Portland Fancy ~ 32bar

Portland Fancy ~ Howe Portland Fancy ~ 48bar Portland Fancy ~ 32bar

Portland Fancy ~ 32bar is a New England Contra Dance. It was published by Elias Howe in 1862 in American Dancing Master, Boston. It was interpreted by Smukler & Millstone in about 2008. Found in Cracking Chestnuts. It is a Four Face Four dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

This is said to be the first contra dance in a four face four formation. Unlike modern contra dances, travelling buddies do not switch roles.

Howe writes

Join hands and swing eight — head couple (gentleman opposite lady) down the middle, foot couple up the outside (at the same time), back to places — head couple down the outside, and foot couple up the middle — back to places — ladies chain at the head, right and left at foot, right and left at head and ladies chain at foot — all forward, forward and cross by opposite couples to face the next four.

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: circle, ladies chain (courtesy turn), right and left through (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=PortlandFancy

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2008 by Smukler & Millstone. 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.