Light and Airy
Light and Airy is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by William Campbell in about 1804 in Campbell's 19th Book of New and Favorite Country Dances, & Strathspey Reels. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1927 and published in RSCDS Book 4. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. J32. Someone thought this dance was Easy. An online description of the dance may be found here.
Campbell did publish a dance with this title in his 19th Book, but I do not know whether its figure matches that of the RSCDS dance.
On the other hand, in Thompson's Compleat Collection of 200 Fashionable Country Dances, Vol. III", ~1773, Charles and Samuel Thompson write:
Cast off two Cu. and clap hands cast up and do the same cross over two Cu. lead up to the top and clap hands lead down two Cu. up again and cast off and clap hands
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.
| 1-4 | 1s set and cast to 3rd place (others move up) |
| 5-8 | 1s set and cast back to top (others move down) |
| 9-16 | 1s lead down, turn, lead back |
| 17-24 | 1s+2s allemande (1s end facing 1st corners) |
| 25-28 | 1s turn 1st corners right, partner left (corner partner, corner partner) |
| 29-32 | 1s turn 2nd corners right, partner left, ending 2nd place own sides |
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 transience of my youtube URLs. 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=LightAndAiry-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. 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 © 2021-2026 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.