| *Title: | Virginia Reel |
| Type of Video: | dance |
| Performer: | Bush Dance & Music Club of Bendigo |
| Submitted by: | admin |
| Posted on: | Oct. 11, 2022, 12:22 a.m. |
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Description:
The Virginia Reel is an American version of the English country dance ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’, rearranged so that all couples and dancing at once instead of the standing out time of Sir Roger where only the active top and bottom dancers are performing the figure on the diagonal.
It is recorded by Duke Tritton as being danced in Australia on lawns at parties during the 1890s although overall it doesn’t appear to have really taken on until both the Scottish Country Dance revival and that in the ‘bush dance scene’ of the 1960s and 70s. It was also introduced in primary schools as a folk dance via the National Fitness Movement post World War 2.
In the American version it is frequently danced to all reels, but Australia tends to follow the Scottish version where the music changes from 2-4 to a 6-8 jig for the Strip the Willow in the second section, followed by a 4-4 march for the cast off.
Video footage by dancers and friends of Bush Dance & Music Club of Bendigo, directed by Peter Ellis at Sedgwick, Victoria Australia, October 2014.