Mrs Garden Of Troup
Scottish Country Dance Instruction
Mrs Garden of Troup A forty-eight bar Strathspey for two couples in a circle round the room, each man with his partner on his right, facing another couple, devised by John W Mitchell, Published in Whetherly Book 2.1- 4 First and second couples dance right hands across in a wheel.
5- 8 The ladies retain right hands and the men cast into their partners original places to commence dancing a half ladies' chain. At the end of the half chain, the ladies finish in the centre.
9-16 The ladies pass by the right shoulder and continue to pass their partner by the left shoulder to commence a left shoulder reel of four. At the end of the reel the ladies dance out into each others original places, moving anticlockwise as the men dance into their original places.
17-20 Continuing to dance anticlockwise, they dance left hands across in a wheel.
21-24 Men retain left hands and the ladies cast clockwise to commence dancing a men's half chain. At the end the men finish in the centre ready to pass left shoulder.
25-32 Men pass left shoulder and continue to pass the opposite lady by the right shoulder to commence a reel of four. At the end of the reel the men dance out into the opposite man's original place as their partners follow them out into the opposite ladies original place.
33-40 Continuing to move in a clockwise direction the two couples dance four hands round in a circle to the left and back to the right.
41-44 Join nearer hand with partner, both couples set and link to finish each man with his partner on his left.
45-46 First man with second lady and first lady with second man turn with both hands once round.
47 Releasing hands, each dancer turns clockwise half way round on the spot to finish back to back with the person who they have just turned.
48 Joining nearer hand with own partner (lady now on her partner's right) advance for one step to meet the next round the circle. All have thus progressed one place in the direction in which they were originally facing.
Repeat with new couple from new positions.
(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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