Saint Brides

Saint Brides is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second. It was interpreted by Bernard Bentley in 1962 and published in The Fallibroome Collection, Vol. 1. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper 3 Couple Longways dance. In this dance the couples are permuted by: 231. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

The first Couple go the Hey with the second and thrid Couple, and cast off into the 2d Couples place, then Hands quite round with the third Cu. and cast up to the Top. This to the first Strain play'd twice The first Couple cross the inside of the second Couple, and below the third Cu. then cross up to the second Cu. place then first Man changes places with the second Woman, and the first Woman with the second Mand, then Hands This to the second Strain play'd twice

Originally a triple minor.

The tune is a traditional one that John Young (Playford) published with the dance. It was performed by the Odd Sundays Garage Band (Judy Linsenberg, Shira Kammen and Patti Cobb). The music is used with permission from the Odd Sundays Garage Band.

The animation plays at 109 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: turn single, circle, cast, lead, hey, hey for three, 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 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=StBrides

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1962 by Bernard Bentley. 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
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.