A fun dance that is good fun for experienced dancers and reasonably accessible to newer dancers too!
| Part 1 | |
|---|---|
| A (8) | Lead up a double and back twice |
| B (8) | In lines of 3, all face left (men up, women down): lead a double forward and back individually* (4) As they fall back, person at the front of each line (1M, 3W) cast over their left shoulder to start a hey for 3 on the sides (4) |
| C (8) | Set and turn single left (4) Set and turn single right (4) |
| Part 2 | |
| A (8) | Side right and left |
| B (8) | Hold hands in lines of 3: fall back a double, then let go and pass right shoulders into partner's place (4) Repeat home (4) |
| C (8) | Set and turn single left and right |
| Part 3 | |
| A (8) | Arm right and left |
| B (8) | In 4s at the top, 1st corners (1M, 2W) change places, passing right shoulders (2) In same 4s, 2nd corners (1W, 2M) change places while the bottom couple (3C) change places (2) In 4s at the bottom, 2nd corners† (1M, 3W) change places (2) In same 4s, 1st corners (1W, 3M) change places while the top couple (2C) change places (2) |
| C (8) | Set and turn single left and right |
Repeat the whole dance twice more to get back home
* This is tight – you can leave out the lead left a double and back, and the person on the left casts straight into the hey
† 1C are going in the same order both times – useful if calling gender-free
T:Maiden Lane
M:4/4
L:1/8
S:Playford, Dancing Master,1st Ed.,1651.
Z:Chris Partington <www.cpartington.plus>
K:G
"G"d3 c BA G2|g2 f2 g2 d2|g2 f2 "C"g2 dc|"D"B2 A2 "G"G4:|
|:"Am"ABcd e2 A2|c2 B2 A2 e2|e2 e2 e2 dc|"Em"BABc "Am"A4:|
|:"G"d2 Bc d2 Bc|dcBA B2 G2|d2 Bc "C"dedc|"D"B2 A2 "G"G4:|
Most of this is straightforward, with the exception of the middle phrase of the first part:
All a D. to the left hand, back againe · The single Hey on each side :
The first question is: which direction is the “left hand”? There are two real options here: the man's wall (“left”) as you face up, or left in individual lines (men up, women down). I'm not sure there's a hard and fast rule here but I do the latter, as I do in Stingo, which feels better, especially given the hey that follows it. See Playford interpretation guidelines, “The left/right hand”, where I discuss this more.
The second question is: how on earth do you fit a 3-person hey into 4 bars of music? Here's where casting into heys really helps. If the person in the lead (1M, 3W) casts into their hey, starting as they fall back (so potentially stealing a little bit of music), it's very possible to do it, and really quite pleasing. You have to dance it rather than walk it, but not all of these dances were designed to be walked! When I started doing Playford at the Round, we tended to dance the heys in The Black Nag twice through in 8 bars because it seemed like such a lot of music!
I find that doing the heys in this way really flows well into the set and turn single left and right that follows. See if you agree with me.
I always offer the option for people to ignore the lead a double to the left and back, and go straight into the hey. Even so I find it's satisfying to start with the people at the left-hand end of the lines starting casting into the hey, because of the set and turn single afterwards.
A final note − this is a dance which finishes with the first couple at the bottom. Obviously we're going to do it again from these places, but it doesn't actually say so. I think it's dances like this which suggest that it's worth making others progressive too. See progressions.