Rob Roy MacGregor ~ RSCDS
Rob Roy MacGregor ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by G.M.S. Chivers in 1821 and published in The Dancer's Guide, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1972 and published in RSCDS Book 26. It is S8×32 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. St32.
Wilson published several figures named Rob Roy in his L'Assemblee of 1819 but none has a figure which matches the RSCDS version.
On page 73 of his The Dancers' Guide, 1821, Chivers writes:
Rob Roy Macgregor... First couple lead down the middle, the second follow, half right and left back again, and half right and left swing corners right and left at top
On page 69 of his The Excelsior Manual of Dancing, ~1872, J. F. Wallace writes:
- First couple down the centre, the second couple follow, (4 bars)
- Half right and left by couples No. 1 and 2 at bottom, (4)
- Couples No. 1 and 2 back again and half right and left, (8)
- Set at corners and turn partners, (8)
- Right and left by couples No. 1 and 2, (8)
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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: lead, rights and lefts, petronella, hello goodbye setting (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=RobRoyMacGregor-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1972 by RSCDS. 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.