Old Batchelor ~ Broadbridge
Inspired by Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams, for Playford style dances I have added a few extra symbols.
Old Batchelor ~ Broadbridge is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1695 in The Dancing Master, 9th ed.. It was interpreted by Nicolas Broadbridge in 1996. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 28 bars. The tune is a jig.
Playford writes:
The 1. cu. cross over below the 2. cu. then all four lead up hands a-breast, the 1. man side with the 2. wo. and the 1. so. side with the 2. man at the same time, then the 1. man turn his own Partner with both hands round till he come to the lower side, then the 1. cu take the 2. wo. and all three hands half round, then the 2. man take hands between the two we. and go hands half round, then all four S. then right and left with their Partners till the 1. cu. comes into the 2. cu. place.
Note that Playford does not say whether M1 drops out of the second half circle. Playford does say that all four do the turn single, which makes me think the second circle is for all the dancers.
Tom Cook is supposed to have interpreted this dance in 1994. It was then interpreted/published by Nicholas Broadbridge and Marjorie Fennessy in Purcell's Dancing Master.
Christine Feyeabend produced a different interpretation, but her's seems to be for 32 bars of music rather than the 28 Playford provides.
This is the version printed in The Playford Assembly
The tune was published by Playford for the dance. The music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software
The animation plays at 111 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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), turn single, gypsy, circle, rights and lefts, 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=OldBatchelor
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1996 by Nicolas Broadbridge. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021-2025 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.