Lady Lye near Me

Lady Lye near Me is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1651 in The English Dancing Master, London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2021. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. It is a USA dance. The minor set lasts 24 bars. It is in the key: F Major.

Spelled variously: "Lady lye near me" and "Lady lye neare mee".

Playford writes:
Lead up forwards and back That again Set and turn S. That again

First two on each side hands and go back, meet again Go each behind the 2 and turn your own in the 2. place; Do thus to the last, &c.

Sides all, that again Set and turn S. That again

First man and 2. wo. meet and take right hands The other as much Go have round, change places with your own in the co. place Thus to the last

Arms all That again Set and turn S. That again

First cu. meet, turn back to back Go from each other, faces again Meet again, take both hands, slip between the 2. cu. and fall back; Do this to the last, the rest following

I have organized this dance differently than Playford did. The dance consists of the standard three introductions (up a double, siding, and arming) each followed by set and turn single, and then a progressive sequence. In Playford's day the introduction would be done once and then the progressive sequence would run until everyone was back where s/he started, then the next introduction and the next sequence. I treat the introduction and subsequent progressive figure as a unit, and I cycle through the three parts instead of letting each part run to completion.

The tune is a little odd, it is AAB for the introductory figures, and AA (or one B) for the progressive figures (Scott Pfitzinger says AB for the progressive figure, but there is usually only 8 bars of movement in those figures, not 12, Playford also implies a both an A and B here, but there just isn't enough movement to fill it 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.

The dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

I.A11-4Up a Double, back
I.A21-4Up a Double, back (repeat)
II.A11-4Right Siding
II.A21-4Left Siding
III.A11-4Right Arming
III.A21-4Left Arming
B1-4Partner set and turn single
5-8Again: Set and turn single
I.A31-4Take neighbor's inside hand, fall back, come forward
I.A41-21s slip down outside as 2s slip up inside
3-41s quick two hand turn
II.A31-21st corners meet and take right hands
3-42nd corners meet and take right hands
II.A41-2Right hands across half
3-4Partner change
III.A31-41s meet, face out, back home, face in
III.A41-41s meet, slip down inside, fall back as 2s fall back, slip up outside, come forward

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=LadyLyeNearMe

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2021 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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.