Winter Oranges
longways English Country Dance for three couples proper
Author: Carl Dreher, Nov. 2010
Tune: Winter Oranges, by Daron Douglas
Recording: Winter Oranges, Foxfire, 2010, Daron Douglas Music.
https://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/~winston/mydances/winter_oranges.jpg

Key G, Meter 6/8


A1 1-8 1st couple cross, cast off below 3rd couple, 
       dance up to second position and
       turn out to face nearest 2nd person. (W1 faces M2, M1 faces W2.) 
       2nd couple does not step up.


A2 1-4 Taking two hands, M1 push W2 out on a right diagonal, 
       then draw her back to 3rd position.
       .while.
       W1 similarly push M2 out and draw him back to 1st position
       .while.
       3rd couple wait two bars and then lead up to second position.

   5-8 All set and turn single.

B1 1-8 All circle six hands round left and back right.

B2 1-4 W1, followed by W3 and W2, cast off to 3rd place 
       to invert the woman's line.

   5-8 All right-shoulder gypsy with partner.

(Repeat 3x).

While listening to Daron's tune on the Foxfire CD of the same name, I started
dancing around our living room. The first sixteen bars almost wrote themselves.
The B-music section was quite a struggle since the A-music leaves the dancers
in a choreographically awkward spot. After hours of trying increasingly more
complicated solutions, it came to me that simply inverting the woman's line
brings everyone back to their partner and in progressed places. Once again, I
put on the music, dance what I had written so far and the final gypsy figure
just magically wrote itself. This is a delightfully simple dance that perfectly
fits Daron's light-hearted jig. There are many opportunities for frivolous
flirtation, especially when the women leave the men in B2 1-4 and then rejoin
their partner for the gypsy. The dance flows beautifully from the turn single
at the end of A2 into the circle at the beginning of B1, from the right circle
at the end of B1 into the ladies' cast at the beginning of A2, and from the
final gypsy to the 1st couple cross at the beginning.