King George's Birth Day
King George's Birth Day is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1726 in The Dancing Master, The Third Volume, 2nd ed.. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 2024 and published in Colin Hume's Website. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. Originally this was a single progression dance. The dance lasts 64 bars. It is in the key: G Minor.
John Young writes:
Note: Each Strain twice, and Tune twice over.
The first and 2d. Men and their Partners, all four meet and fall back, and the Men turn off on their side, and the Women on theirs Then the first and 2d. Men Sett to their Partners and turn them The the first Man Heys on the Women side and his Partner on the Mens side Then they Hey on their own side, and cast off into the 2d Couples Places
Then the first Man go the whole Figure with the third Couple at bottom, and his Partner with the 2d. Couple at top Then the Men do the same at top and Women at the bottom at the same time Then the first Man cross on the outside the 3d. Wo. and his Partner on the outside of the 3d. Man, and her Partner on the outside the 2d. Woman and turn in the 2d. Couples places
The tune was published by John Young with the dance; and was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.
The animation plays at 113 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, cast, lead, hey, mirror hey, hey for three, siding, (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=KingGeorgesBirthday
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by Colin Hume. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2025 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021-2025 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.