We Will Down With the French is an English Country Dance. It was published by Thompson in 1780 in Twenty four Country Dances for the Year 1780, London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1997 and published in Retreads Vol.7. Originally proper this version is a 3 Couple Longways dance with the 2s improper. In this dance the men are permuted by: 231 and the women by: 312. It is a mixer. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
The first & 2d. Cu. Sett change sides & back again Lead down two Cu. up again and cast off Allemande with your right hand then with your Left Hands Six quite round
Originally a proper triple minor.
Bolton says this comes from Thompson, 1774, but it is not in Thompson's "Twenty Four Country Dances for the year 1774" but is found in the 1780 booklet
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 dances of Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
A1 | 1-4 | On the right diagonal: set, change |
5-8 | On the left diagonal: set (left/right), change by left, this is your new partner | |
A2 | 1-8 | New top couple lead down separate between 2s+3s, go outside, meet at bottom, lead up, separate and meet at top while the others face neighbor four changes of rights and lefts |
B1 | 1-4 | Partner right turn half, turn single left |
5-8 | Left turn half, turn single right | |
B2 | 1-6 | Circle six left |
7-8 | Turn single right |
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=WeWillDownWithTheFrench
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1997 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.