Mr. Turner's Academy Cotillion
Mr. Turner's Academy Cotillion is a Cotillion. It was devised by J.J. Buckingham in 1808 and published in A Selection of Cotillions and Country Dances. It was interpreted by James E. Morrison in 1976 and published in Twenty Four Early American Country Dances, Cotillions & Reels for the Year 1976. It is a Square dance. The minor set lasts 320 bars.
Buckingham writes:
The top and bottom couples contretems forward and rigadoon, join hands and chasse quite round to thei places. Side couples do the same. Top and bottom couples contretms to the side couples on their right; the gentlemen join hands with opposite ladies, chassé up and down the room without a rigadoon, and turn, the gentlemen turning to the left and the lady to the right, which forms two straight lines across the room, each line join hands and contretems forward and back; all meet partners and turn with both hands to their places. Side couples contretem up to the top and bottom couples on their right, chasse out to the sides, &c. finishing as before.
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), set, circle, lead, hands across (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=MrTurnersAcademyCotillion
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1976 by James E. Morrison. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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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.