Folk Culture

The dance is in reel-time, and any good Irish reel will do for it. The selection given here is “The Wind that Shakes the Barley.” It is suggested that for this dance (as well as for all the other Irish dances given) the musician should change off from one reel tune to another occasionally to give variety, as the continuous repetition of one short selection would become monotonous. The music is in two parts, A consisting of eight measures and B of eight measures repeated.

THE STEPS
Promenade Step and Side Step
For description of these see the introductory text of “The Siege of Ennis,” where the steps are explained in detail.

FORMATION
The dancers form in sets of two couples each. In all diagrams the circle is a woman, and the square is a man.

THE DANCE
“Lead Up” and “Retire”
A. (Meas. 1-4) In each set the two couples “lead up” toward each other and “retire” as described in the first figure of “The Siege of Ennis.”
“Side Step Across”
(Meas. 5-6) The two women in each set cross to each other’s places, using the “side step” to the right, passing each other face to face. (In this side step they do the “seven” only, omitting the “threes.” For description of the steps see the introductory text of “The Siege of Ennis.”) (Meas. 7-8) The two men cross to each other’s places in the same manner, but using the “side step” to the left.
The two couples are now in exchanged positions, which they keep during the remainder of the dance.
“Side Step Out and Back”
B. (Meas. 9-10) Each man joins crossed hands with the opposite woman and dances a “seven” with her out to the side, away from his own partner.
In doing this, the man and the opposite woman remain face to face as they move sideward to his left.
(Meas. 11-12) With two “threes” they swing half around in place.
(Meas. 13-16) They return with the side step in the opposite direction and swing half way around in place, finishing in the same exchanged position as before.
“Swing Partners and Progress”
B. (Meas. 9-16) Partners face each other, join both hands and, with promenade steps, swing each other around, revolving to the right and at the same time moving once around the set in the opposite direction to the hands of the clock.
The couples finish in their same exchanged places, but back to back.
In this way every odd couple has moved one place down toward the foot (B) and every even couple one place higher toward the head (A).
The couple at each end turns around and they stand ready to dance again. This brings each couple (except the couple at either end) facing a new couple, with whom they repeat the dance.

The dance is continued in this manner, each couple progressing one place farther in the same direction each time and dancing with a new couple. When a couple reaches the head (or foot), they turn around and face down (or up) the room and stand idle during one repetition of the dance, then begin dancing with the couple approaching them.