Fuerst Things Fuerst is a New England Contra Dance. It was devised by Will Mentor sometime before 2019-08-21. It is a Becket dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Written for Michael Fuerst, who introduced the concept of a right and left through on the half diagonal.
In this right and left through the men in the minor set take hands and change places, while the women take hands outside the minorset (also on the right diagonal) and change places.
The notes suggest a couple out at the end wait on the right and cross together on the right and left through (even though the man has no one to cross with). I prefer having the men cross early so long lines are balance (and then the men simply courtesy turn their partners as they arrive).
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 dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), right and left through, long lines forward and back, swing, back to back (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=FuerstThingsFuerst
The dance is propbably copyright © by Will Mentor but I do not have an exact date of publication. I do not have a date for the interpretation, so it may be under copyright. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2019 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.