Irish set dance
Irish set dance, sometimes called "country sets", is a popular form of folk dancing in Ireland. Set dances are based on quadrilles, which were court dances. These were transformed by the Irish into a unique folk dance of the Irish rural communities. Promotion of Céilí dance during the 1930s and 1940s (abetted by the Public Dance Halls Act of 1935), and the rise of rock and roll in the 1950s caused the popularity of set dancing to fade. However in the 1980s a revival started and many sets that have not been done for forty years or more are being recovered and danced again.
The Set
To start, four couples are arranged in the form of a square to dance with each couple being in the middle of the sides of the square. Both the eight dancers in the group and the dance itself are called a "set". The dance is a sequence of several dance figures, which usually have a common theme or structure. The figures usually begin and end with repeated parts that everyone dances, and then during the figure each couple or pair of couples will dance separately. In the set, the couple with their backs to the band are traditionally named "First Tops" with "Second Tops" facing them. The couple on First Tops left hand side is called "First Sides" with "Second Sides" facing. Usually the First Tops are the first to dance, with some sets having First Sides and then Second Tops going next and some having Second Tops and then the First Sides. Second Sides is almost always the last couple to dance, and is therefore a good place for beginners to start, as they get more time to watch the demonstrations of the figure that the other couples give.
Country dance
A country dance is any of a large number of social dances of the British Isles in which couples dance together in a figure or "set", each dancer dancing to his or her partner and each couple dancing to the other couples in the set. A set consists most commonly of two or three couples, sometimes four and rarely five or six. Often dancers follow a "caller" who names each change in the figures.
Introduced to France and then Germany and Italy in the course of the 17th century, country dances gave rise to the contradanse, one of the significant dance forms in classical music. Introduced to America by English immigrants, it remains popular in the United States of America as contra dance and had great influence upon Latin American music as contradanza. The Anglais (from the French word meaning "English") or Angloise is another term for the English country dance. A Scottish country dance may be termed an Ecossaise. Irish set dance is also related.
Characteristics
The term "country dance" may refer to any of a large number of figure-dances that originated on village greens. The term applies to dances in line formation, circle dances, square dances and even triangular sets for three couples.
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