The Mary and Dorothy

The Mary and Dorothy is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1726 in The Dancing Master, The Third Volume, 2nd ed., London. It was interpreted by Cecil Sharp (website) in 1916 and published in The Country Dance Book (Part 4). It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 20 bars.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain twice over.

The first and second Couple Sett all four, and then turn single Then Hands all four round Then the first Couple Gallop down the middle, then up to the top again, and then cast off The Right-hand and Left quite round with the top Couple :

Sharp has omitted the final set of rights and lefts.

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.

A11-4Set and turn single
A21-4Circle four
B11-61s lead down, turn, lead up and cast as 2s lead up
B21-6[Face partner four changes of rights and lefts]

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=TheMaryAndDorothy

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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 © 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
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.