Maids Morris

Maids Morris is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1688 in A new Additional Sheet to the Dancing Master, London. It was interpreted by Cecil Sharp (website) in 1916 and published in The Country Dance Book (Part 4). Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars. It is in the key: C Major.

Playford writes:
The two men take hands and fall back, then meet their Partners and turn S. the two we. doing the like afterwards
All four take hands and go half round and turn S. then half round and back again, then the double Figure, and the 1. cu. lead down the middle.

The tune, Maid's Morris, was published by Playford in 1688 with the dance of the same name. The music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software

The animation plays at 113 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.

A1-4Men take hands, fall back, come forward turning single right
5-8Women take hands, fall back, come forward turning single right
B11-4Circle four left (about halfway), turn single left
5-8Circle four right (back home), turn single right
B21-4Four changes of a circular hey starting with partner
5-81s meet and lead down as 2s long cast up

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=MaidsMorris

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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.