Three Coney Walk ~ Bentley or Number Three ~ Bentley is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1726 in The Dancing Master, The Third Volume, 2nd ed.. It was interpreted by Bernard Bentley in 1965 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 2. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars.
Playford writes:
Note: The first Strain twice and the last but once, then each strain once over again; then the first once again: Then the same all over again.The first Man cast off, and turn the third Woman, and cast up into his own place again The first Woman cast off and turn the third Man And fall in the middle of the third Couple: And the first Man between the second Couple: Then take Hands and meet all six abreast and the first Man turns his Partner Then the first Man turns the third Woman with his Right-hand, and the Wo. turns the second Man at the same time; and then turn her Partner Then the first Man and Woman turn the other two, and turn his Partner, the first Couple cast up a top Right-hands and Left half round into the second Couples place.
Bentley calls the dance "The Coney Walk", this page of Playford is hard to read, but I'm pretty sure it is "Three" not "The".
It seems a little odd that in A2 the 1s do a two hand turn in 2 bars, but in B1 they do three quarters of a turn in 4 bars. Maybe a turn single would be better?
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), cast, lead, rights and lefts (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=ThreeConeyWalk-Bentley
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1965 by Bernard Bentley. 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
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.