A Soldier's Life

A Soldier's Life is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1651 in The English Dancing Master, London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2022. It is an improper duple minor longways dance. It is a multipart dance. The minor set lasts 216 bars. It is in the key: D Major.

Playford writes

Lead up all a D. forward and back, set and turn S. That again First man set to his own wo. then set to the 2. man, turn the 2. wo. ·: Set to the 2. wo. then to the 3. man, turn the 3. wo. Set to the 3. wo. then to the 4. man, turn the 4. wo. Do thus to the last, your wo. following you in the same manner. Every cu. do thus.
First man lead down his wo. a D. then give his right hand to the 2 wo. while his wo. does the like to the 2. man, turn them, and turn your own with your left hand; the same forward till you come to the bottom.
First man go about the 2. wo. while his wo. do the like to the 2. man; they meet, and go about one another and turn taking hands. The same again till they come to the bottom.

First I'm going to assume that the "up a double" sequence is introductory and not part of the following progressive part. After all, all the other progressive sequences are 8 bars.

After the "up a double" sequence, the first part confuses me, in several ways.

your wo. following you in the same mannor Are the men and women supposed to do the same thing at the same time, or does the man do it, and then the woman? I think it should be at the same time because the progression becomes simpler if that is so.

Note that when the top couple starts the instructions are different than they are on the subsequent times through the minor set. And the instructions for the second and subsequent times make more sense if the active couple is improper. So I'm guessing that somewhere in the first minor set the active couple becomes improper. If the active couple changes sides after setting to the 2s, and then turns them half-way then everything falls into place. The 1s are now improper, and we've got 8 bars of movement.

However that leaves subsequent iterations at only 6 bars of movement. So I have thrown in a set to partner after the set to the 2. wo.

In other words, this sequence demands an old-style progression, and, when a couple reaches the top it does one set of figures, and after that the other set. Then when it reaches the bottom it crosses over.


In the second progressive part how are the 1s supposed to give their contraries hands? Again everything would be a lot easier if they had crossed over (either before or after leading down, crossing before probably feels better), then the partner left hand turn will be only left hand half-way to get everyone proper again.

This sequence does not have special instructions for the top, so presumably the actives will end each minor set proper.


First man go about the 2. wo. while his wo. do the like to the 2. man That sounds remarkably like a half figure 8.

Then the 1s will two hand turn to proper, as they spiral down to 2nd place and the 2s will move up somehow. Might as well do a long cast.

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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

Up a double
 
Intr.A11-4Up a Double, and back
5-8Partner set and turn single
Intr.A21-4That again: Up a Double, and back
5-8Set and turn single
Figure 1 repeats 9 times
 
I.A1-2Top couple set
3-4Top set to neighbor
5-6Top partner change
I.A1-21s set to previous neighbor
3-41s set to partner
5-61s set to same sex neighbor
7-8Neighbor two hand turn half
Last 1
 
I.A1-21s set to previous neighbor
3-41s set to partner
5-61s set to same sex neighbor
Mixed 12-1
 
II.A1-31s cross and lead down
4-6Neighbor right hand turn
7-81s left turn half
Mixed 12-2
 
II.A1-31s cross and lead down
4-6Neighbor right hand turn
7-81s left turn half
Figure 2 repeats 8 times
 
II.A1-31s cross and lead down
4-6Neighbor right hand turn
7-81s left turn half
Mixed 32-1
 
III.A1-41s half figure eight down between the 2s
5-81s two hand spiral down once and a half as 2s long cast up
Mixed 32-2
 
III.A1-41s half figure eight down between the 2s
5-81s two hand spiral down once and a half as 2s long cast up
Figure 3 repeats 10 times
 
III.A1-41s half figure eight down between the 2s
5-81s two hand spiral down once and a half as 2s long cast up

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=ASoldiersLife

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2022 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.