The Disbanded Officer
The Disbanded Officer is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Thompshon in 1787 and published in Compleat Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, Vol 5. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2023. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Thompson writes:
Lead down 2 Cu: and ballance Allemand Up again and ballance Allemand The 3 1st. Cus. ballance all round Cast off. Right and Left
I'm never sure what is meant by "Allemand" as there seem so many different version. I'm using what I think was common at the time.
What does the 3 1st. Cus. ballance all round mean? It seems to take 8 bars and presumably uses some sort of setting as well as a circle involving the 3 active couples. I shall use a figure found in the Scottish dance The Poppy and the Thistle. I'm sure it's not what the Thompsons intended, but it will do.
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 George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1 | 1-2 | 1s lead down, and face |
| 3-4 | 1s set | |
| 5-8 | 1s Regency Allemande right | |
| A2 | 1-2 | 1s lead up to places, and face |
| 3-4 | 1s set | |
| 5-8 | 1s Regency Allemande left | |
| B1 | 1-2 | Circle six left... |
| 3-4 | ...and set | |
| 5-6 | Circle six right... | |
| 7-8 | ...and set | |
| B2 | 1-2 | 1s cast down as 2s lead up |
| 3-8 | Face partner four changes of rights and lefts (3 steps per change) |
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=TheDisbandedOfficer-Duple
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2023 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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.