Bar-a-Bar
Barr a Barr
Bar-a-Bar or Barr a Barr 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 Fried de Metz Herman (website) in 1986 and published in The Naked Truth. Found in The Playford Assembly. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 18 bars. It is in the key: D minor.
Note: The first Strain is to be play'd twice, and the last but once, and Repeat.All four meet and turn single, then Hands quite round Then lead to the wall and back again, then back to back with your Partners The first man change places with the second woman, and the second man with the first woman; then the two women lead through the two men; the second couple being In the first couples place Improper, each couple take hands and meet, then fall back again, the second couple turn single off into their own places, the first couple turn single at the same time, up into their own places; the first man draw off his Partner at the Repeat
Originally a triple minor in which the 3s did nothing.
The tune was published with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album Favorites of the Boston Centre. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.
The animation plays at 97 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), turn single, circle, cast, lead, poussette, back to back (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=BarABar
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1986 by Fried de Metz Herman. 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
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.