Mr. Heath's Dance
Mr. Heath's Dance 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 Charles Bolton (website) in 1997 and published in Retreads Vol.7. Originally proper this version is a 4 Couple Longways dance with the 3s, 4s improper. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 3142. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Note: The first Strain twice over, and the last but once.
The first Couple cast off and turn the third Couple, then Sett and cast up to your own places This to the first Strain play'd twice Then the first Couple cast off, and take Hands with the second Couple and go quite round, then go the whole Figure with the third Couple and turn you Partner in the second Couples place This to the last Strain play'd once
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.
| A1 | 1-4 | Ends lead in and face new neighbor as middles cast out and face partner, all set |
| 5-8 | Two hand turn once and a half | |
| A2 | 1-8 | That again: new ends lead in, middles cast, set, two hand turn once and a half |
| B1 | 1-4 | Ends cross, move outside the set to the closest middle spot as middles wait and lead away |
| 5-8 | New middles circle left half and two hand turn half | |
| B2 | 1-8 | In groups of four at the ends: middles cast out, ends cross in, full double figure eight |
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=MrHeathsDance
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1997 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 © 2021-2025 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.