Masquerade Royal ~ 3 Couple, Williams

Temple Barr ~ Williams

Masquerade Royal ~ Andrew Shaw Masquerade Royal ~ Triple, Williams Masquerade Royal ~ 3 Couple, Williams

Masquerade Royal ~ 3 Couple, Williams or Temple Barr ~ Williams is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1718 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2021. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 312. The minor set lasts 30 bars.

Playford writes:

Note: The first Strain twice, and the last but once.

First four Hands half found and Foot it, then the other half round and Foot it, then lead to the Wall and back again, then all four turn fingle, then lead up and back again, then the first Couple slippig down into the second Couples Place, turn Hands round.

Or thus: The first Cu. turns single, then lead down thro' the 2d Cu. and cast up again The 2d Cu. do the same Then the three first Cu. go the Hey The first Cu. cast off and turn Hands

Playford rarely gives choices but he (well, John Young) does here - providing both a duple and triple minor choreography. Bolton and the Kennedies ignored the triple minor, so I throught I'd present it.

Published in 1718 as Masquerade Royal, the plate was duplicated in 1726 under the name Temple Barr.

In the A section Young provides 6 bars of movement to fill 8 bars of music.

Now setting and turning single will eat up 2 bars of music but leave the dancer in the same place. Setting would break up the flow of the dance, in my opinion, and Young already has a turn single in the movements

Or instead of inserting an extra figure, could we make the lead and cast take longer? Suppose the 1s led down through the 3s rather than turning after the 2s. Of course when the 2s do the mirror pattern they are leading up through the 3s in another minor set, so that's unlikely to be something Young would suggest.

Throwing in something like "partner two hand turn half" could be done but seems far too great a change to make.

So the least worst option, it seems to me is to make the 1s lead through the 3s.

Now in a 3 couple dance having the 2s zoom out of the set seems a bad idea, why not make the 3s active instead? And if the 3s have finished A2 by moving it makes sense for them to start the mirror hey, not the 1s. Which means they should do the cast...

(I had not found Andrew Shaw's interpretation when I originally made this. I see he felt the best option was adding a turn single.)

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.

The dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.

A11-21s turn single down
3-81s lead below 3s and cast back to place
A21-23s turn single up
3-83s lead above 1s and cast back to place
B1-8Bottom couple together start mirror heys on the sides
9-103s lead up as 2s cast down (this should flow from the hey)
11-143s two hand spiral up as 1s long cast down

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=MasqueradeRoyal-Williams3Couple

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2021 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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.