The Twins

The Twins is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1657 in The Dancing Master, 3rd ed., London. It was interpreted by Tom Cook in 1975 and published in Come Let's Be Merry. It is a proper 4 Couple Longways dance. There is no progression in this dance. It is a multipart dance. The dance lasts 72 bars.

Playford writes

Lead up forwards and back That again First and last cu. take right hands across and go round, changing places, while the other four go back, meet and turn their own All this again

Sides all That again First four cross with your own we. then 1. and 2. cu. meet and stand even, then change places with your own in the co. place, the last four doing the same All this again

Arms all That again First four hands and half round, set and turn S. The other four as much All this again

The animation plays at 120 counts per minute. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color.

The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, turn single, circle, hands across, siding, arming, set and turn corners (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=TheTwins

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1975 by Tom Cook. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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
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.