Kelly's Reel
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
Kelly's Reel A thirty-two bar Jig for sets of three couples in a circle round the room, devised by John W Mitchell, Published in Whetherly Book 2.All the men facing clockwise and all the ladies facing anticlockwise. The dancers are numbered from left to right in each line, thus first man is on the outside of the circle facing third lady and third man is on the inside facing first lady,
1- 6 Reels of three, first and second in each line pass by the right shoulder to start.
7- 8 First and second in each line continue to pass by the right shoulder, to finish with ones facing out and twos facing in, in first place.
9-16 Seconds and thirds dance rights and lefts, each man giving right hand to the opposite lady to start. At the same time firsts dance a figure of eight round their own line, thus casting round third place, they dance back into second place, then cast round first place to meet and turn left hand to finish back to back facing their first corners (original seconds in first place).
17-24 Firsts turn first corner (seconds) with the right hand, each other with the left hand three quarters round; fourth corners (thirds) with the right hand and cross back to second place on opposite side giving left hand.
25-28 Firsts dance half rights and lefts with their first corners (seconds), seconds do not complete the polite turn but finish facing out.
29-32 Firsts dance half rights and lefts with their second corners (thirds), thirds finish with a polite turn so that firsts and thirds finish facing out.
Each line now has its backs to the line it was previously facing; men are still facing clockwise. Original thirds are in first place.
Repeat with new partners to continue round the room.
Alternative
A variation on the dance, which may appeal to some more advanced groups, is for the first couples to dance a standard "turn corners and partner" to finish between their corners instead of on their own side. If this is done all first couples change their direction of progression, and after six times through all will be back in their original places with their original partners.
(Dance crib reproduced from The Whetherly Book of Scottish Country Dances, revised and republished by Alison Mitchell)
Keith Rose's Crib Diagram
Published in The Whetherly Book Of Scottish Country Dances Number 2, by John W Mitchell, revised and republished by Alison Mitchell. Instructions reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-ND 4.0).
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