Top Couple
The Top couple in Scottish Country Dancing is the Couple nearest The music in either a Longwise set or a Circular set but not in a Round the room set where the concept has no significance. The term applies only at a specified time; as soon as a Couple moves from that Place, they lose that identification to whichever Couple replaces them.The term can be particularly useful in dance instructions to identify that Couple correctly after a succession of Figures may have left an unexpected Couple in Top Place and the reader a little confused. More commonly, it is used to assign each Couple's number in The set:
1st couple of the Full set is the Top couple at the beginning of the dance;
1st couple of the Active set is the Top couple at the beginning of the Repeat.
Here are examples of those Scottish Country Dances for which we have instructions on this site and in which the term, Top couple, either appears explicitly or is implied; note that for a common term these will be a small selection; for a rare term, these may be all that exist:
Anniversary Tensome
Baldovan Reel
Cuillins Of Skye
Toll House
Links To Pages Related To 'Dancers'
Set StructureAdditional search terms: Top cpl.
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