The Cookow
The Cuckow
The Cuckoo
The Cookow or The Cuckow is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1703 in The Dancing Master, 12th ed.. It was interpreted by Andrew Shaw in 2009 and published in Farnicle Huggy. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
The first Man goes back to back with the second Woman; then turn Right-hands with her; the first Woman and the second Man do the same. The first Couple take both Hands and go half round, and back again; the cross over and half Figure; then all four quite round. The first Strain twice and the second once, and Repeat.
The "Repeat" mentioned in the italics does not mean to repeat the entire B strain, but only the last 4 bars (which are marked [dal segno]).
The tune was published with the dance, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume.
The animation plays at 111 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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), circle, lead, figure eight, cross go below, back to back (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=TheCookow
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2009 by Andrew 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 © 2021-2025 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.