Rosamond's Pond

Rosamond's Pond is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Bray in 1699 and published in Country Dances: Being a Composition Entirely New, London. It was interpreted by Christine Helwig in 1990. Found in The Playford Assembly. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Bray writes:

The 1st. Man take Hands with the 2d. Wo. and left Hands 1-cross and turn S. both to the right Hand to their own places again; the 1st. Wo. and 2d. Man go half round, to each others place at the same time, then the 1st. Wo. and 2d. Man take right hands, and left Hands a cross, and turn S. to the right Hand to the same place again, and the 1st. Man and 2. Wo. go half round at the same time Then the same thing again till they all come to their proper place as at first The 1st. Man and 2d. Wo. change places with both Hands, and turn S. to the right Hand, to each others place, the 1st. Wo. and 2d. Man do the same after them 1st. Man take his Wo. by both Hands, and put her from him, till they come above, 2d. Man take his Wo. by both Hands at the same time, and pull her to him till they come below, then the 1st. cu. cross over and meet below; the 2d. cu. cross up the middle and meet above And so to the end.

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, poussette, siding, cross go below (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=RosamondsPond

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1990 by Christine Helwig. 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.