English Day in LSF - English Country Dance

Pupils of 6th are dancing Jack's Health the configuration of which is known as a duple minor longways set, probably the most common English Country Dance configuration.

English Country Dance is a form of social folk dance which originated in Renaissance England, and was popular until the early 19th century in parts of Europe, the American colonies and the United States. It is the ancestor of several other folk dances, including contra and square dance. English country dance was revived in the early 20th century as a part of the larger English folk revival, and is practiced today primarily in North America and Britain.

The choreography dictates the interactions between partners and between couples in a set. A set is a group of couples, most commonly two or three, but sometimes four, that interact during a single progression. Rarely, dances call for five or six couples in a set. Most commonly, English country dances are longways and progressive. Multiple sets of couples form two long lines, along which couples travel at the end of each iteration of figures, meeting new couples and repeating the series of figures many times. Alternately, dances can be finite, a set forming an independent unit within which the series of figures are repeated a limited number of times. These dances are often non-progressive, each couple retaining their original positions in decades they are performed.

                                                            Choreography by Sara, Cristina and Miguel.