BACKGROUND INFORMATION Informant
Arthur Biddick, Goonhavern, December 1982 The tune for this dance was collected from a fiddler called William Hocken by Richard Dimbleby whilst recording at the Wellington Hotel Boscastle in October 1943 (BBC Sound Archives). Arthur Biddick, a native of Boscastle, confirmed the tune and taught us the dance in December 1982. Arthur quite strongly associated the tune with the Boscastle Breakdowns insisting that the tune for the latter could also be used for the Four Hand Reel, if played at the right speed. Although one is a fast reel and the other a hornpipe it can be seen that the two are related. William Hocking plays the tune at a fair old lick and Arthur encouraged us to maintain a good speed with the dance. Certainly the speed of the music is critical the smooth flow of the dance although I am not sure we ever danced as fast as Arthur would have liked. The steps are really the feature of this dance, the actual figure of a reel for four people cannot vary much whether it be the Scottish Four hand reel or the Dorset Four hand. DANCE NOTATION Formation
Couples stand in line, ladies back to back in the centre facing their partners. This is the simplest way of describing the formation in this text but any mixture of sexes is correct as the dance was collected. Steps
The basic travelling step for this dance is as follows: Hop on left foot whilst crossing right foot over left and kicking forward, to bring back right beside left to land together. As the right foot kicks forward it should scoot, ie make brushing and noisy contact with the floor. This should be done simultaneously with the left foot hitting the floor after the hop. This happens on the first beat of the bar so that crossing the foot over and the first part of the hop is effectively like a leading note to the tune. Repeat for the next step but hop on right foot and cross left foot over and so on. Bars 1 8
Couples 'dosi do' (back to back) taking four steps forward, using the following step: 9 16
All reel, carrying on one place to partners place and turn to face partner using above step throughout. This reel is very fast and must therefore be as narrow as possible ( not like the three hand reel's wide sweeps). 17 24
All take four steps (as above) to right and set as follows: Step on to left foot, shuffle right foot forward and back on ball of foot.
Step on right foot shuffle left
Step on left foot shuffle right
Step on right foot shuffle left
Step on left foot, shuffle right
Step on right foot, shuffle left
Step on left foot, shuffle right
Stamp right then left foot 25 32
Leading with left foot all take four steps to left and repeat step/shuffle pattern as above. 33 40
Repeat 1 8 41 48
Repeat 9 16 49 56
Repeat 17 24 57 64
Repeat 25 32 TUNE/SONG Detailed information about the origins of the tune suggested for Four Hand Reel in the Background Information section. The tune is displayed as collected, with additional parts by Merv Davey (parts 'C' and 'D').
