The 29th of May ~ Hume
The Twenty-Nineth of May ~ Hume
The 29th of May ~ Hume or The Twenty-Nineth of May ~ Hume is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1686 in The Dancing Master, 7th ed., London. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 1995 and published in Playford with a Difference. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 144 bars. Someone thought this dance was Intermediate.
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 down behind the 2. wo. into the 2. cu. place , while the 2. man draws his wo. 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. Then 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, thill 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 2. wo. and 1. wo. round behind the 2. man, and slip between them; then take hands, and lead up all a-breast and back again. This to the First Strain played twice. Then honour to each other's wo. then to your own, then turn each other's wo. and then your own, the 1. cu. turning into the 2. cu. place. This ends the Tune.
This dance has three figures. In Playford's day each figure would run until the 1s had returned to the top. The modern way of dancing it is to cycle through the figures. Colin Hume recommends dancing each figure several times to get the flow of each one before moving to the next.
All of Colin's interpretations contain explanations of why he made the choices he did, these may be found either in his book, or on his website. I encourage you to examine his reasoning.
The tune was published by Playford for the dance, The Twenty-Ninth of May. It was synthesized by Colin Hume
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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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=TheTwenty-NinthOfMay-Hume
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1995 by Colin Hume. 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
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.