Captain Mackintosh ~ RSCDS
Captain Mackintosh ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Wilson in 1816 and published in A Companion to the Ball Room, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in about 1977 and published in Miss Milligan's Miscellany 2. It is R8×40 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. R40.
SINGLE FIGURE Tune played straight thro
Set & change sides with 2d. Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & right & left with the top Cu:
OR THUS Cast off 2 Cu: & back again & whole poussette
DOUBLE FIGURE Each strain repeated
The 3 ladies lead round the 3 gent: the 3 gent: lead round the 3 ladies set & change places with 2d Cu: allemande & whole figure contrary corners
SINGLE FIGURE Tune played straight thro
Hands across with 2d. Cu: & back again lead down the middle up again & allemande
DOUBLE FIGURE
Hey contrary sides hey on your own sides swing with right hands round the 2d. Cu: then with left chain figure 4 round with bottom Cu: & half poussette with top Cu:
Wilson spells the title as "Captain Macintosh".
The music consists of two 8 bar strains.
The RSCDS is interpretting Wilson's first DOUBLE FIGURE
Wilson defines most of his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing, 3rd Edition.
- The 3 ladies lead round the 3 gent: may be found on page 16 and means: "all the ladies take hands, lady 1 leads counter-clockwise above, and then behind the men, at bottom looping back to original places."
- The 3 gent: lead round the 3 ladies may also be found on page 16 and means: "all the men take hands, man 1 leads clockwise above, and then behind the ladies, at bottom looping back to original places."
- set & change places is defined on page 51 and means: "the active couple face the couple below, a set to them (they set back), then change places passing right shoulders. (Wilson also shows how to change back) allemande may be found on page 3 mean going about your partner in a circle, "back to back". Wilson does not define a "back to back" figure. His allemande is a bit rounder than a normal back to back but perhaps that is the closest equivalent.
- whole figure contrary corners is defined on page 104. Rather awkwardly, Wilson provides two different (contradictory) directions. In the first "the 1s cross down, W1 in front of M1, W1 around M3, M1 around W3, then cross up, W1 around W2, M1 around M2, and return home". In the second the "1s cross up, W1 around M2, M1 around W2, then cross down W1 around W3, M1 around M3, and return home.
This is an unusual meaning for "allemande", but, as best as I can understand, that is what Wilson describes.
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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: set, hey, allemande round (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=CaptainMackintosh-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~1977 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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.