Jockey to the Fair ~ Bolton

Jockey to the Fair ~ Morrison Jockey to the Fair ~ Bolton

Jockey to the Fair ~ Bolton is an English Country Dance. It is a traditional dance with no clear origin. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1997 and published in Retreads 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 44 bars.

The original says:
Haze on contrary sides & then on own, lead down, up, cast off 1 Coup, 3 1st Coup. allemand round, lead up 1 Coup. cast off 1 Coup. R & L
Bolton adds the following note to describe the allemand
Allemand right: stand right shoulder level with your partner, put your left hand behind your back, pass your right arm inside your partner's right arm and take their left hand in your right hand, behind their back: then turn your partner clockwise. (for allemand left, reverse these instructions)

Originally a triple minor.

This tune has given its name to various dances (for instance see Skillern's "Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1780", but this particular version comes from an anonymous manuscript held by the New Hampshire historical society. (at least according to Michael Barraclough, Bolton merely says "New Hampshire, 18C")

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 Charles Bolton (including interpretations 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 cross over, into mirror heys on opposite sides (Grimstock)
A21-81s cross over again, into mirror heys on own sides
B11-41s lead to bottom as others face up and follow to invert the set
5-8Partner back to back
9-14Allemand right once and a half, ending improper
B21-4Middle couple lead above top and cast back to place
5-6Middle couple turn single down three quarters (to end facing up) as top couple face down
7-8Top two couples neighbor change
9-14Bottom couples face neighbor three changes of rights and lefts, as top couple two hand turn once and a half

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=JockeyToTheFair

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1997 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.