St. David's Day

St. David's Day is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, London. It was interpreted by Pat Shaw (website) in 1962 and published in Another Look at Playford. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain twice over.

The first two Men change places with their two Women, then first Cu. cast off and change places again, then the second Couple cast off. This to the first Strain play'd twice. Hands half round, then clap Hands with your Partner, and turn all four single; then lead up abreast and cast off. This to the second strain play'd twice.

Pat says that if you don't like doing a hole in the wall cross, you could do a set and partner change instead.

Shakespeare, Henry V, V.7

FLUELLEN Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is
remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a
garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their
Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this
hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do
believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek
upon Saint Tavy's day.

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: set, turn single, circle, cast, lead (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=StDavidsDay

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1962 by Pat Shaw. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.