High Ginks

High Jinks

High Ginks or High Jinks 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 Bernard Bentley in 1962 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 1. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars.

Playford writes:

Note: The first Strain is to be play'd twice, and the last but once.

The first Couple cast off, the second Couple turn up the Middle (at the same Time,) then the 2d Couple cast off, and the first Couple turn Hands up the Middle Then lead to the Wall and back again, then all four cross over and turn single (The Men being on the Womens Side) The first Man changes Place with the second Woman, and the second Man with the first Woman, then the first Couple lead through the second Couple and cast off

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 dance contains the following figures: turn single, cast, lead, lead and cast (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=HighGinks

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1962 by Bernard Bentley. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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.