She Would If She Could

She Would If She Could is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1718 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1991 and published in Retreads Vol.5. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

The first Man whole Figure on his own Side, the first Wo. on her Side at the same Time Then first Man lead his Partner quite thro' the Bottom, and cast up to the Top, and lead into the 2d Cu. Place Then change Places with the 3d Cu. all four quite round and cast off, and lead up quite round thro' the Top and cast off Then Right and Left quite round at Top and turn your Partner :

Originally a triple minor.

The tune was published by Playford with the dance, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.

The animation plays at 90 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 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.

A11-8Grimstock mirror heys, top couple together at start
A21-41s lead down through 3s who gate them into 2nd place (as 2s continue the hey into 1s place
5-81s lead up through 2s who gate them into 2nd place
B11-41s+3s change places with neighbor and turn right into a circle left half
5-81s lead up above 2s and cast back to 2nd place
B21-41s+3s face partner two changes of rights and lefts as 2s back to back
5-8All 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=SheWouldIfSheCould

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1991 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.