The Amazed Geneticist

Ramsay's Reeling

The Amazed Geneticist or Ramsay's Reeling is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Pat Shaw (website) in 1976 and published in Pat Shaw's Pinewoods. It is a 4 Couple Longways dance with the 3s, 4s improper. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 3142. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

The second double figure eight needs explanation. I shall describe the motions of the 1s and 2s rather than ends and middles because the wording is easier, but when I say 1s, I also mean 4s, just rotated 180.

First, everyone stays on his/her own sides. No one crosses to the other line.

The 1s start at the top, a little inside their home places. They move down to 2nd place (still inside), then between 2nd and 3rd places they move to the outside of the set (W1 ahead of M4, W4 ahead of M1, of course), and continue down the outside to the 4th couple's place. They loop around this position, ending inside the set facing up. They move up to 3rd place, and again go to the outside of the set as they move up to 2nd place. And finally curve into their own place.

Meanwhile, the 2s (and 3s) will have finished the first figure eight at home but facing out. They cast out and up, and loop around the 1st couple's place, finishing inside the set, facing down. Then they follow the track of the 1s before them, ending when the get home.

The start of B1 continues the track of this figure eight a little further, with the 1s (and 4s) looping down the the middle, and the 2s (and 3s) casting out and up to the 1st couple's place.

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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: set, circle, cast, figure eight, double figure eight, siding (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=TheAmazedGeneticist

< Prev Top Next >

The dance is copyright © 1976 by Pat Shaw. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 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.