The Galloping Nag
The Galloping Nag is an English Country Dance. It was published by Playford (John Young) (website) in 1721 in The Dancing Master, 11th ed., London. It was interpreted by Charles Bolton (website) in 1991 and published in Retreads - Vol. 5. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.
Playford used the title The Gallopping Nag for two dances. The first of those appeared under the title The Black Nag in 1657, and continued as such until 1695 when it became "gallopping". In 1721 a new version of the choreography appeared, though the tune remained the same. This is the version of the dance from 1721 and 1728.
The first Man turn the 2d. Wo. with his Right hand And the first Woman the same The first Man takes his Partner and gallop down the Room, and up to the top and cast off The whole Figure at top and lead thro' the third couple, and thro' the top and turn the Tune thro' out
The tune appeared in earlier editions of the Dancing Master, originally called "The Black Nagg" and later "The Gallopping Nag", but with a different choreography.
This version was originally a triple minor.
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 Charles Bolton (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license by the CDSS Online Library.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| A1 | 1-4 | 1st corners right hand turn |
| 5-8 | 2nd corners left hand turn | |
| A2 | 1-8 | 1s give hands, gallop down, come back up, cast down as 2s lead up |
| B1 | 1-8 | 1s cross up, 2s cast down, full double figure eight |
| B2 | 1-4 | 1s lead down through 2s below and cast back as 2s move up outside and lead back down |
| 5-8 | All partner 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=TheGallopingNag
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1991 by Charles Bolton. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2021 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA 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.