Touch and Take
Touch and Take is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1652 in The Dancing Master, 2nd ed.. It was interpreted by Cecil Sharp (website) in 1912 and published in The Country Dance Book (Part 3). It is an improper duple minor longways dance. It is a multipart dance. The minor set lasts 72 bars.
Playford writes:
Lead up all forwards and back, set and turn S. That again First Cu. crosse over, and go each behind the 2. tutch them, set and turn single to them ·:
Lead them a D. downwards, back again, set and turn single Then set the 2. Cu. face to face as they were before, and tutch each the third, set and turn S. to them Then lead them down forwards and back, set and turn S. ·:
Then set them face to face, and tutch the next, do thus to the last, the rest follow and do the like.
This is one of the eariest improper duple minor dances. Unlike most modern (English and Contra) dances the crossing over is built in to the dance and happens on the first minor set (and when someone comes in at top). A Soldier's Life is similar.
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.
| Up a double | |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| Part 2 repeats 4 times | |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
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=TouchAndTake
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation 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 © 2021-2025 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.