Treat 'Em All Right ~ The Running Set is an Appalachian Circle Dance. It was published by Cecil Sharp & Maud Karpeles in 1918 in The Country Dance Book (Part 5). It is a Square dance. It is a multipart dance. The minor set lasts 308 bars.
The Kentucky Running Set is the name Sharp gave to a style of dancing he found in the Southern Appalachians when he visited in 1917. The locals called the dances square dances even though they were often danced in large circles. Sharp, however, describes squares, and this is an attempt to follow his description.
I have, however, changed the calls into modern terms because I find the old terms confusing. "Swing corners" seems to mean "allemande left" rather than what "swing" means to me.
This style of dance begins with a common introduction:
Then starts the first figure: the first couple moves right to the 2nd couple and does some figure with them. Then they move on to the next couple (3s) and do the same figure. Then on to the last couple and do the same figure. Then they do a do-si with that couple and promenade home.
At this point they would do the introduction again, and the 1st couple would start with a new figure, and so forth.
For this figure, Sharp writes:
The first man turns his partner once round with the left hand, and then turns the second woman in like manner.
The first man turns his partner with the left hand, and then turns the third woman in like manner.
The first man turns his partner with the left hand, and then turns the fourth woman in like manner.
The first man turns his partner with the left hand, then fourth woman with the left hand, third woman with the right hand, second woman with the left hand, and finally, partner with the right hand.
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.
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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.
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https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=TreatEmAllRight-RunningSet
The dance is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 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.