Wakefield Hunt

Wakefield Hunt is an English Country Dance. It was published by Thompson in 1779, London. It was interpreted by Tom Cook in 1987. Found in The Playford Assembly. Mentioned in the article A Trip to Netherfield. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. It is a triple progression dance. Originally this was a single progression dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars. Someone thought this dance was Intermediate / Hard.

Wakefield Hunt is a triple progression triple minor dance. For those of us used to single progression this has the rather odd effect that no one is ever out at the top. At the bottom the same number of people will be out each time through the dance. Normally when looking at a triple progression dance you will see all the end effects as you cycle through the minor set 3 times, but here the end effects depend on the initial number of dancers. So I have created 3 different animations to show the end effects.

When one couple is out at the bottom it must be prepared to play the role of 2s and lead up one place at the end of the minor set.

When two couples are at the bottom they must dance with a ghost third couple except that the 1s do not do the last two calls (the rights and lefts and the change). Instead they will become 2s in the next minor set.

Thompson writes:
The First Gent: cast off & turn the 3d. Lady first Lady cast off and turn the 3d. Gent: Hands 6 quote round Lead thrõ the bottom and cast up lead thrõ the top and cast off Hands 4 across at bottom quite round Right and Left at top · ··

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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, circle, cast, lead, hands across, 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=WakefieldHunt

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1987 by Tom Cook. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 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.