Hamburger Special

Hamburger Special is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Pat Shaw (website) in 1974 and published in Among the Pines. It was interpreted by Marjorie Fennessy in 1983. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars.

The music is, of course, McDonald's Reel.

Pat Shaw did not complete Among the Pines before his death in 1977. Marjorie Fennessy says that he had "tried out" Hamburger Special suggesting that it was not complete.

Lindsay Verbil points out that the last four bars of the dance are problematic, with the 1s having 8 counts to do what normally takes 12 and the 2s having 8 to do what normally takes 4. Not only that but as the 1s are finishing their half figure eight the 2s will be in their way (or they in the 2s way).

The 2s can't do a normal long cast (coming in to the center before casting) as that would get in the 1s way, instead, to use up the time they should do a very wide cast.

The 1s can't return to the top in their half figure 8, they should cut it short and only go about half way back, thus they only need to lead down about half way.

Pat's description for A1-2 says the 1s turn 3/4s, but that suggests they end in the middle facing up or down. It's really more like a turn of 5/8ths.

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), circle, cast, lead, figure eight, 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=HamburgerSpecial

The dance is copyright © 1974 by Pat Shaw. The interpretation is copyright © 1983 by Marjorie Fennessy. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2025 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.