The Highwayman

The Highwayman is an English Country Dance. It was published by London Magazine in 1750 in London Magazine, 1750. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 2024 and published in Colin Hume's Website. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 38 bars.

The London Magazine writes:

The man casts off, his partner follows him; she back again, and her partner follows her; the woman back to back with the second man, whilst her partner does the same, with the second woman; the first couple back to back, then all four hands round, and right and left half way.

The music is marked 3/8 and has two 6 bar strains and one 8 bar strain and is marked DC. In his Introduction, Thomas Wilson defines Da Capo which signifies, after the Parts that compose the tune are played through, the first is played again. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to fit the figure, so provisionally, I'm ignoring the Da Capo.

Rutherford published the same figure and music in ~1756.

The 1s casting down and back should leave them in the same place they started. But the neighbor back to backs suggest one couple should be improper... But improper duple minors had died out by 1750. Or perhaps both corners go at once in a tightly controlled muddle in the middle. I think it'll work.

If the circle four goes all the way round, the the half rights and lefts will leave people progressed but improper. If the circle four goes halfway round then the half rights and lefts leaves people unprogressed but proper.

One solution is to guess that the dancing master/typesetter left out the final figure of the dance which will make use of the Da Capo strain. A half-poussette would work nicely (the term poussette was probably not in use until 1779, but the movement was nicely described by the Neals in 1726).

However, Colin Hume pointed out that a much simpler change is to make the rights and lefts be three quarters instead of half, and that solves the progression problem. And that can take up the 6 bars of A3. Leaving us with 8 bars for all four hands round which is a lot a single circle. People could circle twice, but more common is to have a circle left followed by a circle right...

The tune was published in the London Magazine with the dance, The Highwayman, in 1750, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume.

The animation plays at 113 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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: set, circle, cast, lead, rights and lefts, 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=TheHighwayman

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by Colin Hume. 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
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.