Cromartie's Rant ~ RSCDS
Cromartie's Rant ~ 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 1983 and published in RSCDS Book 31. It is R8×32 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. R32.
Wilson writes (on page 70):
SINGLE FIGURE Each strain repeated
The 1st. lady lead down the 2d gent. the 1t. gent. lead down 2d. lady lead your partner down the middle & up again & set to the top Cu:
OR THUSSet & change sides with 2d. Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & allemande
DOUBLE FIGURE Tune played twice thro with repeats
Hey contrary sides swing with right hands round 2d Cu: then with left set contrary corners & whole figure contrary corners
The music consists of two 4 bar strains. I assume the music should be played at 2 beats per bar and that "" indicates two repetitions of each strain.
Wilson usually gives multiple figures for a tune, this is an attempt to understand the first figure he describes.
Wilson defines most of his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing.
The 1st. lady lead down the 2d gent. may be found on page 20 and means: Lady 1 and Man 2 meet in the middle and lead down two couples and then return the same way.
The 1t. gent. lead down the 2d lady may be found on page 21 and means: Man 1 and Lady 2 meet in the middle and lead down two couples and then return the same way.
lead down the middle up again may be found on pages 10-11 and means: "lead down two couples, turn, lead up to the place of the couple who were below (who move up)" Wilson does not specify a hand hold for the lead, nor whether the 2s take hands.
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: hand turn (allemande), set, cast, lead (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=CromartiesRant-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1983 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 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.