Hey Boys, up we Go

The Way to Norwich (Kennedy)

Hey Boys, up we Go or The Way to Norwich (Kennedy) is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1679 in The Dancing Master, 6th ed., London. It was interpreted by Douglas & Helen Kennedy in 1929 and published in Country Dance Book, New Series. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars. It is in the key: C major.

Playford writes:

Honour to the presence, the to your we. Lead up all forward and back, that again.
The 1. man take his own wo. and the 2. wo. by their hands, and go round till they come into their own places, the 2. man standing still, then the 1. man and wo. with the 2. man do the same, the 2. wo. standing still, then fall back and turn S. then the two men back to back, and the two we. back to back at the same time, then the 1. cu clap hands and cast off, the two men clap hands on their side and the two we. clap hands on the other side; and so on to the next.

The Kennedies do not include the introduction where dancers:
 1. Honour presence
 2. Honour partner
 3. Lead up a double and back
 4. Lead up a double and back (again)

Cecil Sharp used Hey Boys, up we Go as the name for Cuckolds all A Row. If you are looking for it look under the original name. Because of that the Kennedies tried to rename this dance to The Way to Norwich.

The tune was published by Playford with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album A Playford Ball. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

The animation plays at 125 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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: circle, cast, lead, 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=HeyBoysUpWeGo

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1929 by Douglas & Helen Kennedy. 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.