History

This history of English Country Dance can be researched starting at these points:

The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is an independent research library founded in 1812 in Worcester, Massachusetts. The library’s collections document the life of America’s people from the colonial era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Collections include books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, manuscripts, music, graphic arts, and local histories. Some of our music was reproduced from their archives.

http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Dance/types.htm

Here’s some easy to follow Wiki Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Country_Dance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancing_Master

 

English Country Dance in Manuscript

John Playford published a new book called The English Dancing Master in London in 1651. This volume contained the figures and the tunes for 105 English country dances, the first printing of these group social dances that were to dominate Western ballrooms for the next 150 years. The book appeared at a time of great upheaval in England. Civil disorder and natural disasters forced city residents to seek refuge on remote country estates; expanding trade and emigrations to distant lands carried Englishmen far from their homeland. Both phenomena affected the social life of the upper classes for whom these dances were a satisfying vehicle for leisure time recreation.

Playford’s slim volume sold quickly and he issued a second edition with nine additional dances the next year. Two editions of a third appeared in 1657 and 1665. He dropped the term “English” in the second edition and thereafter the books were simply called The Dancing Master. The books evidently filled a real need in Englishmen’s lives and copies were very likely carried or shipped to country homes and colonial outposts as soon as they appeared in Playford’s shop.

The series eventually grew to eighteen editions of the first volume (1651–1728), four of a second (1710–1728), and two of a third (1719?–1726?) and long out-lived its originator. The three volumes eventually encompassed 1,053 unique dances and their music. Many were copied from one edition to the next so that the entire contents, with duplicates, amounts to 6,217 dances, including 186 tunes without dances and 3 songs (Dunmore Kate, Mr. Lane’s Magot, and the Quaker Dance).

For this publication every dance was reduced to a code enabling comparison with similar dances. The unique or “Ur” dances were identified and collected into a database where each dance’s printing history and other information is summarized and a facsimile of the dance and its music is included. The Index presents every item by title with links to the Ur Dance Index. The Title/Link takes the reader to a bibliography of the sources. Searches can be made on all text entries as well as on the dance coding to find instances of specific dance figures in juxtaposition with others.

 Credit: http://www.izaak.unh.edu/nhltmd/indexes/dancingmaster/

 

    

 

The history of The Colonial Minstrels – see bio information. The Colonial Minstrels were formed officially in 2007, but have been together off and on for about eight years.