Tunbridge Beauties ~ Beer

Tunbridge Beauties ~ Beer Tunbridge Beauties ~ Simons

Tunbridge Beauties ~ Beer is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, London. It was interpreted by Jenny Beer, Joanna Reiner (website) in about 2018. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: G minor.

Playford writes:

The first Man Setts to his own, then crosses over with the 2d Woman, then the first Man and 2d Woman Sett, and cross over and change Places; then the first and second Men take Hands and lead between the first and second Women, and come into their Places again, then all Four clap and take Hands, and go half round into their own Places again, the the first and second Woman tank Hands and lead between the first and second Men into their own Places again; then all Four Clap and take Hands, and go half round into their own Places again, the rest doing the same.

The music consists of two 8 bar strains, repeated.

The first problem I have with this description is and come into their Places again, then all Four clap and take Hands, and go half round into their own Places again. Doing a half circle starting from places will not end in places.

The next problem is that the figures described take up 20 bars of music and we've got 32 to fill up.

The final problem is that there is no indication of how the dancers become proper.

Walsh also has a version of this dance in his Compleat Country Dancing-Master but as he copies Playford word for word this is not helpful.

This version of the dance was performed at Hey Days 2018 and attributes the dance to Jenny Beer, interpreted by Joanna Reiner.

The tune was published with the dance by Playford (John Young), It was performed by the Odd Sundays Garage Band (Judy Linsenberg, Shira Kammen and Patti Cobb). The music is used with permission from the Odd Sundays Garage Band.

The animation plays at 106 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), set, turn single, circle, mad robin (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=TunbridgeBeauties-Beer

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2018 by Jenny Beer. 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
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.