Rory O'More ~ Scottish

Rory O'More ~ Contra Rory O'More ~ Scottish

Rory O'More ~ Scottish is a Scottish Country Dance. It was published by Skinner in about 1898 in The People's Ball Room Guide, Dundee. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1924 and published in RSCDS Book 1. It is J8×32 2C/4C, a proper Duple Minor dance. J32.

Skinner writes:

Arrange the dancers as usual.

First and second ladies join hands, advance and retire with Quadrill step.

First and second gentlemen do the same at the same time. They re-advance, the ladies passing under the gentlemen's arms.

This is repeated, the gentlemen going under the ladies' arms

First lady and opposite gentleman then go dow the centre, back, and pousette.

Repeat.

Rory o' More has a tune of its own bearing the same name.

A quite different dance with this name appeared in the US in 1858 (Elias Howe, Boston). It seems likely to me that a dance appeared before 1898 in Scotland, but I haven't found any earlier sources.

Kate Hughes's manuscript, Dancing Book, Ireland, 1867, contains yet another version of the figure.

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.

1-4Advance and retire
5-6Cross over, men make an arch, women dive under
7-82s turn their respective 1s under
9-12Advance and retire
13-14Cross over, women make an arch, men dive under
15-162s turn their respective 1s under
17-241s lead down the middle and back
25-321s+2s poussette

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=RoryOMore-SCD

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The dance is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. The interpretation is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. 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 © 2021,2022,2023,2024 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.