David's Good Man

David's Good Man is a New England Contra Dance. It was devised by David Smukler (website) in about 1995. It is an improper duple minor longways dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Based on Richard Castner's Goodman's Fancy which was in turn based on Playford's The Geud Man of Ballangigh.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

The 1. cu lead down between the 2. cu. and cast up into their places, then the 1. man take the 2. man with his right hand and lead through between the two we. and come into their own places. This to the first Strain play'd once

The 2. cu lead up through the 1. cu. and cast off into their own places, and the 1. wo. and 2. wo. lead through between the two men, and cast off into their own places. This to the first Strain play'd twice The 1. man set to the 2. wo. then fall back and turn S. the 1. wo. do the like to the 2. man, then all four hands half round, then set to your Partners and change to your own sides.

May also be found on Caller's Box.

(David did not record when he wrote this dance, his best guess is mid-1990s).

The tune, called Hunt the Squirrel, was published in the 14th edition of The Dancing Master. 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 115 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.

The dance contains the following figures: cast, lead, bend the line, swing (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 transience of my youtube URLs. 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=DavidsGoodMan