Excuse Me ~ Barraclough is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1686 in The Dancing Master, 7th ed.. It was interpreted by Barraclough in 1978 and published in Folk Music Journal. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 40 bars.
Playford writes:
First man and 1. wo. cross over and pass into the 2. cu. place, then take hands and turn round till the 1. man is in the 2. man's place, and the 1. wo. in the 2. wo. place, the the 2. cu. do this over as the 1. cu. did, the rest doing the same This to the first Strain play'd twice.
Then the 1. man and 2. wo. meet and fall back, and turn S. and the 1. wo. and 2. man meet and fall back, and turn S. This to the second Strain play'd twice.
Then the 1. cu. cast off and go down on the out-side of the 2. cu. and go the whole Figure, the the 1. wo. comes into the 2. wo. place, and the 1. man into the 2. man's place, then the 2. cu. cast off and go the whole Figure of 8 between the 1. cu. till they come into the 3. cu. place, and slip up in the middle till they come to their own places again, the rest do the like This to the third Strain play'd twice.
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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), cast, lead, figure eight, cross go below (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=ExcuseMe-Barraclough
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1978 by Barraclough. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.