Harlequin in the Mud

Busby's Frolick

Ely Minster ~ Andrew Shaw

Harlequin in the Mud or Busby's Frolick is an English Country Dance. It was published by Johnson in about 1742 in A Choice Collection of 200 Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 2nd, London. It was interpreted by Andrew Shaw in 2017 and published in Elephants Stairs. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

This figure was published by Playford in 1698 to the tune Ely Minster.

Playford writes:
First man go without side the 2. wo. up the middle into his wo. place; 1. wo. at the same time go within side, round the 2. man, up into her man's place; the 2. cu. doing the same: men being on the we. side, 1. cu. slips down into the 2. cu. place, right and left into their own places, men on the we. side; 1. man cross over with the 2. wo. and 2. man cross over with the 1. wo. so turn your own.

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

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, gypsy, rights and lefts (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=HarlequinInTheMud

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2017 by Andrew Shaw. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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.