The Young Widow ~ Morrison

The Young Widow ~ Bolton The Young Widow ~ Smukler The Young Widow ~ Morrison

The Young Widow ~ Morrison is an American Country Dance. It was published by John Griffiths in 1788 in A Collection of the newest and most fashionable Country Dances and Cotillions, Norwich, CT. It was interpreted by James E. Morrison in 1976 and published in Twenty Four Early American Country Dances, Cotillions & Reels for the Year 1976. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: G major.

John Griffiths published A Collection of the newest and most fashionable Country Dances and Cotillions in Providence, RI in 1788. It is the first known such work published in the United States.

The Playford Assembly (Graham Christian) calls this an English Country Dance, but Cracking Chestnuts (David Smukler) calls it an early Contra Dance; showing how uncertain the boundary between the two styles is. I call it an American Country Dance, as something between the two (but it really could pass as an English dance)

Griffiths writes:
Cross Hands --- back again -- lead down the Middle, then turn your Partner up again, and cast off -- the Gent. casts off one Co. to the Ladies side and the Lady to the Gent. Side -- ballance all six -- set and go all round -- second and third Co. balance in the Middle, opposite to each other -- then Half right and left in the Middle.

Saltator writes:

First couple down the out side, back, down the middle, promenade round, the gentlemen fall in between the second couple and the lady between the third, balance six side-ways, first couple promenande round, fall below the second couple, right and left.

Graham attributes this to Charles Hendrickson in 1989 based on James Morrison's work of 1976. But I don't see how this figure differs from Morrison's original.

The tune was published by Griffiths with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album At The Ball. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

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.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, circle, cast, lead, hands across, rights and lefts (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=YoungWidow

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1976 by James E. Morrison. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2019 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.