the same figure (in 1775) and they write:
1st. & 2d. hands across half round the same back again 1st. Man leads his Part: down the middle & brings up the 3d. Wo. & leaves his Part: in her place then the top Cu. & 3d. turns first right hands behind then left & the 1st. Man lead the 3d. Wo. down to her own place & bring his Part: up to the top & cast off into the 2d. Cus. place
While Rutherford (and Thompson) published a different figure.
Turn right hands and then left lead your Partner down and bring up the third Wo. then the first and third Cu. turn right hands & then left lead the third Wo. down and your Partner up & cast off.
The English version of the dance has 2 6bar strains of music. The French version has 2 4bar strains. I'm going to use the English music here because it seems to fit the timing better.
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 | 1-2 | 1s partner change |
3-4 | 1s crossed hand turn | |
5-6 | 1s lead down (with a promenade hold) | |
A2 | 1-2 | M1+W3 lead up (with a promenade hold) as W1 moves into W3's place |
3-6 | 1s+3s circle left four | |
B1 | 1-2 | Top couple partner change |
3-4 | Top couple crossed hand turn | |
5-6 | Top couple lead down (with a promenade hold) | |
B2 | 1-2 | 1s lead up (with a promenade hold) as W3 moves into her place |
3-6 | 1s long cast down as 2s lead up |
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=BlacDanse
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2023 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 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.