Sprigs of Laurel for Lord Nelson
Sprigs of Laurel for Lord Nelson is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Thompson + Preston in about 1794. It was interpreted by Anonymous in about 2000. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
When I received a copy of this dance it was credited to The Fallibroome Collection, but if you look in Fallibroome you will only find a dance called "Sprigs of Laurel" which was published by Thompson in 1794, and the figure of this dance, though related to that one, is different.
Thompson writes:
The 1st. & 2d. set & Hands across The same back again Lead down the Middle up again & cast off Allemand
The "hands across" have been turned into partner turns instead, and it looks as if the allemande has moved into the "lead down the middle and up".
According to Robert Keller, various other people published dances to the "Sprigs of Laurel" tune, Longman & Broderip in 1794, Bland, also in 1794, Cahusac in 1795 and Preston in 1799 as Sprigs of Laurel for Admiral Nelson.
Preston's dance finishes with a poussette.
Preston writes:
Right hands across Left hands back lead down the middle foot it Le Poussette with the top Cu:
So this dance appears to be an amalgam of Thompson's and Preston's and gets its name by modifying Preston's.
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, cast, lead, poussette, lead and cast (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=SprigsOfLaurelForLordNelson
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2000 by Anonymous. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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.