The Last New Vagaries

The Last New Vagaries is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1701 in The Dancing Master, 11th ed., London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 2000 and published in Retreads Vol.8. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 312. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: A Major.

Playford writes:
The 1. Man cast off and goes to the 3. Wo. and Kiss her, and return to his Place The 3. Man cast up and goes to the 1. Wo. and Kiss her, and cast off to his own Place The 1. cu. lead down the middle, and fall in between the 2d and 3d cu. and lead them to the Wall Then cast up and cross over and meet, and sett in the 2. cu. Place and turn

This dance involves kissing, something that was more common among acquaintences in Playford's day than in ours. Bolton suggests the men kiss the women's hands (right for M1, left for M3). Best to come to some agreement among yourselves as to what intensity of kiss is acceptable.

Originally a triple minor.

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 dances of Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

A11-8M1 casts down, M2 moves up, M1+W3 kiss, right hand turn and casts back (M2 moving down again)
A21-8M3 casts up, M2 moves down, M3+W1 kiss, left hand turn and casts back (M2 moving up again)
B11-21s lead between 2nd+3rd places, separate and form lines of three on the sides
3-6Lead out, turn lead back (no hands)
7-8And two hand turn partner half
B21-4Bottom couple, followed by others, cast up to invert the set
5-6Partner set
7-8Partner two hand turn half

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=TheLastNewVagaries

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2000 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.