Rigadoon

Rigadoon is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1690 in The Dancing Master, 8th ed., London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1985 and published in Retreads Vol.1. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 312. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

The first man turn his own Partner round by the right-hand, and then turn the 2. man with the left till he comes to his own place, then the 1. man turn his own Partner again by the right-hand, and then the 1 wo. the 2. by the left. The 1. cu. cross over below the 2. cu. and go the Figure, then take hands and lead through below the 3. cu. and cast up into the 2. cu. place, and then turn your Partner

Originally a triple minor.

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 Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

A11-41s+3s partner right hand turn
5-8M1+M2, W3+W2 left hand turn
A21-41s+3s partner right hand turn
5-8W1+W2, M3+M2 left hand turn
B11-41s cross, go below as 2s half two hand turn and lead up
5-81s cross up, as 2s cast down half double figure eight
9-12All face down, 3s, followed by others, cast up to invert the set
13-16All partner two hand turn

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=Rigadoon

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1985 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.