Cumberland Reel ~ RSCDS
Cumberland Reel ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by Thompson in about 1786 in Thompson's Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, Vol 5, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1924 and published in RSCDS Book 1. It is R4×32 4C, a proper 4 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 2341. R32.
Thompson (1786) writes:
Right hands across half round left hands back again Lead down the middle up again & cast off Allemande with your partner Right & Left
Wilson (1809) writes:
Double Figure
Chase round one couple, and back again , Hands across and back again , down the middle, up again, allemande , and lead outsides .
A different version may be found in Kate Hughes's Dancing Book from Ireland in 1867
- The tow top couples swing four (8 bars)
- Top couple pousette to bottom and form an arch (8)
- Ladies cast off by the right gents by left and meet at bottom with partners (8)
- All promenade round (16)
Wilcock (1868) writes:
- First and second couples give right hands across, and back with left.
- First couple lead down the middle and up again,
- Ladies cast off to the right, gentlemen to the left, meet at bottom, and lead up
- All promenade
- First couple pousette to bottom
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.
| 1-4 | 1s+2s right hands across... |
| 5-8 | ...and left hands back |
| 9-16 | 1s lead down, turn, lead back to top |
| 17-28 | 1s, followed by others, cast to bottom, dance up |
| 29-32 | 1s turn down, others make arches, 1s dance to bottom, others dropping arches and moving up on bar 32 |
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=CumberlandReel-RSCDS
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 © 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.