Love and a Bottle - Bray

Love and a Bottle - Bray is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Bray in 1699 and published in Country Dances: Being a Composition Entirely New, London. It was interpreted by Diana Cruickshank in 2001. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Bray writes

The 1st. Man turn his Wo. with the right Hand half round, and both move to the 2d. Man and take Hands with him, and all three go round to the left Hand, till the 1st. Man comes to his own place as at first, 1st. Wo. and 2d. Man to each others as at first, 2d. Wo. stands still all the while The same again only the We change places with the right Hand, and go to the 2d. Man and take Hands and go round to the left Hand, each to his own place as at first, the 1st. Man standing still as they go round The 1st. Man turn the 2d. Wo. round with the right Hand, and fall back from her, the other cu. turn right Hand round as they fall back, then the 1st. and 2d. Wo. meet, and each Man turn his VVo. round with the left Hand, till they come all to their places as at first; Then Men Kiss their VVemens Hands, and there VVe. make a sign of Drinking immediately after, by lifting their left Hands, to their Mouths The 1st. Man take his VVo. by the right Hand, and then by the left, and change places with her, the 2. cu. the same after them, 1st. cu. cross over and meet below, the 2d. cu. lead up the middle and turn single, then Kiss the VVemens Hands as before And so to the end.

This dance is reconstructed as best I could from the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IpqJFLvSJw#t=17m54s I may have made errors in timing (and elsewhere).

Love and a Bottle is the name of G. Farquhar's first play (he is better known for The Beaux's Stratagem), and this dance may have been performed as part of the first production (see The Playford Assembly). The actions of kissing and drinking make the title clear.

Other dances have also used this same title (but with different music). Kynaston's version (published in Walsh, 1710) is described in The Playford Assembly

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: hand turn (allemande), circle, cast, lead, box the gnat, kiss, siding, cross go below (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=LoveAndABottle-Bray

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2001 by Diana Cruickshank. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2019 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.