Dutchess of Devonshire's Reel

Duchess of Devonshire's Reel

Dutchess of Devonshire's Reel or Duchess of Devonshire's Reel is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Ignatius Sancho in 1779 and published in Twelve Country Dances for the Year 1779. Set for the Harpsichord, London. It was interpreted by Garth Notley sometime before 2023-01-19. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars.

Sancho writes:

The first & second Cu. foot it and half Right and Left foot it and half Right and Left back again cross over two Cu. lead up to the top foot it & cast off cross corners half round (the Gentn going to the bottom the Lady to the top) meet in the middle & turn cross corners the contrary way the Lady going to the bottom the Gentn to the top meet and turn

The music consists of three 4 bar strains.

I think Notley's interpretation is a) complicated and b) doesn't reflect the original, so I have rewritten it.

The tune was published with the dance. It was performed by the Odd Sundays Garage Band (Judy Linsenberg, Shira Kammen and Patti Cobb). The music is used with permission from the Odd Sundays Garage Band.

The animation plays at 107 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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, cast, lead, rights and lefts (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=DutchessOfDevonshiresReel

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. I do not have a date for the interpretation, so it may be under copyright. 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
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.