Mistress Savage's Whim

Mrs. Savage's Whim

Mistress Savage's Whim or Mrs. Savage's Whim is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second. It was interpreted by Bernard Bentley in 1962 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 1. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars. It is in the key: B minor.

Playford writes:

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

The first Man Sett to the second Woman, then turn the second Man, and go Back to Back with his own Partner This to the first Strain play'd once. Then the second Woman do the same. This to the first Strain play'd twice. Then the first Couple cross over, and go Back to Back with your Partner, then go the Figure above into the second Couple's Place. This to the second Strain play'd once.

The tune was published with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album By Request. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

The animation plays at 95 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.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), turn single, lead, figure eight, cross go below, back to back (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=MistressSavagesWhim

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1962 by Bernard Bentley. 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.