Soho Square

Soho Square is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Young in 1718. It was interpreted by Colin Hume (website) in 2026. It is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 64 bars.

John Young writes:

Note: This Tune is to be play'd twice over; and each Strain twice over.

The first Man Heys on the We. Side, and his Partner on the Mens Side at the same Time Then both Hey on their own Sides Change Places all four and go half round Then cast off and Right and Left quite round Then first Cu. goes the whole Figure of 8 with the 3d Cu Then with the 2d Cu. Then first Man goes on the outside the 3d Wo. and the first Wo. on the outside of the 2d Man at the same Time Then they both cast off into the 2d Cu. Place and turn

The tune was published by John Young for the dance. It was synthesized using Colin Hume's software.

The animation plays at 111 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 (no music plays during this slow set). 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: circle, cast, lead, figure eight, hands across, hey, mirror hey, hey for three, rights and lefts, siding, (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 transience of my youtube URLs. 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=SohoSquare

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2026 by Colin Hume. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2026 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.