The Gun

The Valiant Captain

The Gun or The Valiant Captain is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1651 in The English Dancing Master, London. It was interpreted by Scott Pfitzinger (website) in about 2019. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. It is a USA dance. The minor set lasts 26 bars. It is in the key: D Minor.

Playford writes:
Lead up a D. forwards and back, set and turn S That again First four go back from your own, meet again, 1. man and 2. wo. change places, 1. wo. and 2. man chnage, then change both with your own As much with the next, and so to all.

Sides all, set and turn S. That again First 4 hands and go roundm 1. cu. meet, slip down between 2. turn S. Do thus to the last, the rest following

Arms all, set and turn S. That again First two men hands and change places, we. as much, take right hands across and go round Do thus to the last, the rest followig

I have organized this dance differently than Playford did. The dance consists of the standard three introductions (up a double, siding, and arming) each followed by set and turn single, and then a progressive sequence. In Playford's day the introduction would be done and then the progressive sequence would run until everyone was back where s/he started, then the next introduction and the next sequence. I treat the introduction and subsequent progressive figure as a unit, and I cycle through the three parts instead of letting each part run to completion.

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 transcriptions and interpretations of Playford dances found on http://playforddances.com/ from the various editions of The Dancing Master are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
An online description of the dance may be found here.

I.A11-4Up a Double, back
5-8Partners set and turn single
I.A21-4Up a Double, back (repeat)
5-8Set and turn single
II.A11-4Side right
5-8Partners set and turn single
II.A21-4Side left
5-8Partners set and turn single
III.A11-4Right Arming
5-8Partners set and turn single
III.A21-4Left Arming
5-8Partners set and turn single
I.B1-4Fall back a double and come forward, take partner with both hands
5-81st corners change, 2nd corners change
9-10Partner change
II.B1-4Circle left
5-61s meet
7-81s slip down as 2s slip up outside
9-10Turn single cloverleaf
III.B1-2Men two hand turn half
3-4Women two hand turn half
III.B21-6Right hands across

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=TheGun

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~2019 by Scott Pfitzinger. 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
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.