Jack's Health ~ Morrison

Jack's Health ~ Bolton Jack's Health ~ Neal Jack's Health ~ Pat Shaw Jack's Health ~ Morrison

Jack's Health ~ Morrison is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1721 in The Dancing Master, 17th ed., London. It was interpreted by James Morrison, Pat Shaw (website) in 1973. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford has two somewhat different descriptions of this dance, the first appeared in the 6th edition of the Dancing Master in 1679, and the second in the 17th edtion of 1721. This seems to follow the second version more closely.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over
The first cu. cross over and turn, the Wo leave off on the Man's side and the Man on the Wo's side Then the Man back to back with the Wo. and the Wo. back to back with the Man, and both turn hands Then the 1. Man and 2. Wo. lead to the Wall, and the 1. Wo. and 2. Man lead to the Wall at the same time, then lead in again, and all turn single Right and Left quite round, and turn your Partner.

Playford writes (in 1679):

Honour to the Presence, then to your we. Lead up all forward and back, that again
The 1. cu. cross over with the 2. cu. and back to back, the 1 man being on the 1. wo side, then the 1. man back to back with the 2. wo. and the 1. wo. back to back with the 2. man, the 1. man leading the 2. wo. to the Presences, and the 1. wo. with the 2. man lead down at the same time, then all four face together, and hands right an left to the end.

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, turn single, turn single cloverleaf, rights and lefts, 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=JacksHealth

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1973 by James Morrison. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2019 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.