Jack of Both Sides

Jack of Both Sides is an English Country Dance. It was published by Johnson in about 1750 in Two Hundred Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 8, London. It was interpreted by Ken Sheffield (mod) in 1995 and published in From Two Barns, Vol 7. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Johnson writes:

First Cu. lead thro' the 2d. and 3d. Cu. the 2d. Cu. follow them at the same time and all cast up into their own Places foot and hands 4 round at top Cross over two Cu. Lead up to the top foot it and cast off

I think there is an error in Ken's directions. He has the 3rd couple moveing up into 2nd place twice (once in B1.7-8, and again in B2) with no other indication of there movements.

Furthermore there is no indication of how the 2s move to the top.

I think it likely that he indended to have the 2s move up in B1.7-8 rather than the 3s, and the 1s move into the middle place (instead of the bottom). if so, everything works.

Also it is awkward for the 2nd man to do a right hand star with the 1s, much easier if everyone does a left hand star (or if the man goes down, woman up and everyone does a right hand star).

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 dances of Ken Sheffield (including adaptations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

A11-81s followed by 2s lead down between 3s and cast back to place
A21-4All, partner set and turn single
5-82s split, man up woman down, left hands across three with end couples
B11-61s cast down, 2s cross up, double full figure eight
7-81s cast down as 2s lead up
B21-41s lead above 2s and cast back to place
5-6All set
7-81s lead down as 3s cast up (and 2s two hand turn quickly)

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=JackOfBothSides

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1995 by Ken Sheffield (mod). 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.