The Haymakers
The Haymakers is an English Country Dance. It was published by John & William Neal in 1726 in A Choice Collection of Country Dances. It was interpreted by Rich Jackson & George Fogg, Andres in 1990. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars. It is in the key: A minor.
The Neals write:
1st. ma: cast off into 2d. ma: place & 2d. wo: at ye same time casts up into 1st. wo: place. turn left hands into their own places:
2d. ma: cast up into 1st. ma: place & 1st. wo: at ye same time cast down into 2d. wo: place & turn right hands into their own places:
All 4 fall back dance & 1st. cu: turn both hands down & fall into 2d. cu: place, ye 2d. cu: at the same time cast up into the 1st. cu: place:
All 4 right hands across half round stopping improper, then right & left:
The original tune consisted of two 8 bar strains. According to Bare Necesseties, the musician Laurie Andres started using Highland Lilt instead which has two 4 bar strains played at 4 counts per bar.
The tune, called Highland Lilt, appeared in Neal's A Choice Collection of Country Dances with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album By Choice. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.
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 (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), set, turn single, cast, hands across, rights and lefts (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=TheHaymakers
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1990 by Rich Jackson & George Fogg. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 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.