St. Albans ~ Andrew Shaw
St. Albans ~ Andrew Shaw is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1703 in The Dancing Master, 12th ed., London. It was interpreted by Andrew Shaw in 2006 and published in Emperor of the Moon. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
The 1. man set to the 2. wo. turns S then sets to his Partner, the 2. man sets to the 1. wo. and does the same. The first part of the Tune played twice. Cross over and Figure, the 2. man lead to the wall, and back again, the 2. wo. do the same at the same time then all hands quite round.
Andrew Shaw points out: the 11th edition of 1701 had a version of this dance with a slightly difference in the A figure.
The tune was published by Playford for the dance. The music was synthesized by Colin Hume's software
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 (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: set, turn single, circle, lead, figure eight, cross go below, set and turn corners (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=StAlbans
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2006 by Andrew Shaw. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 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.