Westmoreland

Westmoreland is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1686 in The Dancing Master, 7th ed., London. It was interpreted by Bernard Bentley in 1965 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 2. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:
First man and 2. wo. take right hands and turn half round, while the 2. wo. pass round, the 1. wo. into her place the 1. man also go round the 2. man and pass into his place, then 1. man and 2. wo. take left-hands and turn half round into their own places again, and the 2. man and 1. wo. do the like. This to the first Strain played twice.
The 1. man cast off on the out-side of the man, and come up round the 1. wo. into the 2. wo. place, while the 2. wo. casts up and goes above the 1. wo. and below the 2. man into the 1. man's place, then the 2. we. change sides, and the two men also change sides at the same time, then the 1. wo. and 2. man do the same as the other did. This to the second Strain played twice.

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: hand turn (allemande), 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=Westmoreland

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1965 by Bernard Bentley. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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.