Right and Left

Lloyd Shaw writes:

THE CALL:

1. Everybody swing his prettiest gal..
   Left allemande and right hand grand.
   And promenade, oh promanade.
2. 1. First and third couples lead to the right
   2. With a right and left through,
      And a right and left back
   3. Two ladies change
      And change right back.
   4. Ladies star by the right in the center of the set,
   5. Two getns turn in a little side bet.
   6. Now grab your own — you're not through yet.
   7. And circle four with the couple you know
      Docey-doe with the gent you know
      The ladies go si and the gents go do
      Balance home and everybody swing.
3. Left allemande and a right hand grand
   Plant your tatters in a sandy land,
   And promenade back to the same old stand.

Repeat 2 and 3 with "second and fourth couples out to the right."

Lloyd uses a figure he calls docey-do which is related to but different from the figure Cecil Sharp calls "do-si-do" in his description of the running set (Country Dance Book, Part 5). It is nothing like the figure I know of called do-si-do. Lloyd has many pet names for this figure and I have chosen "Ladies go si and the gents go do" to avoid confusion with the more common meaning.

At the end of a circle the hands break, ladies pass between neighbor and the other lady (ladies passing dos à dos), back to her partner who takes her left hand into his left then she turns round behind him, eventually dropping hands. He remains facing the other gentleman as she circles counter-clockwise around him.

Now each takes his/her neighbor of the opposite sex by the right hand and the ladies circle clockwise around their neighbors (the gents continue to face and drop right hands when they need to).

Then each takes partner left in left ending in a courtesy turn hold. The traveling couple can move on to the next this way.

I suspect this may be an ancestor of the MSW "Do Paso".

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Lloyd Shaw says that right and left through and ladies chain were rarely seen in western squares when he was writing.

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I may have missed something because it looks very awkward when the inactive women go into the star, and when they come out of it to find their partners again. But Lloyd does say how that transition happens as far as I can tell.

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