The British Toper

The British Hero

The British Toper or The British Hero is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1718 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Pat Shaw (website) in about 1965 and published in Another Look at Playford. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

A "toper" is someone who drinks too much.

Playford writes:

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

The first Couple go the whole Figure through the third Couple The second Couple do the Same The first Couple Figure contrary Sides, meet in the Middle, and turn Partners quite round Lead to the Wall, Sides, the first Couple slip the second Couple below them, Sett two Steps and cast off

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: hand turn (allemande), set, cast, lead, 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=TheBritishToper

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~1965 by Pat Shaw. 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.