Step Stately ~ Hume

Step Stately ~ Hume (3 in 7) Step Stately ~ Hume Step Stately ~ Duple, Hume (Old Style Progression) Step Stately ~ Palmer Step Stately

Step Stately ~ Hume is an English Country Dance. It was found in the Lovelace Manuscript (written somewhere around the 1640s) and later published in The English Dancing Master. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 1995 and published in Playford with a Difference. It is a proper 5 Couple Longways dance. There is no progression in this dance. It is a multipart dance. The dance lasts 352 bars. Someone thought this dance was Intermediate / Hard.

In the Lovelace Manuscript the instructions for this dance are incomplete.

This dance needs a lot more room between sets than most.

Playford (and Sharp) say this can be done for 3, 5, 7 or 9 couples. Colin Hume's interpretation is basically the same as Sharp's, though he does clean up a few matters, and he suggests only doing Part 1 once. The biggest difference is that he recommends 5 couples. With 5 couples you really get a feel for the triple minor dance, with 3 it feels like a three couple set.

Despite Playford's suggestion, I really don't see how there could possibly be time to do a seven couple version of Part 1, and the triple minor part runs into the difficulties of triple minor double progression. I think the dance only works with 3 or 5 couples.

Lovelace writes:

Leade up, and downe agayne then the man and woeman slip between each other, the man above the woeman then the first man shall leade soe round about to the bottome holding the other man by the hand and his woeman doeing the like at the same time, then they all shall leade upwards, in the shape of an halfe moone, and downe againe then the 3 woemen quitting of the 3 men shall slide upwards towards the right hand, and the men towards the left, and soe they are all in their places;

The first couple shall leade upwards, and the second downwards, the last couple standing still, and then turne about, and leade each to other, and then take hands, and goe rounde — (the dance's instructions are terminated by the bottom of the page and do not resume on the next)

Playford writes:

Lead up all a D. change places each with his own, keeping your races still to the Presence, the men slipping behind the we. and the we before the ment, face all to the wall Men hands, and we. hands, 1 man and 2. wo. lead all the rest round to the bottom facing all to the Presence The first man and wo. being in the middle, lead up all abreast a D. and back We. slip before the men to the right, and men behind the we. to the left going a compass to their places as at first

The first cu. lead up a D. change hands and lead down a D. Take hands with the 2. cu. and all four half round, 1. man and 2. wo. change places The 2 we lead up between the 2 men, then crossing over, the 1. wo. go behind the 2. man, and the 2. behind the 1. Men change over by the right hands, then giving left hands to their own we. turn the 1. cu. into the 2. place, and the 2. into the 1.

First cu. cross over, meet in the 2. place, change places The three uppermost men and the three we. hands, fall a D. back, 2. and 3. cu. change each with his own while the 1. cu. meet, then fall a D. back again three and three Now standing as in Greenwood, the 1 man between the 2 and 3. wo. and the 1. wo. between the 2. and 3. man, the 1 cu. lead up, cast off and meet below whilst the 2. and 3. we and the 2. and 3. men change places The 1. cu. being in the 3. place, arms, whilst the other four take hands and go half round to the left

The best way to think of this dance is to divide it into four chunks:

Although Playford published a tune for this dance, Cecil Sharp choose to use the tune from Jack Pudding instead. The music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software

The animation plays at 120 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, circle, cast, lead, figure eight, cast and lead, lead and cast, siding, arming, cross go below (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=StepStately-Hume

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1995 by Colin Hume. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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.