Rachel Rae ~ Williams is an old Scottish Country Dance. It was published by W. Smyth in 1830 in A Pocket Companion for Young Ladies and Gentlemen. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2023. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Smyth, in 1830, page 32, writes:
Four hands across and back again, down the middle and up again, Ladies out side and back again, and pousette,
The Lowes, in 1831, page 107, writes:
Four hands across; down the middle; up again; lead out to the sides, three and three in line, (The Lady between the two Gentlemen, and the Gentleman between the two Ladies); back again, and pousette with the top couple.
These clearly describe the same dance.
It seems likely to me that the hands across, should be back again to fill out eight bars.
Both Smyth and the Lowes use "down the middle and up again" as a progressive move. (and poussette is not)
But if the Lowes are to be believed it should leave the 1s in 2nd place improper (note the 2s aren't improper, so the change can't happen in the hands across). So presumably they wheel around at the bottom rather than turning individually.
But how do the 1s become proper again? We could have the 1s do half a draw poussette, and half a regular poussette but I'm not aware of any draw poussettes in 19th century dances so that doesn't seem a good solution.
lead out to the sides ... back again usually takes 4 bars... Summing up all the figures leaves 28 bars, so perhaps a four bar movement was omitted?
Smyth (an Edinburgh dancing teacher) and the Lowes (also Edinburgh dancing teachers) classify this as a "Scotch Country Dance".
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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
A1 | 1-4 | 1s+2s right hands across... |
5-8 | ... and left hands back | |
A2 | 1-8 | 1s lead down, wheel around, lead to 2nd place as 2s lead up |
B1 | 1-4 | Lines of three on the sides lead out, turn alone, and lead back |
5-8 | 1s two hand turn once and a half | |
B2 | 1-8 | 1s+2s poussette, W1+M2 push |
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.
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https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=RachelRae-Williams
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2023 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 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.