Chelsea Reach ~ Hume

Chelsea Reach ~ Hume Chelsea Reach ~ Sharp

Chelsea Reach ~ Hume is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1657 in The Dancing Master, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 2013 and published in Colin Hume's Website. It is a Square dance. There is no progression in this dance. It is a USA dance. The dance lasts 114 bars.

Meet all in and fall back, set each to his own Lead up all a Square, fall back, and set to your own The first and third cu. change places with their we. whilst the second and 4. cu meet and clap back to back, the first man and 3 wo. meet the 2. cu. and the first wo. and 3. man meet the 4. cu. the first man and third wo take hands round the 2. cu. and the 1. wo. and 3. man take hands round with the 4. cu. and go half round, the first man, give his right hand to the 3. wo. whilst the 2. man gives his right hand to his own wo. the first man gives his left hand to the second man and turn a whole turn, and the third wo. give her left hand to the second wo. and turn a whole turn, and then turn your own, the first wo. and 3. man do as much to the fourth cu. all at one time together, and the 2. and 4. cu. do the same to the 1. and 2. cu.
Sides all with your own Set to your own That again Men take your we. by both hands and put all back to back, then change places all with your own we. then we. give fight hands across and go half way round, whilst the men go on the outside the contrary way till you meet your we. and fall back with your own we. into the contrary place Men do the sae as the we. did, whilst the we. go on the outside as the men did, till you come to your own places ·:
Arms all with your own, set to your own That again Men take all the co. we. by the hand and lead out, then lead back again and give all right hands to the cu. and left to the next, and right and left till you meet the same again Then lead out again the same, and give right and left hands till you come to your own places ·:

Hume's interpretation is similar to Sharp's except for the following points

  1. in Part 2, Playford says "Men take your we. by both hands and put all back to back, then change all with your own we.". Sharp interprets "change all" as "change with partner" twice. Hume and Callens point out the same effect is achieved with a gypsy, and it flows better. Hume also has one gypsy be right and the other left.
  2. in Part 3, Playford says "Men take co. we by the hand and lead out, then lead back again". Sharp interprets that as "lead out, fall back". Hume suggests "lead out, turn, lead back". Hume also suggests the leads both be right hand in right so there is no dropping of hands and it flows into the grand chain.
  3. Hume adds an honour partner at the end of the dance. Why not?

The tune, Chelsea Reach, was published by Playford with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album At Home. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

The animation plays at 113 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: USA, hand turn (allemande), set, gypsy, circle, lead, hands across, rights and lefts, siding, arming (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=ChelseaReach-Hume

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2013 by Colin Hume. 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.

This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
Creative Commons License 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.