The Bleu Ribbon ~ Williams

The Bleu Ribbon ~ Williams The Bleu Ribbon ~ RSCDS

The Bleu Ribbon ~ Williams is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Castle Menzies in 1749 and published in The Register of Dances at Castle Menzies, Scotland. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2024. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Quoted from The Register of Dances at Castle Menzies (as transcribed by Jim Healy):

1st man goes figure eight round the 2d man & the 3d woman the 1st woman does the same round the 2d woman & 3d man then the 1st pair leads forward to the 2d pair then leads up & casts off, then does the same below and casts up; then the 1st woman goes round the 2d man & turns her partner, who was doing the same round the 3rd woman then she goes round the 2d woman then the 1st pair leads out att the sides

Do the figure eights happen at the same time? If they do, then the dance takes a normal 32 bars. But the text doesn't say so, and the register often adds "at the same time". On the other hand it doesn't use the conjunction "then" as it often does. Finally, I just think it's more interesting for both to go at once. So I'll do that.

Then the there is the fact that the description mentions the 2s first and the 3s second for the figure eights. But if you start the figure eight looping the 2s you're stuck, you can't easily come back and loop the opposite 3. So here I'm going to follow the RSCDS and assume the figure eights should go round the 3s first and then the 2s.

After the 1s do their figure eights, they lead down toward the 2s, turn, lead up and cast down. Then they lead down toward the 3s, turn, lead up and cast up. This leaves them back at the top.

But the next section, where W1 goes arund M2 and M1 around W3 seems to expect the 1s to be in the middle. So I'm going to change that cast up to a cast back to 2nd place.

Is it possible that the progression happens in the figure eights? But then the 1s would not be "leading up" after going forward to the 2s.

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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.

1-81s full figure eight with the first part down around the 3s, then crossing up around the 2s
9-121s lead down to the 2s, turn, lead up and cast down as 2s move up
13-161s lead down to the 3s, turn, lead up and cast back to 2nd place
17-241s loop 1st corners, cross with partner by right hand, loop 4th corners, ending in the middle facing out the women's line
25-281s lead out through the women, loop around them, come back to the middle and face out the men's line
29-321s lead out through the men, loop around them, ending in places

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=TheBleuRibbon-Williams

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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
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.