Shropshire Lass

Shropshire Lass is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Nathaniel Kynaston in 1710 and published in Walsh's Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1710, London. It was interpreted by Bernard Bentley in 1971 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 4. Found in The Playford Assembly. 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.

(I do not have access to a copy of Walsh, so this is from The Dancing Master which also printed the dance (but after Walsh).

John Young writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be Play'd twice over.
The first Couple Sett and cast off, then take Hands with the third Couple and go half round Then Hands back again and cast up Then the first Man turn the 2d. then the third Man, each quite round; ths first Woman do the same with the second and third Woman at the same time The Figure thro' the 2d Cu. and turn in the 2d Couple's Place

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 dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, circle, cast, figure eight (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=ShropshireLass

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1971 by Bernard Bentley. 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.