Thomas You Cannot
Thomas You Cannot is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Playford (website) in 1670 in The Dancing Master, 4th ed.. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2023. It is a proper 4 Couple Longways dance. It is a USA dance. The dance lasts 114 bars. The tune is a jig. It is in the key: G Major. Someone thought this dance was Very Easy.
Playford writes:
Lead all up a D. forwards and back That again First couple go each on the outside of the second couple, back again; down again, peep each at one another, turn your own in second place as much to the third place, and so to the last Sides all That again As before, doing it up Arms all That again As you did at first
Only the 1s are active, I doubt modern dancers would enjoy this dance.
Playford says this dance is for as many as will, the band keeps playing the B tune until the 1s reach the bottom (or top).
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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| I.A1 | 1-4 | Up a double, and back |
| I.A2 | 1-4 | Up a double, and back (again) |
| I.B1 | 1-4 | 1s slip down outside 2s and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip down (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn below 2s | |
| I.B2 | 1-4 | 1s slip down outside next couple and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip down (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn below them | |
| I.B3 | 1-4 | 1s slip down outside next couple and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip down (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn below them | |
| II.A1 | 1-4 | Side right |
| II.A2 | 1-4 | Side left |
| II.B1 | 1-4 | 1s slip up outside 4s and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip up (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn above 4s | |
| II.B2 | 1-4 | 1s slip up outside next couple and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip up (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn above them | |
| II.B3 | 1-4 | 1s slip up outside 2s couple and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip up (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn at home | |
| III.A1 | 1-4 | Arm right |
| III.A2 | 1-4 | Arm left |
| III.B1 | 1-4 | 1s slip down outside 2s and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip down (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn below 2s | |
| III.B2 | 1-4 | 1s slip down outside next couple and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip down (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn below them | |
| III.B3 | 1-4 | 1s slip down outside next couple and back |
| 5-6 | 1s slip down (and peep at each other) | |
| 7-10 | 1s two hand turn below them |
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=ThomasYouCannot
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2023 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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 © 2021-2025 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.