Donald Bane ~ RSCDS
Donaldbane ~ RSCDS
Donald Bane ~ RSCDS or Donaldbane ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Wilson in 1816 and published in A Companion to the Ball Room, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1953 and published in RSCDS Book 17. It is S8×32 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. St32.
Donald Bane is an anglicization of Domnall Bán (Donald the Fair) and was the great-grandson of the king killed by MacBeth.
Wilson writes (on page 80):
SINGLE FIGURE Each strain repeated
Hands 3 round on the ladies side hands 3 round on the gents side lead down the middle up again & right & left with the top Cu:
OR THUS Set & change sides with the 2d. Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & allemande
DOUBLE FIGURE
Hey on your own sides swing with right hands round 2d. Cu: then with left hands 6 round & back again set contrary corners
Wilson usually gives multiple figures for a tune, this is an attempt to understand the double figure he describes.
The music consists of two 4 bar strains. Wilson's usual statement for double figures (which he gives on the dance above this) is Tune played twice through with repeats. So the music should probably be played AABBAABB.
Wilson spells the dance "Donaldbane".
Wilson defines most of his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing.
swing with right hands round 2d. Cu: then with left may be found on pages 85-86 and means: right hand turn half (swing) to cross the set, loop partner's starting place, cross the set again above the 2s, ending proper between 2s & 3s.
left hand turn half to cross the set, loop partner's place, crossing below the 2s and ending home.
Wilson does not specify which shoulder to use when crossing the second and fourth times. set contrary corners may be found on pages 55-57 and means "move to 1st corner and set, pass partner right moving to 2nd corner, set, return to places the easiest way". Wilson does not show the corners setting back, but I expect modern dancers would want to.
It is not obvious to me where in this sequence Wilson expects progression to happen. Perhaps the first movement of set contrary corners has the 1s moving down and the 2s up.
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: circle, cast, lead, hands across, hey, mirror hey, petronella, hello goodbye setting (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=DonaldBane-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1953 by RSCDS. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 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.