Jenny's Bawbee ~ RSCDS

Jenny's Bawbee ~ Wilson Jenny's Bawbee ~ RSCDS

Jenny's Bawbee ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Wilson in 1816 and published in A Companion to the Ball Room, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1929 and published in RSCDS Book 5. It is S8×24 2C/4C, a proper Duple Minor dance. St24.

A "bawbee" is not, as I had assumed, a baby, but according to Wikipedia it is a small coin, a Scottish sixpence, worth about an English half-penny.

Wilson writes (on page 67):

SINGLE FIGURE (Each strain repeated)
Set & half right and left with 2d.Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & allemande
OR THUS Hands 6 quite round & back again lead down the middle up again & set to top Cu:
DOUBLE FIGURE (Tune played twice thro' with repeats)
Set & change sides with 2d.Cu: set & back again promenade 3 Cu: whole poussette & whole figure contary corners

Wilson usually gives multiple figures for each tune, the RSCDS appears to be following the first SINGLE FIGURE.

The music consists of two 4 bar strains. I assume the music should be played at 2 beats per bar and that " " indicates two repetitions of each strain.

Wilson defines all his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing.
right and left may be found on pages 39-44 and does not mean what I expect, instead: "2nd corners change by left shoulders, 1st corners right, 2nd corners change back by left, 1st corners by right."
lead down the middle up again may be found on pages 10-11 and means: "lead down two couples, turn, lead up to the place of the couple who were below (who move up)" Wilson does not specify a hand hold for the lead, nor whether the 2s take hands.
allemande may be found on page 7 and appears to mean going about your partner in a circle. In a later edition of Analysis Wilson adds the phrase "back to back". Wilson does not define a "back to back" figure. His allemande is a bit rounder than a normal back to back but perhaps that is the closest equivalent.
This is an unusual meaning for "allemande", but, as best as I can understand, that is what Wilson describes.

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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: set, lead, rights and lefts, allemande round, down the middle and 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=JennysBawbee-RSCDS

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1929 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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.