The Constant Lover ~ Bolton
The Constant Lover ~ Bolton is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1992 and published in Retreads Vol.6. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Note: Each Strain is to be Play'd twice over.
The first Man and second Woman go the whole Figure thro' the first Woman and second Man Then first and 2d Men cross over with their Partners, and change Sides, and change Places with your Partners Then first Man falls betwen the third Cu. and the first Woman falls between the second Cu. then each take Hands and go quite round Then the first Man go up the middle to his Partner, then lead up a-breast with the second Cu. and cast off :
Playford published two dances with this name. This one was originally a triple minor.
Unless care is taken this dance (or this interpretation) will drift up the hall. I dealt with it in the animation by having the back a double go a lot further than the up a double.
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 Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| A1 | 1-8 | 2s stand, W1&M3, followed by partners, full figure eight around 2s, leaders passing right shoulders in the middle, counter-clockwise around same sex 2, left shoulder in the middle, clockwise around opposite sex 2 and so home |
| A2 | 1-6 | 1s+2s face partners, three changes of a circular hey 1s end facing out |
| 7-8 | 1s cast left (man down woman up) to finish between end couples in lines of three across | |
| B1 | 1-6 | Circle six right |
| 7-8 | All face up, M1 move up so W1 is on his right into a line of four, while 3s meet and join hands | |
| B2 | 1-4 | Up a double and back |
| 5-8 | 1s lead up and cast to bottom, as 2s meet and 2s+3s lead up |
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=TheConstantLover
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1992 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
This website is copyright © 2021,2022,2023,2024 by George W. Williams V
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.