Tucker

Tucker Old Dan Tucker ~ Burchenal Old Dan Tucker ~ Link

The Kentucky Running Set is the name Sharp gave to a style of dancing he found in the Southern Appalachians when he visited in 1917. The locals called the dances square dances even though they were often danced in large circles. Sharp, however, describes squares, and this is an attempt to follow his description.

Old Dan Tucker is an old American Country Dance. The earliest source I've found for it is in the Unique Dancing Call Book by Charles Link, Rochester, NY. 1893. In most version I've seen Tucker tries to join the set in a grand right and left, but this version has Tucker slipping in while people are doing the hand turns.

Sharp writes:

At the conclusion of the Running Set it is customary to dance Tucker, a variant of the well-known children's singing game, The Jolly Miller, as follows:

A fifth man joins the dancers and stands in the centre of the Set. He is called Tucker.

Hands eight once round.

Men turn their partners half-way round, their contraries half-way round, move forward, rejoin their partners, cross hands with them and dance round counter-clockwise. During the turning movements — i.e., when the dancers are for the moment disengaged—Tucker endeavours to dispossess one of the men of his partner and capture her for himself. If he is successful, the man, whose partner has been stolen, takes his place in the centre and becomes Tucker in the next round.

While the dancers are circling round him, Tucker should dance a hoe-down, or perform any fancy steps that me chooses.

This dance does not have an introduction, nor any of the superstructure of grand and little promenades that the other running set dances do.

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