The Hop Picker's Feast
The Shepherd and Shepherdess ~ Simons
The Hop Picker's Feast or The Shepherd and Shepherdess ~ Simons is an English Country Dance. It was published by Thompson in 1786 in Twenty-Four Country Dances for the Year 1786, London. It was interpreted by A. Simons in about 1990 and published in Kentish Hops. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 48 bars.
Thompson writes:
The 1st. set to the 2d. Lady and hands 3 round The same to the 2d. Gentn. Cross over two Cu. lead up to the top and cast off Hands 4 round at bottom Right and Left
Colin Hume points out that this has the same figure (but different music) as The Shepherd and Shepherdess found in Johnson's "Two Hundred Favourite Country Dances, Vol. 8" and interpreted by himself and Bernie Culkin on Colin's website.
The interpretatations are almost the same, Simons has the 2s wait to lead up until 1s cast down, while Hume/Culkin have them move up in the first "cross go below". Simons also throws in a turn single (a move which basically had disappeared around 1780)
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 dance contains the following figures: set, turn single, circle, cast, lead, rights and lefts, cross go below (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=TheHopPickersFeast
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~1990 by A. Simons. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.