Clutha ~ RSCDS

Clutha ~ Hughes Clutha ~ RSCDS

Clutha ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by Kate Hughes in about 1867 in Kate Hughes' Dancing Book, Dundalk, Ireland. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1983 and published in RSCDS Book 31. It is R4×48 Square, a Square dance. R192.

RSCDS Book 31 attributes this to Thomas Murphy's Aide Memoire, a manuscript from about 1890, but it is clearly derived from Clutha C.D. in Kate Hughes's Dancing Book, ~1867:

  1. Top couple swing in the centre
  2. Cast a couple and swing
  3. Balance four in line with second couple and turn opposite partners
  4. Rights and lefts
  5. Set and turn opposite partners
  6. Half chasie and swing out time
  7. Pousette

Hughes's dance is longways, but the figure is closely related.

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.

An online description of the dance may be found here.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, circle, open ladies chain, rights and lefts, promenade round, turn corners (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=Clutha-RSCDS

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1983 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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.