Tunbridge Walks
Tunbridge Walks is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1703 in The Dancing Master, 12th ed., 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 26 bars.
Playford writes:
All four hands half round and turn single, and back again to your own places. Cast off and cross up to the top and turn hands: The first man change with the 2. woman, the first woman do the same with the 2. man; then right and left hands quite round till the first Couple comes into the second Couple's place.
Simons has the rights&lefts go 5 changes in six bars. I see how you dance that to the music unless you do four fast changes and one slow one. I think a much better solution would be to face neighbor and do three changes, which fits nicely in 6 bars. (Which is what Bentley did)
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.
The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), set, turn single, circle, cast, rights and lefts (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=TunbridgeWalks-Simons
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.