Continuing the dance description

Hi again!

Back from the land of Evil Influenza--at least mostly--and ready to finish the explanation of the parts of the English Country Dance entitled "Juice of Barley."

The next term in the dance description is "back-to-back" with your partner. This is easy: back-to-back in English dance is the same thing as a do-si-do in a square dance. Face your partner, walk towards each other and pass by the right shoulder, then back up to pass by the left shoulder and return to your starting place. In a square dance there may be "flourishes" like spins as you pass, or holding your arms crossed , but in ECD these are frowned upon.

Then comes the two-hand turn. Reach across and take your partner's hands, man's hands below and supporting the woman's. Then just walk around each other, clockwise. Easy enough, right?

Then comes the half-figure-of-eight. Like all of these things, it takes lots longer to explain than to actually do. The two men are facing the two women. They cross through the space between the women (man #1 goes in front to prevent a collision) and loop back to their own side. The end result is just that the two men have traded places with each other.

Then the four dancers join hands in a ring and circle to the left one time around. This takes 8 steps and 8 beats of the music; on beat 1 everyone claps theirs hands together once.

Then the women do the same thing, which puts partners back across from each other. Another clap-and-circle, and one round of the dance is done!

But the dance goes on! Each couple finds that they've progressed and are now dancing with the next couple in the longways set! So you do all of the figures with them, and so on until the music stops.

BUT, what happens if you progress to the end of the line of couples and have no one to dance with?? Just wait one time through the dance, and the next couple will reach the end of the set. Dance with them, and you'll find that you and your partner move back up the longways set, progressing in the other direction!