Green Stockings

Green Stockings is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1675 in The Dancing Master, 5th ed., London. It was interpreted by Tom Cook (mod) in 1975 and published in Come Let's Be Merry. It is an improper duple minor longways dance. It is a multipart dance. The minor set lasts 72 bars.

Playford writes

Lead up forward and back That again
The first cu. go back to back, then right hands round one turn and a half, then clap hands, first your own, then one of each others, walk out to the wall, then back again, and back to back as before, the man on the wo. side, and the wo. on the man's; and in the last part, after clapping hands, lead to the wall and back again.

In "Come let's be Merry", Tom Cook interprets "Juno and Pallas", which has the same figure as this but different music, as a 3 Couple dance. Playford describes this dance as Longways for Eight and describes "Juno and Pallas" as Longways for as many as will.

When I look at these dances through the lens of Tom Cook's interpretation I see a duple minor dance. In the first iteration the 1s become improper but do not progress. In subsequent iterations they progress (and remain improper). A couple is never exactly out at top, instead they go through the same process the 1s did initially to become improper (and a couple out at bottom might as well do it to become proper).

Note that in Playford's day only the top couple would start.

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 transcriptions and interpretations of Playford dances found on http://playforddances.com/ from the various editions of The Dancing Master are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

Up a double

Intro.A	1-4	Up a Double, and back
Up.A2	1-4	That again: Up a double and back

Figure 1.first

A1	1-4	1s back to back
	5-8	1s right turn once and a half and face down
A2	1-4	Clap with neighbor: Own, neighbor's right, own, neighbor's left, own, both neighbor's, own, pause
	5-8	Lead neighbor out to the wall, turn alone, lead back and face

Figure 1.second

A1	1-4	Neighbor back to back
	5-8	Neighbor right turn once and a half
A2	1-4	Clap with next neighbor: Own, neighbor's right, own, neighbor's left, own, both neighbor's, own, pause
	5-8	Lead next neighbor out to the wall, turn alone, lead back and face

Figure 1.subsequent repeats 2 times

A1	1-4	Neighbor back to back
	5-8	Neighbor right turn once and a half
A2	1-4	Clap with next neighbor: Own, neighbor's right, own, neighbor's left, own, both neighbor's, own, pause
	5-8	Lead next neighbor out to the wall, turn alone, lead back and face

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=GreenStockings

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1975 by Tom Cook (mod). 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.