Virginia Reel - Francis

Virginia Reel - Francis is an American Country Dance. It was devised by William Francis in 1801 and published in Mr. Francis's Ballroom Assistant. It was interpreted by James E. Morrison in 1976 and published in Twenty Four Early American Country Dances, Cotillions & Reels for the Year 1976. It is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 12 bars.

Francis writes:

Hey contrary sides then of your own sides lead down the middle up again and cast off

According to James Morrison, judging by quotes from the time of the revolution, "Virgina Reels" were a type of dance (distinguished from "Scotch Reels") rather than one specific dance. So this should be viewed as one of many similar dances rather than the definative "Virginia Reel" of its time.

Clearly it has nothing in common with the version based on Sir Roger de Coverly.

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: cast, lead, hey, mirror hey (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=VirginiaReel-Francis

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1976 by James E. Morrison. 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.