Chirping of the Nightingale - Playford

The Lovelace Manuscript contains a dance with this name, but it is quite different, a longways dance rather than a circle for one thing.

Take hands and 2. D. round Back again	First man lead his wo. a D forwards to the man on your right hand, let go your wo. and the man with your left hand, she going back, then go back your self, they two leading to your, and turn all three single
Then you three take hands and go round back again	This as before
Then lead all a D. forward and back to the woman back again	This as before
Then you three take hands and go round back again	This as before
Do thus to all the rest, they following and doing the like.

I have difficulty understanding how progression is supposed to work in this dance. It is supposed to progress. Playford says so: Do thus to all the rest,, and then when the way is clear other dancers are supposed to start.

Each time through the dance begins with a circle left. This means dancers must end the dance in a circle, with no gaps, no one standing out.

It's not clear if the dance should progress from the 1s interacting with M2 to W2 or M3 — Playford does say the man on your right hand which would suggest M3 after M2, but Pfitzinger says to go next to W2, which is fairer, and easier.

If one follows the instructions literally then at the end of Part IV everyone is back where they started, which doesn't seem like a progression. I suppose the 1s could reach further and further across the set but it seems unlikely: when W1 goes back she will be nowhere near M3 to lead toward M1.

So I assume that each time through the dance the active couple will move one person's place right, and the person who was there must move to where M1 began. In other words the last move in Part IV will not be all three turn single but "W1 goes to M2's place, M1 to W1's and M2 to M1's".

That breaks up the 2nd couple for a while, but they come together again the next time through the dance. This seems strange, but less strange than not moving at all.

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It may help to think of the progression here as a duple minor progression of the old style where only the top couple is initially active and move and more dancers join in as the top couple reaches them. Only here the dancers are in a circle. The top of the set is where the 1s are and the bottom is where the 6s are.

The dance starts with only the 1s active, they dance with M2,W2 and then M3,W3. At this point the original 2s start and dance with M3,W3,M4,W4 while the original 1s dance with M4,W4,M5,W5. And now the original 3s can start. When the 1s reach have danced with everyone (reached where the 6s were initially) they wait out one cycle and then become inactive.

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