The Bonny Lass ~ Williams
The Bonny Lass ~ Williams is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1710 in The Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, London. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2024. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Playford calls the dance The Bonny Lass and writes:
Note: The first Strain is to be play'd twice, and the last but once.
The first Couple cross over, then Sett and cast off below the third Couple, and then cast above the third Couple, then Sett and cross up to the top. This to the first Strain play'd twice The two Men change places with the two Women, then Hands across all four half round, then first Man lead his Partner thro' the 3d Cu. and thro' the 2d Cu. and turn his Partner in the 2d Cu. place. This to the last Strain play'd once.
The original music is in cut time and consists of an 8 bar strain and a 16 bar strain, intended to be played AAB.
When Young says The two Men change places with the two Women, it seems a little verbose for a simple partner change, but I'm not sure what to replace it with. If the men were to go together between the women (or women though the men) he'd probably have said so?
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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1 | 1-4 | 1s cross, go below as 2s lead up |
| 5-6 | 1s set | |
| 7-8 | 1s cast down as 3s lead up | |
| A2 | 1-2 | 1s cast up as 3s lead down |
| 3-4 | 1s set | |
| 5-8 | 1s cross, go above as 2s lead down | |
| B | 1-2 | 1s+2s: partner change |
| 3-4 | 1s+2s: right hands across half | |
| 5-8 | 1s lead below 3s and cast back to middle | |
| 9-12 | 1s lead above 2s and cast back to middle | |
| 13-16 | 1s two hand turn |
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=TheBonnyLass-Williams
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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.