Pretty Poll ~ Williams
Pretty Poll ~ Williams is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2024. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 23 bars.
Playford calls the dance Pretty Poll and writes:
Note: The first Strain is to be play'd twice, and the second once, and so far as the Repeat again.
The first Couple cast off and turn Hands This to the first Strain play'd once The second Couple do the same This to the first Strain play'd twice Then the first Couple clap Hands and cast off below the second Couple, then all four change Places, and Right and Left half round and cast off This to the second Strain play'd once Then clap Hands and turn single This from the Repeat.
The original music is in 3/2 time and consists of a 5 bar strain and an 8 bar strain, intended to be played AABA.
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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1 | 1-2 | 1s cast down as 2s lead up |
| 3-5 | 1s two hand turn | |
| A2 | 1-2 | 2s cast down as 1s lead up |
| 3-5 | 2s two hand turn | |
| B | 1-2 | 1s clap and cast down as 2s lead up |
| 3-4 | All partner change | |
| 5-6 | Face partner, two changes of rights and lefts | |
| 7-8 | 1s cast down as 2s lead up | |
| A3 | 1-2 | Clap: partner's right, partner's left, both, right, left, both |
| 3-5 | Turn single clowerleaf |
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=PrettyPoll-Williams
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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
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.