Young Roger - Playford
Young Roger - Playford is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2023. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Playford writes:
Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.
The first Cu. cross over, the first Man cast off below the 3d Wo. and the first Wo. cast up Then Sett, the first Man cast up above the 3d Man, and the first Wo. cast off below the 2d Wo. Then first Man turn the 2d Wo. half round, then the 2d Man; the first Wo: turn the 3d Cu. at the some Time Then first Man leads his Partner to the Top, and cast off Then the first Cu. take Hands with the 2d Cu and go half round and turn single Then Hands back again and turn single The first Man Figure thro' the 2d and 3d Wo. to the Top, and the first Wo. at the same Time Figure thro' the 2d and 3d Men below the 3d Cu. and Sett Then the first Man cast off, and his Partner cast up at the same Time, and turn in the 2d Cu's Place
I think Playford is trying to put too much movement into D1, fitting 3/4s of a figure eight into 6 counts seems a stretch to me. So I have given the figure eight 12 counts and moved the set from the end of D1 to the start of D2 and removed the final hand turn.
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 | 1s cross, go below, as 2s lead up, M1 continues below and around W3 as W1 loops M2 ending between 2s |
| A2 | 1-2 | 1s set (facing up and down) |
| 3-4 | 1s cast right into 2nd place proper | |
| B1 | 1-2 | 1s left turn 2nd corner part-way |
| 3-4 | 1s right turn 2nd corner's partner ending 2nd place proper | |
| B2 | 1-4 | 1s lead above top and cast back to places |
| C1 | 1-2 | 1s+2s circle left half |
| 3-4 | ...and turn single left | |
| C2 | 1-2 | 1s+2s circle right half |
| 3-4 | ...and turn single right | |
| D1 | 1-4 | M1 dance a figure eight between the women, around M3, outside W2 ending at top, as W1 goes between men, around M2, outside M3 ending at bottom |
| D2 | 1-2 | 1s set (facing up and down) |
| 3-4 | 1s cast left into 2nd place proper |
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=YoungRoger-Playford
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.