Her Killing Eyes ~ Bolton
Her Killing Eyes ~ Bolton is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1718 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1989 and published in Retreads Vol.4. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars.
Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.
The first Man Points at the 2d Wo's. Eyes, then lifts up both his Hand, and turns her quite round, and turn single The 2d Man and first Wo. do the same The first Cu. Sett and cast off, set across to the 3d Cu. and turn single, lead down the Middle and cast up First Cu. cast up to the Top, first Man changes Places with the 2d Wo. the first Wo. and 2d Man do the same, and turn all four half round, the first Cu. Sett and cast off
Originally a triple minor.
Graham Christian and Andrew Shaw say this dance was devised by Kynaston and published by Walsh in 1716 (for the 1717 annual collection), while Bolton attributes it to Playford (John Young) 1718.
This dance contains behavior that my animations cannot display.
The tune was published with the dance, and the music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.
The animation plays at 111 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.
The dances of Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| A1 | 1-2 | W2 gazes at M1 |
| 3-4 | He points at her eyes, and throws up his hands in admiration and despair | |
| 5-8 | They two hand turn | |
| 9-10 | and turn single left | |
| A2 | 1-2 | W1 gazes at M2 |
| 3-4 | He points at her eyes, and throws up his hands in admiration and despair | |
| 5-8 | They two hand turn | |
| 9-10 | and turn single left | |
| B1 | 1-4 | 1s two hand turn half and cast to face next neighbor as 2s lead up |
| 5-6 | Set to next neighbor | |
| 7-8 | Turn single | |
| 9-12 | 1s lead below next 2s and cast back | |
| 13-14 | 1s two hand turn half | |
| B2 | 1-4 | 1s long cast up as 2s lead down |
| 5-8 | 1st corners change, 2nd corners change | |
| 9-10 | Circle left half | |
| 11-12 | All set | |
| 13-14 | 1s cast down as 2s lead up |
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=HerKillingEyes
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1989 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.