Love and a Bottle - Kynaston ~ Bentley is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Nathaniel Kynaston in 1710 and published in Walsh's Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1710, London. It was interpreted by Bernard Bentley in 1965 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 2. 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 32 bars. It is in the key: G minor.
Love and a Bottle is the name of G. Farquhar's first play (he is better known for The Beaux's Stratagem). A dance by Thomas Bray of the same name may have been performed as part of the first production of the play (see The Playford Assembly).
Kynaston writes:
Note: Each Strain twice over.The first man go the whole FIgure thro' the second and third man, the first woman at the same time go the whole Figure thro' the second couple. This to the first Strain play'd once. Then cast off, tak Hands sides with the third coule, then Sett and turn single. This to the first Strain play'd twice. The first man turn the thrid woman, then the second woman; the first woman turn third and second man, then both meet at the top This to the second Strain play'd once. Then Sett and change places, and clap Hands and cast off. This to the second Strain play'd twice.
Originally a triple minor.
Bentley attributes this dance to Playford, 1710, but I cannot find it in any Playford edition, and everyone else attributes it to Walsh.
The tune published with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album At Home. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.
The animation plays at 115 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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 dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, cast, lead, figure eight (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-Bentley
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1965 by Bernard Bentley. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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.