Childgrove ~ Sharp (mod)

Childgrove ~ Sharp (mod) Childgrove ~ Pat Shaw Childgrove ~ Sharp

Childgrove ~ Sharp (mod) is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1701 in The Dancing Master, 11th ed., London. It was interpreted by Cecil Sharp (mod) in 1922 and published in The Country Dance Book (Part 6). Originally proper this version is an improper duple minor longways dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: D minor.

This variation has a turn single as part of the siding, and the back to backs are in the opposite direction to the previous siding. I don't know who came up with these ideas, but I like them. At one point this was on the CDSS website, but it seems to have been removed.

Playford (and Sharp) show this dance as proper, but according to The Playford Ball it became common to dance it improper in the 1940s.

Playford writes:
First man and 2. man side to their Partners once and go back to back The the wo. side to the 2 man, and the 1. wo. to the 2. wo. at the same time, and go back to back Then turn sides and turn your own Partner in the 2. place Then go the whole Figure with the 2. cu.

The tune, also called Childgrove, 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 A Playford Ball. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

The animation plays at 97 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.

A11-4Partners right siding, turning single left back
5-8Partners left back to back
A21-4Neighbors left siding, turning single right back
5-8Neighbors right back to back
B11-4Neighbors turn two hands once and a half, skipping, open to partner
5-8Partners two hand turn once
B21-81st couple full figure-8 up through 2s, skipping

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=Childgrove-SharpMod

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. 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.