ABSTRACT
The New Almain is processional dance with newer, figured elements, and it is described in the same simple and direct language as the other measures in the manuscripts. The New Almain, unlike the Old, is not built upon strains of four or eight bars throughout. After the four Almain Doubles and two set-and-turn-single motions, a slightly more complicated third section of choreography is introduced in the time of two six-bar phrases. Why the New Almain should have suffered the same fate as the much plainer Lorayne Almain and Brunswick, in being dropped from all later sources, is uncertain: performers must decide for themselves whether it is quite as attractive as the Old, Cecilia and Black Almains which more ably withstood the test of time. The first, Mainards Allmaine, is for those who wish to interpret it in country-dance style, possibly without Almain Doubles, though there is no evidence that this dance was ever so performed.
