The Rakes of Rochester - Rutherford
The Rakes of Rochester - Rutherford is an English Country Dance. It was published by David Rutherford in about 1759 in Rutherford's compleat Collection of 200 of the most celebrated Country Dances both Old and New, Vol. 2, London. It was interpreted by A. Simons in about 1990 and published in Kentish Hops. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 64 bars. It is in the key: A major.
Rutherford writes:
Cast off one Cou. & turn your Partner Cast up again & turn her Foot it & Hands across with the 2d Cou. The same back again The first Man foot it to the 2d Wo. & turn her The first So. does the same with the 2d Man Cross over and half Figure Rt Hand & Left
The tune was published with the dance. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album Strong Roots. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.
The animation plays at 113 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: hand turn (allemande), set, cast, lead, figure eight, hands across, rights and lefts, cross go below (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=TheRakesOfRochester-Rutherford
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~1990 by A. Simons. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2023 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.