The Sicilian Circle

The Circassian Circle ~ Sicilian

Circassian Circle ~ Burchenal Circassian Circle ~ La Daphne (Chivers) Circassian Circle ~ Wilson The Sicilian Circle Circassian Circle ~ Lowes Circassian Circle ~ RSCDS

The Sicilian Circle or The Circassian Circle ~ Sicilian is an English Country Dance. It was published by Thomas Hillgrove in 1857 in The Scholar's Companion and Ball-Room Vade-Mecum, New York. It is an improper duple minor longways dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

In the US, the term "Sicilian Circle" has come to mean a way of dancing a minor set dance in a circle instead of longways. Originally this concept was called "Circassian Circle" instead, and the "Sicilian Circle" was merely a figure danced in that fashion. It appears to have taken its figures from The Plain Quadrille, but executes them in a duple minor format and adds progression. See The Libary of Dance for more info. The dance was popular and evolved over the years. This is merely one version.

The turn at the end of the right and left through is different from the modern courtesy turn. "the entlemen then present their left hand to the left hand of their partners, and turn them half round, and then turn themselves, so that each couple may face the opposite couple."

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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

A11-8Right and left through, over and back
A21-4Advance to partner and retire
5-8Partner two hand turn
B11-8Ladies chain, over and back
B21-8Promenade once and a half around the minor set to face a new couple

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=TheSicilianCircle

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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.