Mother Brown's Cat

Mother Brown's Cat is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1701 in The Dancing Master, 11th ed., London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1988 and published in Retreads Vol.3. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 34 bars.

Playford writes:
The 1. and 2. cu. go Arms quite round, and the 1. cu. cast off, then the 1. cu. are in the 2. cu. Place, then the 1. cu. lead down and the 2. up, the the 1. cu. lead through the 2. cu. and cast off into the 2. cu. Place Then the 2. cu. goes Right and Left with the 1. cu. half round, and the 1 cu. are in their own Places; the 1. Man change Places with the 2. Wo. and the 1. Wo. with the 2. Man, then the 1. cu. are in the 2. cu. Place; then the 1. cu. slip up and down and up again, and cast off and turn; the 2. Man and Wo. change Places at the same time, and so to the end.

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 Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

A11-4Partners arm right once and a half
5-81s long cast down as 2s wait and lead up (1s face down, 2s up)
A21-2Forward to next neighbor
3-4Turn single away once and a half to face current neighbor
5-81s lead up and cast back to progressed place as 2s move down outside and lead up
B1-8Facing partner, four changes of rights and lefts
9-121s slip up inside, down outside as 2s slip down outside and up inside
13-161s slip up inside and cast back as 2s slip down outside and lead back
17-18All partner two hand turn half

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=MotherBrownsCat

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1988 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.