The Waters of Holland

In his introduction to New Wine in Old Bottles (published 50 years ago this year), Pat Shaw writes of the dances in the collection, "Nearly all ... are influenced by the work of the English dancing masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. I have used most of the movements that were then current but have embroidered and extended them. For example, the usual Playford 'formula movements' of leading, siding, and arming will be found in most of the set dances, but seldom in their original forms." This inventiveness is evident in the 3-couple set dance in this video, The Waters of Holland (the second version). The leading figure is up a double and back, following the usual practice, but then down a double and back in the A2 of Part I. Fried Herman was fond of teaching this dance, always with a crossed-hands, pivot swing as part of the chorus, something that many other dance communities have replaced with a simple 2-hand turn. Fried's version is so much fun and, it turns out, comports with Pat's original vision. As the editors of the 1996 edition of New Wine in Old Bottles observe in a footnote, "In the original, a pivot swing was specified for B1 bars 5-8 and B2 bars 5-8...." Fried would have the band take the first tune 3x rather slowly (something like 97 bps) and then move straight to the second tune at a vigorous clip (maybe 108 bps). The contrast was wonderful and routinely elicited a roar of approval. The first tune in Dutch is O Nederland, let op U saeck, which translates roughly as Netherlanders, pull up thy sox! The lively second tune expresses the joy implicit in its title: Die winter is vergangen or The winter is over. Speaking of joy, we dancers had a wonderful time doing Fried's version for the camera, as she learned it from Pat, and how could we not: The music provided by Robin Russell, Matthew Christian, and Helen White was irresistible.