Four Ladies to the Center ~ Ford

Ladies in Center Back to Back ~ Kentucky Square Dances Ladies in Center Back to Back ~ The Running Set Four Ladies to the Center ~ Ford

Four Ladies to the Center ~ Ford is a Square Dance. It was published by Benjamin B Lovett in 1925 in Good Morning: Music, Calls and Directions for Old-Time Dancing as Revived by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford. It is a Square dance. In this dance the men are permuted by: 4123 and the women by: 1234. It is a mixer. The minor set lasts 112 bars.

Good Morning was originally published in 1925, my version was printed in 1943.

Lovett writes

Four ladies forward and turn backs to the center4 bars
Gentlemen promenade on the outside and pass by partner4 bars
Balance and swing next ladies to a square formation4 bars
Grand right and left half round and promenade back4 bars

Begin again, ladies turning backs to center, and so on, continuing until this has been completed four times in all. Note: In this call gentlemen progress.

Lovett has three different definitions for "balance" the one which I think is most likely to apply here is BALANCE PARTNERS (4) Partners face each other and execute a swing step (gentleman steps to the left and swings right foot then steps to right and swings left foot, lady steps with right foot to side and swings left foot, and so on.)

Lovett appears to have a modern swing in mind when he uses that term.

TURN PARTNERS—(4) Lady and gentlemen join both hands (shoulder high) and turn once around. To swing partner in waltz position, weight of body should rest on half of right foot, turning with toe of left foot.

Lovett does not say anything about an introduction, middle break, or finalle, so I'm assuming there was none.

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.

Figure repeats 4 times
 
1-2Ladies to the center, turn, and face out (and stop)
3-8Gents promenade the outside, pass partner, face the next
9-16Balance and swing to the lady's home
17-22Grand right and left
23-28Promenade to the lady's home

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=FourLadiesToTheCenter-Ford

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The dance is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. 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
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.