Portabella

Portabella is an English Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in 1715. It was interpreted by Tom Cook in 1979 and published in Again Let's Be Merry. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: G minor.

Walsh writes:

Note: Each strain is to be play'd twice over.
The first Man cast off and go quite right the 2d Cu. to his own Place again, his Partner following him at the same time Then the first Wo. do the same and her Partner follinging to their places as before Then the first Man Sett to his Partner, and both turn single, then both turn Hands Then the first Cu. cross over below the 2d Cu. and Figure inn

The tune was published with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album Strong Roots. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

The animation plays at 96 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), set, turn single, cast, lead, figure eight, double figure eight, cross go below, down the middle and back (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=Portabella

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1979 by Tom Cook. 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
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.