Pop Goes The Weasel ~ Sharp #1 is an English Country Dance. It is a traditional dance with no clear origin. It was interpreted by Cecil Sharp (website) in 1909. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
This evolved out of a dance of the same name that was popular in the 1850s. A textual source from 1857 is Hillgrove's The Scholar's Companion.
The tune is a traditional one which became popular in the 1850 on both sides of the Atlantic. The music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software
The animation plays at 113 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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
A1 | 1-8 | M1 and two women circle three, once and a half then W1 dive under to place as the other two raise their joined hands |
A2 | 1-8 | W2 and two men circle, three once and a half then M2 dive under to place as the other two raise their joined hands |
B1 | 1-8 | 1s lead down left in left, turn (man may twirl woman under), lead back |
B2 | 1-8 | Partner swing, half-way around the minor set, counter-clockwise to progress |
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=PopGoesTheWeasel1
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. 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
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.