Enfield Common

Enfield Common is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1701 in The Dancing Master, 11th ed., London. It was interpreted by Philippe Callens in 1999 and published in Continental Capers. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars. It is in the key: D minor. Someone thought this dance was Intermediate.

Playford writes:

The 1. man sets to the 2. man and turn right-hands once round Then set and turn left-hands once round, the 2. wo. does the same at the same time Then the 2. man leads through the 2. wo. into their own places and turn single; the 2. wo. does the same after them Then hands half round, and then right and left with your Partner, till the 1. cu. comes into the 2. cu. place

The tune was composed by Henry Purcell as part of Amphitryon in 1690. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album Mrs. Beveridge's Triumph. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

The animation plays at 98 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: hand turn (allemande), set, turn single, turn single cloverleaf, circle, cast, lead, rights and lefts (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 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=EnfieldCommon

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1999 by Philippe Callens. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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
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.