If you've never danced a triple minor contra dance before, you will need the following information to dance one successfully.

1. Start by taking hands six from the top, and identify couples one, two and three.
2. Just as in duple contras, the ones remain ones until they reach the bottom of the set. However...
3. The twos and threes swap roles each time. As the actives progress past couple two, they (the original twos) become the new couple three in the group above. Meanwhile the original couple three has now advanced to the couple two role with the same actives.
4. A couple that reaches the top must wait out two turns in order to accumulate a complete group of six. Don't start out early; spend a little extra time appreciating your musicians!
5. A group of only four dancers at the bottom has the opposite obligation. They should dance with a ghost third couple, so that the twos can progress up past the ones. Otherwise some poor souls could end up stuck at the bottom for a long time.

Genet's Recall
Triple proper (rules for triple minors)

A1	Actives down the outside and back
A2	Cross over, go down the outside past one couple and swing the next
B1	Actives swing partner in the center Come up the hall and cast off with couple 2
B2	Right and left through, over and back

Triple minor dances allow for a variety of choreographic possibilities that are not found in duple minor dances. Triple minor geometry is responsible for giving us contra corners, that most glorious of all contra dance figures. Flowing movements abound that move the active couple between their threes and their twos, including stars that shift up and down and heys-for-3. Triple minors also permit dramatic changes in the orientation of the minor set from partners facing across the hall to three facing three up and down.

However, the mathematics of triple minors has also worked against their popularity. Having twice as many "inactives" as "actives" seems like a liability in a dance culture that has come to value dances where everyone is active all the time. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend bucking this trend and including at least an occasional triple minor dance in your dance repertoire. Adding triple minors into a program offers variety, creating a richer texture of dance pacing and geometry, and different sorts of challenges for dancers. Look for triple minor dances with interesting supportive roles for the twos and threes. Part of the fun of being an inactive is to try to stay on top of two different roles instead of one.

Genet's Recall, which Ralph Page found in a 1799 manuscript and dusted off for us, has many features that make it a good dance to introduce triple minors to a group for the first time. The roles of the twos and threes are very distinctive (twos do the right and left, and threes get a swing). Also, only the actives are moving at the beginning, which makes it easy to establish who is in the new minor set.

As in many classic dances, it can be easy for modern dancers to either get ahead of or lag behind the phrase. You may find that many active dancers will go down the outside in 8 counts, return and cross the set in 8 more, thereby reaching couple #3 for the swing in just 4 more counts, which allows the first swing to be 12 counts long. While this adaptation is probably not what early nineteenth century Yankees would have done, neither is the buzz-step swing, and in this instance an "eager" interpretation of the timing does little harm to the storyline of the dance and does not have to be discouraged. On the other hand, the caller will probably need to prompt "up the center" in B1 a few more times than usual, to cue the actives to end their 8-count swing in time. Dancers may also benefit from a reminder that a right and left is four steps to cross, and four more for a leisurely turn on the other side; use the time to acknowledge your neighbor before moving on to the next dancers.

There is some question about the side from which the active dancer should approach the third dancer for their swing. We would suggest that it might not be a matter of confusion so much as one of convenience. The active gent should go past and around the third dancer to initiate the clockwise motion of the swing. However, the active lady can cut into the set just before that person--for the same reason.

The excitement for the actives comes from being delivered with perfect synchrony from their neighbor swing into a partner swing in the middle. Go for the smoothest of transitions!

Many triple minor dances have been successfully adapted into duple minor dances. The best known of these is, of course, Chorus Jig. Changing a dance from triple to duple often makes for a very busy number two role that combines the work of both twos and threes in the original. Genet's Recall can definitely be danced this way as well. Indeed, Ralph Page wrote in Northern Junket (Vol. 8, #6, October 1965), "This is even better as a duple minor with every other couple active." In this case the twos would swing with their "future" neighbors, and then cast off with their current neighbors.

Unlike many chestnuts, no particular tune has come to be associated with Genet's Recall. Who knows? If you dance it often, perhaps you will discover a tune that is a perfect fit and create such an association for a future generation of dancers.