The Ton
The Ton is an English Country Dance. It was published by Thompson in 1778 in Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1778. It was interpreted by Ken Sheffield (website) in 1983 and published in From Two Barns, Vol 2. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Sheffield found this dance in Thompson's Compleat Collection, Vol. 4 from 1780, but it first appears two years earlier in one of the Thompson annuals.
Thompson writes:
The 1st. Gent: lead the 2d. round the 1st. & 2d Ladies then turn both hands with their Partners Ladies do the same hands across 4 and back again lead thro' the 3d. Cu: and cast up lead thro' the 2d. Cu: and cast off
The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance is 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 Ken Sheffield (including 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.
| A1 | 1-4 | M1 lead M2 around women |
| 5-8 | Partner two hand turn | |
| A2 | 1-4 | W2 lead W1 around men |
| 5-8 | Partner two hand turn | |
| B1 | 1-4 | Right hands across... |
| 5-8 | ...and left hands back | |
| B2 | 1-8 | 1s lead through 2s and next 2s, cast around them, lead up to place and cast down as 2s lead up |
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.
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1983 by Ken Sheffield. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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 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.