Mars and Venus
Mars and Venus is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1726 in The Dancing Master, The Third Volume, 2nd ed., London. It was interpreted by Bernard Bentley in 1971 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 4. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 48 bars.
Note: The first Strain is to be play'd twice, and the last but once.
The first couple cross over and Figure thro' the third couple and turn The second couple do the same The first Man change places with his Partner, then cross over below the second couple and turn single, then Right and Left quite round, then lead thro' the 2d couple and cast off, then Right and Left with the third couple quite round.
Originally a triple minor.
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: hand turn (allemande), turn single, gypsy, cast, lead, figure eight, rights and lefts, lead and cast, cross go below (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=MarsAndVenus
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1971 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
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.