The Sutherland Reel ~ RSCDS is a Scottish Country Dance. It was devised by Thomas Wilson in 1816 and published in A Companion to the Ball Room, London. It was interpreted by RSCDS in 1979 and published in RSCDS Book 29. It is R8×40 3C/4C, a proper Triple Minor dance. R40.
SINGLE FIGURE Each strain repeated
Set & change sides with 2d. Cu: set & back again lead down the middle up again & right & left with top Cu:
OR THUS Cast off 2 Cu: & back again lead down the middle up again & allemande
DOUBLE FIGURE Tune played twice thro with repeats
Hands 3 round on the ladies side, hands 3 round on the gent: side lead down the middle up again cast round the top Cu: set 3 across set 3 in your places half poussette with top Cu: & lead thro the bottom
The music consists of two eight bar strains. So if you repeat each strain you get 32 bars, which doesn't make sense for a SINGLE FIGURE. I think Wilson must have a misprint.
None of Wilson's figure's matches the RSCDS version very closely. The DOUBLE FIGURE at least begins with the two circles, followed by a lead down, up and cast. After that things are completely different.
Wilson defines most of his figures in his An Analysis of Country Dancing, 3rd Edition.
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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
The dance contains the following figures: set, circle, cast, lead, hey, down the middle and back, double triangle (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=TheSutherlandReel-RSCDS
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1979 by RSCDS. 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.