Kensington Court is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1695 in The Dancing Master, 9th ed.. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1985 and published in Retreads Vol.1. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Playford writes:
The 1 cu. go the Figure through the 2. cu. and all four take hands and go half round, then the 2 cu go the Figure through the 1. cu. and all four take hands and go half found as before, the two men being Improper. This to the first Strain twice. Then right and left with your partners quite round till you come into your own places again, then the 1. cu. lead through the 2u. and back again, so cast off.
I think, if I were dancing this, I'd rather insert a "turn single left" or a "set to partner" after the "circle left halves" rather than do them as slowly as called for here.
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.
A1 | 1-4 | 1s half figure eight down through 2s |
5-8 | Circle left half and fall back | |
A2 | 1-4 | 2s half figure eight down through 1s |
5-8 | Circle left half and fall back (all improper) | |
B1 | 1-8 | Starting with partner, five changes of rights and lefts (1s ending with right hands join in center facing down) |
B2 | 1-8 | Is lead down, turn in, join left hands, lead up and cast (2s moving up) |
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=KensingtonCourt
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1985 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
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.