What a Beau Your Granny Was
What a Beau Your Granny Was is an English Country Dance. It was published by Longman & Broderip in 1790 in Longman and Broderip's Selection of...Country Dances, Reels &c., London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2023. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars.
I can't find Longman & Broderip, but in ~1800, in Dale's Selection of the Most Favorite Country Dances and Reels (dance 17), Joseph Dale gave the same figure and writes:
The three Ladies lead round the three Gent: at the same time the three Gent: set and hands three round.
The three Gentlemen lead round the three Ladies, at the same time the Ladies set and hands three round.
The first Cu: Poussette with the second Cu: into 2d. Cus. place and turn there Partrs. half round with both hands.
Right and Left at top.
The music consists of 2 four bar strains in cut time, both repeated. I presume they are to be played at 4 counts per bar as AABB, but I suppose it could be AAAABBBB at two counts per bar.
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 George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1 | 1-4 | M1 followed by other men dance around ladies who set twice and circle three left |
| A2 | 1-4 | L1 followed by other ladies dance around men who set twice and circle three left |
| B1 | 1-2 | 1s+2s half poussette, M1+W2 push |
| 3-4 | 1s+2s partner two hand turn once and a half to improper | |
| B2 | 1-4 | 1s+2s face neighbor, three changes of rights and lefts |
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=WhatABeauYourGrannyWas
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2023 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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
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.