Dainty Davy
Dainty Davy is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1701 in The Dancing Master, 11th ed., London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2022. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars. It is in the key: D minor.
Playford writes:
The 1. cu. clap hands and cross over below the 2. cu. and turn to your own sides The 2. cu. do the same The 1. cu. cross over below the 2. cu. and Figure through the 3d. cu then Figure through the 1. cu. and turn in the 2. cu. place Each Strain twice.
Clearly having the 1s figure eight through the 1. cu. is a misprint, presumably the 2s are meant (or perhaps the couple now standing in the 1s place - which is the 2s)
The 3s only act as posts, and the dance may be compressed to a duple minor.
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.
| A1 | 1-4 | 1s clap, cross, and go below, as the 2s wait and lead up |
| 5-8 | 1s right hand turn once and a half to proper | |
| A2 | 1-4 | 2s clap, cross, and go below, as the 1s wait and lead up |
| 5-8 | 2s right hand turn once and a half to proper | |
| B1 | 1-4 | 1s cross, and go below, as 2s wait and lead up |
| 5-8 | 1s half figure eight down through the couple below | |
| B2 | 1-4 | 1s half figure eight up through the original 2s |
| 5-8 | 1s two hand turn once and a half to proper |
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=DaintyDavy-Williams
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
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.