Guardian Angels ~ Sheffield

Guardian Angels ~ Sheffield Guardian Angels ~ Williams

Guardian Angels ~ Sheffield is an English Country Dance. It was published by Thompson in 1776 in Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1776, London. It was interpreted by Ken Sheffield (website) in 1983 and published in From Two Barns, Vol 2. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: G major.

Sheffield found this dance in Thompson's Compleat Collection, Vol. 4 from 1780, but it first appears some years earlier in one of the Thompson annuals.

Thompson writes:

Cast off 2 Cu. & up again cross over 2 Cu. lead up to the top & cast off hands across with the 3d. Cu. and back again hands 4 at top right & left

Maybe Sheffield intends it to be played at 4 counts per measure, but Thompson's instructions make sense at 2 counts per measure. Since Sheffield makes no metion of the number of counts per measure I will assume 2. But I don't think it is danceable, nor can I talk fast enough to provide vocal cues.

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 dances of Ken Sheffield (including adaptations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

A11-11s+2s set
2-21s cast down as 2s lead up
3-31s+3s set
4-41s cast down as 3s lead up
5-51s+3s set
6-61s cast up as 3s lead down
7-71s+2s set
8-81s cast up as 2s lead down
A21-21s cross by right, go below, taking hands with 2s who move up
3-41s cross by left, go below, taking hands with 3s who move up
5-71s lead above top and cast down as 3s lead down
8-81s turn single, man right, woman left
B11-21s split, man down, woman up, right hands across three at ends
3-4Circle six left half
5-61s split, man down, woman up, left hands across three at ends
7-8Circle six right half
B21-41s split, man down woman up, pass 1st corners left to start heys across at ends
5-71s split, man up woman down, pass 2nd corners right to start heys across at other end
8-81s lead down as 3s cast up

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=GuardianAngels-Sheffield

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1983 by Ken Sheffield. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.