Lady Baird's Reel
Lady Baird's Reel 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 1955 and published in RSCDS Book 18. It is R8×32 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. R32.
In his A Companion to the Ball Room, 1816, Thomas Wilson published Lady Bairds Reel:
SINGLE FIGURE Each strain repeated
Set & change sides with 2d. Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & right & left with the top Cu:
OR THUS The 1st. lady lead down the 2d. gent: the 1st. gent: lead down the 2d. lady lead down the middle with your partner up again & set to the top Cu:
DOUBLE FIGURE Tune played twice thro with repeats
Promenade 3 Cu: whole poussette set 3 across set 3 in your places & the double triangle
Wilson's music consists of two 4 bar strains, both repeated. The RSCDS chose to interpret the DOUBLE FIGURE so the music should be played AABBAABB.
Wilson defines most of his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing, 3rd Edition.
- promenade 3 Cu: is defined on page 18 and means that all three couples take promenade hold and, with the 1s leading, travel in a counter-clockwise elipse around and back to places.
- whole poussette is defined on page 15 and means: "top two couples join hands with partner, circle, counter-clockwise, one and a half times around the other couple to change places with them."
Note: this is unlike a normal English Poussette as the couples travel once and a half around each other rather than once. And is quite different from the Scottish Poussette. - set 3 across & set 3 in your places is defined on page 21 and means: "L1 moves between the 2s as M1 moves between 3s, then the lines of three across set, then L1 moves back to her place and M1 back to his, and then lines of three on the sides set to each other.
- the double triangle is defined on page 113 and means: "the middle couple loop first corner right shoulder pass outside partner's place, then loop 2nd corner right shoulder and return to place.
This is completely different from the RSCDS version of double triangles.
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, promenade round, double triangle (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=LadyBairdsReel-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1955 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
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.