A Conceal'd Health

A Conceal'd Health is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Bray in 1699 and published in Country Dances: Being a Composition Entirely New, London. It was interpreted by Diana Cruickshank in 2001. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Bray writes:

First Strain twice, last but once.

The 1st. Man and 2d. Wo. cross over to each others place, and turn both to the right Hand and stand with their Faces out, the other cu. doing the same after them Then all four go half round to their left Hands, and stand as at first, then Men and We. Right and left twice, each Man beginning with his own Wo. first Then all four Hands half round to the left Hand, and each Man change places with his own' the Men being improper, then Men clap their Womans right Hand, and left Hand, and both their Hands against the Wemens, and all turn single: This is half the last Strain. Then each Man turn his Wo. with the right Hand, three quarters round, and close their Feet, standing all on a row longways of the Room, with their right Shoulders to each other, the Men being uppermost, and make a little hop, and then turn the 1st. cu. down, the 2d. cu. up. And so to the end.

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 dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), turn single, circle, rights and lefts (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=ConcealdHealth

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2001 by Diana Cruickshank. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 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.