The 29th of May ~ Pat Shaw

The 29th of May ~ Pat Shaw The 29th of May ~ Hume The 29th of May ~ Sharp

The 29th of May ~ Pat Shaw is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1686, London. It was interpreted by Pat Shaw (mod) in about 1965 and published in Another Look at Playford. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars.

Playford writes:

First cu. take hands, the 2. cu. doing the like at the same time; then the 1. man puts back his wo. and slips dow behind the 2. wo. into the 2. cu. place, while the 2. man draws hiswo. to him and slips into the 1. cu. place. Do this back again the same way; Which is the first Strain of the Tune play'd twice over. The the 1. man change places with the 2. wo. and the 1. wo with the 2. man; then hands round and back, and when the 1. cu. are at top, they cast into the 2. cu. place. This ends the Tune.
First man and 2. wo. fall back, then lead up to each other and turn back to back, then the 1. wo. and 2. man do the like. This is the first Strain played twice. Then take all hands and go round, till the men are in the we. place, and the we. in the men's, then men and we. change places This ends the Tune.
First man and wo. cross over, and 1. man go round behind the 2. wo. and 1. wo. round behind the 2. man, and slip between them; then take hands and lead all a-breast and back again. This is the first Strain played twice. Then honour to each other's wo. then to your own, then turn each other's wo. and then you own, the 1. cu. turning into the 2. cu. place. This ends the Tune.

Pat's instructions for part 1.B do not make sense to me. He has the corners change (leaving everyone progressed but improper), then a circle left and back to the right (leaving everyone still progressed but improper) and then has the 1s cast down and 2s lead up (leaving the 1s below the 3s and improper). Playford gives two contradictory instructions for the circle: then hands round and back, and when the 1. cu. are at top, if people circle back, then the 1s will not be at the top. So I think it is best just to assume Playford's "and back" is a slip of the type, and really the circle is just half left. This also means that the timing works out much better.

Note that each part is progressive. In Playford's day each would run until everyone was back home before staring the next part.

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: hand turn (allemande), circle, cast, lead, poussette, cross go below, back to back (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=The29thOfMay

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~1965 by Pat Shaw (mod). My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.