The Country Coll

Sir Nicholas Cully

The Country Coll or Sir Nicholas Cully is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1651 in The English Dancing Master, London. It was interpreted by Scott Pfitzinger (website) in about 2019. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. It is a USA dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:
Lead up all a D. forward and back That again Set and turn S. That again

First four meet your own, change places with them First man change with 2. wo. 1.wo. change with the 2.man As before Do this Change to all. Set and turn S. That again

Sides all That again Set and turn S. That again

First cu. fall into the 2. place change places with your own Then turn each the 2. change with your own again As before Do this to the last.

Arms all That again Set and turn S. That again

First four go back from your own, meet again, take both hands First man put his wo. back, the other going co. all into each others places As before Do this to the last.

I have organized this dance differently than Playford did. The dance consists of the standard three introductions (up a double, siding, and arming) each followed by set and turn single, and then a progressive sequence. In Playford's day the introduction would be done once and then the progressive sequence would run until everyone was back where s/he started, then the next introduction and the next sequence. I treat the introduction and subsequent progressive figure as a unit, and I cycle through the three parts instead of letting each part run to completion.

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 transcriptions and interpretations of Playford dances found on http://playforddances.com/ from the various editions of The Dancing Master are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

I.A11-4Up a Double, back
I.A21-4Up a Double, back (repeat)
II.A11-4Right Siding
II.A21-4Left Siding
III.A11-4Right Arming
III.A21-4Left Arming
B11-4Partner set and turn single
B21-4Again: Set and turn single
I.A31-2Meet partner and fall back
3-4Partner change
I.A41-4M1+W2 change, W1+M2 change
II.A31-21s slip down between the 2s who slip up outside
3-41s partner change
II.A41-2Neighbor two hand turn (quickly)
3-41s partner change
III.A31-4Fall back a double and come forward, take partner with both hands
III.A41-4Half poussette, 1st corners push
B31-4Partner set and turn single
B41-4Set and turn single

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=TheCountryColl

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2019 by Scott Pfitzinger. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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
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.