No-body's Jigg

No-body's Jigg is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1679 in The Dancing Master, 6th ed., London. It was interpreted by Douglas & Helen Kennedy in 1929 and published in Country Dance Book, New Series. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

Honour to the presence, the to your we. Lead up all forward and back, that again.
Then the two 1. cu. fall back. and all four meet and turn hands backward half round, fall back again, and meet and turn as before. This ends the first Strain of the Tune played twice over.
The 1. cu. cross over and meet below the 2. cu. while the 2. cu. leads up in the middle, then the 1. cu. cross over and meet above in their own places, while the 2. cu. leads down into their; the 1. cu. lead down below 2. cu. while the 2. cu. cast up in 1. cu. place. This ends the second Strain played once;
The 2. cu. being now foremost, they cross over and meet below the 1. cu. while the 1. cu. leads up, the 2. cu. cross over and meet above while the 1. cu. leads down, then each cu. set to one another. This ends the second Strain played twice.

Despite the name, the music isn't a jig.

The Kennedies do not include the introduction where dancers:
 1. Honour presence
 2. Honour partner
 3. Lead up a double and back
 4. Lead up a double and back (again)

Then Kennedies end the dance with the 1s setting to the 2s. But Playford says "then each cu. set to one another", so I think the 2s should also set.

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, 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=NobodysJigg

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1929 by Douglas & Helen Kennedy. 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.