Megunticook Reel

Megunticook Reel is an American Country Dance. It was devised by H. G. O. Washburn in 1863 and published in The Ball-Room Manual of Contra Dances and Social Cotillons, Belfast, Me. It was interpreted by Smukler & Millstone in about 2008. Found in Cracking Chestnuts. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Megunticook is a mountain in Maine.

Washburn writes:

First couple cross over, down outside below third couple, swing partner quite round with right hand-swing third couple with left hand (viz: The firt lady swing the third gent. the first gent. swing the third lady), swing partner with the right hand, the second couple with the left, and swing partner to place with right down the centre, back, cast off-right and left

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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), cast, lead, right and left through, cross go below (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=MegunticookReel

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2008 by Smukler & Millstone. 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.