Old Batchelor ~ Hume

Old Batchelor ~ Hume Old Batchelor ~ Broadbridge

Old Batchelor ~ Hume is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1695 in The Dancing Master, 9th ed.. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 1995 and published in Playford with a Difference. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 28 bars. Someone thought this dance was Easy / Intermediate.

Playford writes:

The 1. cu. cross over below the 2. cu. then all four lead up hands a-breast, the 1. man side with the 2. wo. and the 1. so. side with the 2. man at the same time, then the 1. man thurn his own Partner with both hands round till he come to the lower side,, the the 1. cu take the 2. wo. and all three hands half round, then the 2. man take hands between the two we and go hand half round, then all four S. then right and left with their Partners till the 1. cu. comes into the 2. cu. place.

All of Colin's interpretations contain explanations of why he made the choices he did, these may be found either in his book, or on his website. I encourage you to examine his reasoning.

The tune was published by Playford for the dance. The music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software

The animation plays at 111 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, circle, rights and lefts, siding, 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=OldBatchelor-Hume

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1995 by Colin Hume. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.