Guinea Pig

Ginnie Pug

Strawberries and Cream

Guinea Pig or Ginnie Pug is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1657 in The Dancing Master, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Tom Cook in 1975 and published in Come Let's Be Merry. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. It is a multipart dance. The minor set lasts 112 bars.

Playford writes

Lead up all and fall back, that again, set to your own, fall back, meet your own and arms. The first and second men lead up, the first and second Wo. walk down and turn single, that back again. The 1. Cu. cast off into the 2. Cu. place, hand round all four, the rest following and do the like

The first man put back his wo. and lead down, the 2.man pull his Wo. to him, and lead up the Co. lead up and down, and the 2. Cu. lead down and up the first Cu. The first man pull his Wo. to him into the 2. Cu. place, and slip through them into their own places, and hands half round all four, and change places with your own, the rest following and do the like.

The 1. Cu. meet the 2. Cu. and change places, the 1. Wo. and 2. man go the Hey with the 1. man and 2. Wo. untill the first man and second wo. be in the middle, the two men being on Wo. side, and the two Wo. on the mens side, then lead up all four a breast and fall back, the first man give his right hand to the 2. man, and the first Wo. her right hand to the 2. Wo., and her left hand to her own, the rest following and do the like.

This consists of and introductions followed by three short progressive figures. In Playford's day each figure would run until everyone was back where they started. Tom Cook suggests dancing this as a 2 couple dance in a 3 couple set and running each figure 6 times (which brings everyone back to their starting place. I shall only show each figure twice.

Tom Cook also recommends running the introduction again at the end of the dance.

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), set, turn single, circle, cast, lead, hey, hey for four, arming (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=GuineaPig

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