The Duchess of Atholl's Slipper ~ RSCDS
The Duchess of Atholl's Slipper ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by Longman & Broderip in 1790 in Longman and Broderip's Fourth Selection of...Country Dances, Reels &c., London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1934 and published in RSCDS Book 9. It is S8×32 2C/4C, a proper Duple Minor dance. St32.
RSCDS Book 9 says "collected in the Border Country."
Longman & Boroderip first published a dance called "The Duchess's Slipper" in 1790, and republished it in 1796 (with the same figure) in Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1796.
The 1st. Lady hay with her partner and the 2d. Gent: The 1st. Gent: hay with his partner and the 2d. Lady Lead down two Cou: up again one Cou: Allemande
The music consists of a four bar strain and an eight bar strain, both repeated.
As always, note the lead down and back is progress in the original, while the allemande is not.
The instructions say the 1s should lead down, but dancing down with nearer hands joined flows more easily from the two hand turn, and that's what the videos I've watched show, so that's what I'm doing here.
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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, cast, hey, allemande round (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=TheDuchessOfAthollsSlipper-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1934 by RSCDS. 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
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.