Kind and Easey ~ Sheffield

Kind and Easey ~ Sheffield Kind and Easey ~ A. Shaw

Kind and Easey ~ Sheffield is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Nathaniel Kynaston in 1716 and published in Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1716, London. It was interpreted by Ken Sheffield (website) in 1995 and published in From Two Barns, Vol 7. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 36 bars.

I cannot find Kynaston's original, but Playford copied it (as Kind and Easy, no extra "e") in 1718.

Playford writes:

Note: The first Strain twice, and the last but once.

The two first Men Figure thro' the first and 2d We. cast off and turn single in their Places The We. do the same All four go half round and turn single; the first Cu. lead down the Middle below the 3d Cu. and back again; then take Hands with the 2d Cu. and go half round, first Cu. Sett, cut clean two Steps forward, and cast off

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.

A11-8Men full figure eight through the women (M1 starts), end facing partner
A21-8Women full figure eight through the men (W1 starts), end facing partner
B1-4Circle left
5-8Wide turn single right
9-121s lead down, man turns partner under his arm (saying on same sides, not a california twirl), face up
13-161s lead to top and cast down as 2s lead up
17-20All set and turn single

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=KindAndEasey-Sheffield

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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. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.