Walbrook

Walbrook is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in about 1726 in The Dancing Master, The Third Volume, 2nd ed., London. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 2022 and published in Colin Hume's Website. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars.

John Young writes:

Note: The first Strain is to be play'd twice, and the last but once.

The first Couple cast off, at the same time the second Couple turn Hands up the middle, the second Couple cast off, the first Couple turn Hands up the middle Then lead to the wall and back again, all four cross over and turn Single (Then the Men on the Womens side) the first Man change with the second Woman, then the second Man change with the first Woman, and the first Couple lead through the second couple and cast off

Colin points out that, for once, John Young is clear and his instructions don't really need "interpretation".

The tune was published by Playford with the dance, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume.

The animation plays at 113 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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: turn single, cast, lead, lead and cast (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=Walbrook

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2022 by Colin Hume. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.