Orleans Baffled

Orleans Baffled is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1728 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the second, 4th ed., London. It was interpreted by Cecil Sharp (website) in 1916 and published in The Country Dance Book (Part 4). Found in The Playford Ball. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 12 bars. It is in the key: D major.

Playford writes:

Note: The first Strain twice, and the last once.

The first Couple cast off and draw Hands below the third Couple, then cast up again and draw Hands above the second Couple, then the first Man change places with the second Woman, and the first Woman do the same with the second Man, then Right and Left till the first Couple comes into the second Couple's Place.

The tune, also called Orleans Baffled, was published by Playford with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album A Playford Ball. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.

The animation plays at 106 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.

A1-21s cast down, 2s lead up
3-41s+3s half poussette (M1,W3 push)
5-61s cast up, 3s lead down
7-81s+2s half poussette (W1,M2 push)
9-9M1,W2 change places
10-10W1,M2 change places
11-121s+2s three changes of a circular hey starting with neighbor

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=OrleansBaffled

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2019 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.