Drive the Cold Winter Away ~ Bolton

Drive the Cold Winter Away ~ Sharp Drive the Cold Winter Away ~ Bolton

Drive the Cold Winter Away ~ Bolton is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1651 in The English Dancing Master, London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 2003 and published in Retreads Vol.9. It is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. It is a USA dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars. It is in the key: D Minor.

Playford writes:
Lead up all forward and back That again First man back a D. then go down between the rest, and turn the last wo. but one, then men the last, and stay there while the other men go between the 2 and 3. we. and go towards the left-hand and fall down to the 1. man First man back, then go up between the rest, turn the 2. wo. then the 1. wo. while the men go between the two last we. turn towards the right-hand, and go up to your places.

Sides all That again This as before, the we. doing it

Arms all That again As at first

Playford says the dance is "longways for as many as well", by which he means a set dance with an arbetrary number of dancers. A 3 couple set is certainly covered but that statement.

As I read Playford his dance has no progession, the top man moves to the bottom in B1, and then back to the top in B2. Bolton has changed that by having the top man move down in B1 and the top woman down in B2.

The tune was published by Playford with the dance, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.

The animation plays at 111 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 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.

I.A1-4Up a double and back
5-8Up a Double, back (again)
II.A1-4Right shoulder siding
5-8Left shoulder siding
III.A1-4Arm right
5-8Arm left
B11-8M1 left turns W2 a bit more than once around until he faces W3 whom he right turns falling back into M3's place, meanwhile M3 followed by M2 casts up outside, crosses between W1+W2, loops W1 back to the men's line ending above M1 (who is at bottom)
B21-8W1 right turns M3 (in middle) a bit more than once around until she faces M1 whom she left turns falling back into W3's place, meanwhile W3 followed by W2 casts up outside, crosses between the top men, loops the top man back to the women's line ending above W1 (who is at bottom)

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=DriveTheColdWinterAway

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2003 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
Creative Commons License 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.