The Merry Conceit ~ Shaw
The Merry Conceit ~ Shaw is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Nathaniel Kynaston in 1710 and published in Walsh's Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1710, London. It was interpreted by Pat Shaw (website) in 1959 and published in Another Look At Playford. Found in The Playford Assembly. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
The 1st man take his wo. by her left hand and leads her round him down the middle and Figure through the 3d cu. the 2d cu. do the same all four hands half round the 1st cu. go between the 3d cu. cast up then hands back again with the 2d cu. 1st cu. Set and cast off
Originally a triple minor.
There is also a Playford dance with this name (actually there are several dances with this name in the various Playford editions) which is quite different.
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 dance contains the following figures: set, circle, cast, lead, figure eight (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=MerryConceit
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1959 by Pat Shaw. 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
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.