The American Husband
Her Man
The American Husband or Her Man is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Pat Shaw (website) in 1977 and published in Among the Pines. It is a proper Triple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 64 bars.
This is a rather unusual triple minor. For the 1s+3s it is triple progression (the 1s pass their 2s, their 3s, and the next set of 3s). The dance is designed for a sicilian circle, the 1s should be improper, and the 2s are not in the traditional longways position, but stand with their backs to the walls of the hall, facing the center of the circle.
This can also be danced longways. At the ends of the set partners should promenade back to face in at the end of the set. If there is a single couple out at the bottom they should promenade around the 1s come at them, leaving the 1s out at the bottom, and themselves as 3s. I do not recommend having two couples out at the bottom, instead have one couple out at top and bottom.
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, lead, hey, hey for three, rights and lefts, shetland hey, swing (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=TheAmericanHusband
The dance is copyright © 1977 by Pat Shaw. 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.