Black Heath

Blackheath ~ Herman

Black Heath Blackheath ~ Simons Blackheath ~ Kliban

Black Heath or Blackheath ~ Herman is an English Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in 1718 in The Compleat Country Dancing-Master, London. It was interpreted by Fried de Metz Herman (website) in 1989 and published in Choice Morsels. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Herman attributes this to Walsh, but it is basically the same as Playford's dance from 1701.

Playford writes:

The two men lead round their Partners into their own places, the 1. man leads his Partner through the 2. cu. and cast up The we. does the same The 1. man sets to the 2. wo. the 2. man sets to the 1. wo. the 1. cu. cross over and go the Figure The 1. wo. goes between the 2. cu, the 1. man goes between the 3. cu. the 1. man cast up into the 2. cu. place, the 1. wo. cast off into the 2. cu. place, then turn hands till the Tune be ended

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 dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, cast, lead, figure eight, cross go below (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=Black-Heath

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1989 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
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.