The Kentish Cricketers
The Kentish Cricketers is an English Country Dance. It was published by David Rutherford in about 1756 in Rutherford's compleat Collection of 200 of the most celebrated Country Dances both Old and New, Vol. 1, London. It was interpreted by A. Simons in about 1990 and published in Kentish Hops. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Rutherford writes:
Hands a cross quite round with the 2d Cu. The same back again Cross over and half Figure Right hand and left quite round with the 2d Cu.
Simons has added a two hand turn in B2 because we now take 4 bars to do a star, but Rutherford allowed 8 for each.
Kitty Bridge in her notebook of 1745 has a very figure which starts out the same...
Hands across quite round with the 2d. Coupe. then back again, cross over two Coupe. Lead up to the top and Cast off one Couple, set at corners and lead out at the sides.
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: lead, figure eight, hands across, 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=TheKentishCricketers
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 © 2023 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.