British Sorrow
Triple proper (rules for triple minors)

A1	Actives down the outside past two standing couples, go into the center Come up the center and cast off with couple 2
A2	Right-hand star with the couple below (couples 1 and 3) Left-hand star with the couple above (couples 1 and 2)
B1	All six, circle right all the way around
B2	Top four (couples 1 and 2), right and left through, over and back

Among the many other gifts that Ralph Page left us is the beautifully flowing dance British Sorrow, which he unearthed from an old dance manuscript and re-popularized in the 1950s. It probably had not been danced for well over a century before that time. At different times Page offered two sources for the dance: the "Otsego" manuscript, published in 1808, which he found in the American Antiquarian Society building in Worcester, MA ("A Select Collection of the Newest and Most Favorite Country Dances, Waltzes, Reels & Cotillions as Performed at Court and All Grand Assemblies, Comprising Upwards of 350 Figures"), and "Saltator's" manuscript, dated 1807, which he found in the Harvard University Library in Cambridge, MA ("A Treatise on Dancing: and on Various Other Matters which are connected With That Accomplishment").

British Sorrow does not have a particular tune associated with it, and can work well with many sorts of music. It is commonly danced to elegant tunes in a march rhythm (for example, Down the Brae or O'Donal Abhu). We have also found it to be a captivatingly hypnotic dance when done to smooth jigs.

Remember the rules for triple minor dances! Ones remain ones, but twos and threes alternate roles. At the top of the set wait until there are two standing couples below you before becoming active. And, at the bottom, dance with a ghost couple if necessary so that the ones progress past the twos.

We will not insist on a hands-across star in A2 if your local dancers resist the idea, but it is probably more historically accurate and works superbly for moving from one star to another. Rather than organizing wrist grips, simply take hands with the person diagonally opposite you in each star. Hands-across stars are simple to enter and exit, and add to the feeling that British Sorrow can create of being carried along in an inevitable, but oh so satisfying, current of dance.

Lady #1 has an important role at the end of A2. In order for everyone to be in the correct place as the stars melt into the circle, she must be sure to get all the way around in the left-hand star and fall back into place between the two other ladies and opposite her partner. It may help if lady #1 and gent #2 finish the left-hand star by pushing gently off each other's hands to propel one another into their correct positions in the circle. Circling to the right flows exquisitely out of that left-hand star.

British Sorrow is sweetest when dancers are able to vary the speed at which they move in order to stay with the musical phrase. Getting through the two stars in time requires moving purposefully and without hesitation. By contrast both the circle six and the final rights and lefts will benefit if care is taken not to rush. Make the circle big, round and elegant, and consider where you want to be at the halfway point of the musical phrase. Make sure that the rights and lefts happen in four groups of 4 steps each: four steps to cross the set, four more to turn around with your same sex neighbor on the other side; and the same to return. When the dance was first published in the early nineteenth century, rights and lefts would have resembled "four changes" in an English Country dance, or a "square through" in American square dancing. In his Heritage Dances of Early America (1976), Ralph Page suggests the following no-hands styling: "The two couples pass through, passing partners right shoulder to right shoulder, 4 steps; the two men and the two ladies turn as couples with the active lady and the inactive man holding the pivot as they back around in place to face the center in 4 steps; again the two couples pass through as before 4 steps; as before they turn as couples to face the center of the set in 4 steps." The right and left four done this old-fashioned way with no touching, but clear psychic contact of all four dancers throughout, can have great charm and appeal. However, an arm around or other physical guidance is sometimes helpful to dancers who are disoriented, or just wish to connect like that.

This discussion about style points brings up an important issue with regard to dancing chestnuts. One of our hopes in presenting this column is to encourage dancing with both style and grace. Style requires attention to timing, posture, connection, transitions, and so forth. Grace requires that all of this happen with an accepting attitude that is neither rigid nor exclusive. We recognize that many of us at times can become so attached to our favorite dance moments and movements that we become overzealous in promoting particular style points, and thereby temporarily lose sight of the need to be gracious as well. However, we believe that it is a mistake to attribute this phenomenon to anything about the chestnut repertoire, as sometimes happens. The same sort of lapse can occur within any dance idiom, not just with our favorite classic contras. Those of us who love older dances and care about style can remind ourselves to take a positive approach to fostering satisfying dancing, namely to think of style choices as opportunities, not as requirements. One value of many of the chestnuts is that they offer a wide range of opportunities for dancing with both style and grace. British Sorrow is an excellent (and elegant!) example of this.