Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary

Charles Upton's Obsession

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

CHARLES UPTON'S OBSESSION (R6x32) 6C set Ann And Ian Jamieson Glen Orrin Collection 2

1- 8 1s+2s also 3s+4s also 5s+6s dance set and rotate:
 Set, rotate singly and dance on 1 place clockwise, change places RH on sides and dance on 1 place to own sides. 214365
9-12 Centre sets of 2 couples (1s+4s and 3s+6s) dance ½ LH across, end sets (2s+4s and 3s+5s) dance ½ RH flowing into...
13-16 ½ RSh reels of 3 on the sides 4s+2s+1s (4s pass 2s RSh to start) and 6s+5s+3s (3s pass 5s RSh to start) ending (1)(2)43(5)(6)
17-20 4L followed by partner casts up Ladies' side and crosses to 1st place opposite sides while 3M followed by partners casts down Men's side and crosses to 6th place opposite sides (all now on opposite sides)
21-24 Centre 4 couples chase clockwise ½ way while end dancers turn RH 1½ times. 465213
25-32 All circle 12H round and back. 465213

(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)


Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams


Dance Information

At a guess, this is a reference and tribute to the thousands of hours which must have been spent by Charles Upton in compiling over 4500 dances into a consistent format, MiniCrib.

It is important to recognize the huge debt owed by the Scottish Country Dancing community to Charles. Rarely does one now encounter a dance that is not included in MiniCrib; he welcomed dances for inclusion up to his retirement in December 2013, as now do his successors.

Before his database became available, there was no consistent, readily available set of dance instructions for most of the dances being regularly performed. RSCDS publications were consistent in style but covered fewer than 1000 dances. Availability of publications containing authoritative descriptions of even the most popular devisers' dances was haphazard in the extreme. The typical compiler of a dance programme usually had recourse only to dance cribs produced by other compilers for their own events; to avoid the risk of confusing the dancer with alternative terminology and abbreviations, s/he then had to reword these to be consistent in style.

Charles Upton's generous spirit echoes throughout Scottish Country Dance communities around the world.



Back to the top of this Scottish Country Dancing Instructions 'Charles Upton's Obsession' page