Bury Fair ~ Christian is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1696 in The second Part of the Dancing Master. It was interpreted by Graham Christian in 1999. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: F major.
Note: Play each Strain twice, and end with the third Strain.
The 1. Man cast off and fall between the 3. cu. and all three hands a-breast, the 1. Wo. cast off and fall between the 2. cu. and sett to one another face to face; the 1. Man and 3. cu. take all three Hands and go half round and back again, the 1. Wo. and 2. cu. do the same; the 1. Man and 3. cu. go the Hey, the 1. Wo. and 2. cu. do the same; then the 1. Man take his Partner by the Hand in the 2/cu. Place, and lead her thro' the 3. cu. and cast up into the 2. cu. Place, then lead thro' the other cu. and cast off into the 2. cu. Place.
The tune was also published with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album Favorites of the Boston Centre. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.
The animation plays at 107 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, circle, cast, lead, hey (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=BuryFair
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1999 by Graham Christian. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2019 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
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.