Hobb's Wedding

A Kissing Dance in the Country Wake

Hobb's Wedding or A Kissing Dance in the Country Wake is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1695 in The Dancing Master, 9th ed., London. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 2007 and published in Colin Hume's Website. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars. Someone thought this dance was Intermediate.

Playford writes:
The 1. cu. cast off half way, the 2. cu. cross over at the same time, then lead up and turn from each other, the man to the right, and the wo. to the left. This to the first Strain play'd once Then meet the 1. cu. the wo. the man and the man the wo. then the 1. man turn the 2. wo. left-hands round, the 2. man doing the same with the 1. so. till they come all on a row with their left shoulders to each other, the men with their faces down and the we. with theirs up. This to the first Strain play'd twice Then pass by till you come to a Square, the men with their faces down, and the we. with theirs up, then all turn S. to the left-hand with their faces to each other; then right and left three times, the 1. man beginning with the 2. wo. and the 2. man with the 1. wo. This to the second Strain play'd once The 1. man pulls the 2 wo. back, and the 2. man puts the 1. wo. from him till the 2. cu. comes back to back, each man kissing the contrary wo. then the 1. cu. cast off, the manto the left-hand, and the wo. to the right, the 2. cu. casting up both to the right-hand till they come in their proper places.

Colin Hume writes:

I've learnt that you don't call kissing dances in the States — they love all that eye contact, but kissing is going too far. In England I often say that it's up to the ladies how and where they receive the kiss — they could just offer their hand.

The tune was published with the dance, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.

The animation plays at 113 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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), cast, lead, poussette, rights and lefts, kiss (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=HobbsWedding

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2007 by Colin Hume. 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.