Mad Robin

Mad Robin is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1687 in Tunes of other Country-Dances, London. It was interpreted by Cecil Sharp (website) in 1922 and published in The Country Dance Book (Part 6). Found in The Playford Ball. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: B flat major.

This dance is the source for the Mad Robin figure. Note that (as interpreted by Sharp and presented here) the figure is slighlty different from the modern incarnation: the couple do not face each other.

The tune, also called Mad Robin, was published in Playford with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album A Playford Ball. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

The animation plays at 109 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.

A11-3M1 turn W2 right
4-6M1 turn W1 left
7-8M1 cast, M2 moves up
A21-3W1 turn M1 left
4-6W1 turn M2 right
7-8W1 cast, W2 moves up
B11-4W1 move up center, cast down, as M1 casts up outside, down the center
5-81s two hand turn
B21-4W2 move down center, cast up, as M2 casts down outside, up the center
5-82s two hand turn

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=MadRobin

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 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.