Perfections of Love ~ Williams
Perfections of Love ~ Williams is an English Country Dance. It was published by Wright in 1740 in Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances, Vol. 1. It was interpreted by Tom Cook in 1979 and published in Again Let's Be Merry. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 20 bars.
Wright writes:
The 1st Man sett to the 2d. Wo. and fall back and turn S. then 1st Wo. sett to the 2d. Man and fall back and turn S. the 1st Man change places with the 2d. Wo. and 1st Wo. change places with 2d. Man at the same time then the 1st. Cu. being in the 2d. Cu. place, lead thro' cast off and turn
The music consists of a 4 bar A strain and a 6 bar B strain. The instructions show that both the A and B strains should be repeated.
The instructions have only the 1s setting and turning single in A1,2 but I expect modern dancers would prefer to have all corners active.
The only difficulty I see with interpreting this dance is in B1. Everyone changes places with their corners at the same time. This normally take 2 bars, but we need to stretch it out to 6...
At the end of B2 the second couple is also improper, so they also need to turn. Which means that the only asymmetry in the dance is where the 1s lead up and cast back, so why not have the 2s cast and lead at the same time?
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, turn single, circle, cast, lead, cast and lead, lead and cast (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=PerfectionsOfLove-Williams
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1979 by Tom Cook. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2025 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.