The Sword Dance, 1710 #2

Strum #2

The Sword Dance, 1710 #2 or Strum #2 is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second. It was interpreted by Pat Shaw (website) in 1968 and published in Another Look at Playford. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars.

Playford writes:

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

The first Man cast off, and the second Woman cast up, and turn Hands into their own Places The second Mand and first Woman do the same All four Hands a-cross half round and back again quickly The first Couple Figure in and cross over

Or thus: The first Couple clap Hands and cast off Then clap Hands and cast up Then change Places and Hands half round, and cast off again Then Right and Left quite round

Henry Playford published another dance with this name in 1702, with a different figure and different music.

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: circle, cast, lead, rights and lefts (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=TheSwordDance1710-2

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1968 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.