Nine Elms

Nine Elms 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 Colin Hume (website) in 1995 and published in Playford with a Difference. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars. Someone thought this dance was Easy / Intermediate.

Playford writes:

Note: The first Strain is to be play'd but once, the last twice.

Cross over, the first Man and second Women Back to Back, and the second Mand and first Woman at the same time go the half Figure, and turn Hands in the second Couples Place Lead thro' the third Couple and cast up into the Second Couples Place Lead thro' the first Couple and cast off

Colin has made this into a duple minor and suggests it be danced in a four couple set (though he does not suggest following Scottish rules for a two couple dance in a four couple set).

The tune was published by Playford for the dance. The music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software

The animation plays at 90 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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), cast, lead, figure eight, cross go below, back to back (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=NineElms

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1995 by Colin Hume. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.