Devonshire Girl
Divanshire Gairl
The Devonshier Gairl/Divonsshire Gairl/The Highland Lass
Devonshire Girl or Divanshire Gairl is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1718 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1997 and published in Retreads Vol.7. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 24 bars.
The first Cu. cast off and whole Figure at Top Then cast off and whole Figure at the Bottom Then lead quite thro' the Top and cast off in the 2d Cu. Place, and RIght and Left quite round with the 2d Cu. The cross over below the 3d Cu. and half Figure with the 3d Cu and lead up thro' the top and turn your Partner.
Originally a triple minor.
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 dances of Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| A1 | 1-4 | 1s cast down as 2s cross up for a double full figure eight |
| A2 | 1-4 | 3s cast up as 2s cross down for a double full figure eight |
| B1 | 1-4 | 1s lead to bottom (2s wait and lead up) cast up and turn single up |
| 5-8 | 2s+1s face partner four changes of rights and lefts | |
| B2 | 1-4 | Ends cast, middle lead down, mirror morris hey |
| 5-6 | 1s cross, go to bottom as 3s set down (man: RLR, woman: LRL) and lead up to 2nd place | |
| 7-8 | 1s half figure eight up as 3s cast down and lead back (almost a double half figure, except 3s don't cross) |
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=DevonshireGirl
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1997 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.