'English Country Dances', Please

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:55 AM

The Worth Abbey Lay Community now exists as the Lay Community of Saint Benedict and has a website at:

http://www.laybenedictines.org/

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: GUEST,JM
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:54 AM

And further to what Sedayne wrote above, WAV, this is why you are a racist whether you believe yourself to be one or not.

'Racism' means to discriminate on the grounds of race (and not the rather fuzzy definition you offered recently). By telling people that they should or should not do things based purely on where they were born is a patently un-helpful, flawed and (yes...) racist thing to do. I do not choose to dance Morris or play English tunes, or eat roast dinner because of where I was born. I do these things because a) my best friends dance with me and I like their company and going to places to do something together, b) I like the tunes and c) it tastes nice and is a pleasant thing to do with your family and friends on a Sunday.

Unlike some posters on this thread, I don't care that you spent your formative years in Australia - you are welcome here and I am genuinely pleased that you want to take an interest in English traditions, but you have massively misunderstood the motivation behind them.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:50 AM

They were all Benedictine Monks, WAV - my wife being part of the Lay Community at the time, abiding by The Rule of St. Benedict, which involved getting up at 5am in the freezing dark for Matins, in which we chanted psalms to Gelineau tones to, quite often, zither accompaniment! We're not involved with the Lay Community now though, but it does still exist, replete, I believe, with plenty of good Roman Catholic single females...

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:43 AM

Actually, I'm even less English than WAV, though I've lived in England a bit longer (and I know that practice and practise are both correct, albeit with different meanings). I love England in all its diversity, while still appreciating its traditions.

I'm a real life immigrant, you see. And WAV thinks I ought to go back where I came from.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:36 AM

as an Englishman is not a Swede

And neither, with respect, WAV, is a naturalised Australian who has only lived in in England since 1993 in any sense an Englishman. You demonstrate this by your persistent failure to pick up on the subtler cultural nuances which to the rest of us are English as Ceilidhs, King Prawn Chow Mein, Bhangra, hip-hop, Mosques, and Polish puddings in Leeds market. You also demonstrate it by by your self-imposed cultural pedantry by which you seek to objectify your own subjective perceptions, no matter how misguided these perceptions have been proved to be.

The pedant laments things for not being as they ought to be, the pragmatist appreciates things for being as they are. Things were never any different, WAV - and the only thing you're really demonstrating here is just how little you've learned about us in the last 15 years.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:31 AM

Pardon my French, Sedayne, but would one of your good-wife's monkish-friends happen to be a good single-female sort?
If I see a flyer for, or a little birdie tells me of, an English country dance night, I may go and watch, RA.
(And at least we're all remembering to spell practiSe the proper English way.)

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:09 AM

"but it's also good to PRACTISE your own."

but as you have no idea what happens at an English celidh, you don't know what's being practised there. English culture IS practised at English ceilidhs, so the people who go to them are engaging with and celebrating English culture, regardless of what the event is called. You, on the other hand, are NOT engaging with one of the most dynamic and thriving aspects of the contemporary English folk scene just because you disagree with the name.

Maybe you ought to PRACTISE what you preach.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:08 AM

cooking a roast

A vegetarian roast I would hope, WAV! Ask Phil about Steve's roast dragons which were (are?) very much part of their traditional Xmas fare, along with Jinglebrass & the rest of it... I missed out on this the year Steve & I were sharing a flat at Brancepeth Castle owing to my decamping down to Worth Abbey to spend Christmas with my Benedictine girlfriend (now my wife) & her monkish friends.

Otherwise - lots of twitchers here in Granny's Bay as a rule; we had a visiting Ross's Gull resident in the estuary for a month or so. I always ask them what the excitement's about & somehow manage to get excited about it myself even though I know SFA about it.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:00 AM

To RA: there should be no such thing as an English ceilidh - let the Scots have their ceilidhs, and the Irish their ceilis...does an American line-dancing night ever get called a ceilidh? It's good to APPRECIATE the cultures of other nations - but it's also good to PRACTISE your own. Accordingly, Volgadon, I have appreciated some Swedish tunes from visiting Swedes at the Hexham Gathering, last year...but I would never try and learn them, as an Englishman is not a Swede.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 29 May 08 - 05:29 AM

So you don't even know what happens at an ENGLISH ceilidh, WAV - but you're still going to decide what it should be called.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 29 May 08 - 05:27 AM

So, it's ok for someone to, say, play a Swedish tune if they like it? English culture isn't threatened?

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 29 May 08 - 05:24 AM

I said I've never been to anything advertised as a ceilidh in England - but I do have some idea what goes on at a proper ceilidh, as I've heard one on Scottish BBC radio: Scots and tourists gather to hear a short story or two, the recitation of verses, Scottish tunes, Scottish dancing, a song or two, etc.
"It strikes me that WAV, by not dancing, is just as guilty of not practising an aspect of his culture as is someone who chooses to play a Swedish tune......."...if I had the time and the energy, Volgadon, to add English dances to my English folk repertoire, there would still be stick-dressing, pipe-making, watercolours, oils, sketching, cooking a roast, pigeon fancying, leek growing, twitching, treading the boards...spare my days, woman!

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 May 08 - 04:57 AM

Might this be of any relevance here I wonder? Nabbed from another thread I admit, but it occurred to me that such deliberate departures from what most of us might accept as being traditional are in themselves interesting if only so we might see our own personal myths about such things reflected therein. Personally I blame The Wicker Man which seems to have become a pamphlet for all manner of such bogus nonsense, but entertaining in itself of course as the only Horror Folk Musical, no matter how disjointed the folk elements might be. So what's new there I wonder?

Nowt to do with ECD as such, though one might ponder the May Pole itself, once such as essential feature of ECDing at school, however so sanitised from its original (gulp!) phallic significance. And for those who haven't seen it, or would like to see it again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSvJgRSiJSM

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 29 May 08 - 04:08 AM

It strikes me that WAV, by not dancing, is just as guilty of not practising an aspect of his culture as is someone who chooses to play a Swedish tune.......

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 May 08 - 09:51 PM

Good for you Mate !! And thats for BOTH the last two posts

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 May 08 - 08:22 PM

I've never done this before, but 200 up!

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 May 08 - 07:59 PM

Oh, nearly forgot, table tennis results because WAV thinks, " I'd rather females play table-tennis, as lawn tennis puts too much strain on the racket-arm." Funny, neither of the Williams sisters has much of a problem with that.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 May 08 - 06:57 PM

What goes on at a ceilidh? From what I've heard, it's something to do with dancing in stilettoes in the snow. Sounds decidedly impractical.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 May 08 - 06:43 PM

Shoestrings, irishenglish. You forgot the many conversations about shoestrings.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 May 08 - 06:37 PM

Actually at a ceilidh everyone talks about their degrees in this or that, the UN, eco-tourism, Mudcat, and everyone dances to En...er...Iri....no...Scot..no, thats not right,....Welsh...well they really don't have dance music now do they...Cajun, no they call there's something else...wait...I've got it-they dance to Afroindianspanishjapanesechileanfrenchnorwegianmalaysian funkjazzsoultrancehip-hop. with a little bit of traditional music too.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Nick
Date: 28 May 08 - 06:34 PM

I think this one's better than my previous effort and captures something of the angst of an Englishman with culture venturing into foreign parts with an open mind and a sense of adventure.

I call this one "Wednesday"

On Wednesday by way of a contrast
I Easyjot* to Biarritz
But to me - and it may be a cultural thing -
They just don't seem to make proper chips

Still the weather seems better than Huddersfield
And I thought that I'd stay for a while
But their lack of a cuisine that tickles my buds
Made the whole thing a bit of a trial

So I came home


* If Stavros tries to sue me and Mudcat for trademark infringement I am sorry

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Howard Jones
Date: 28 May 08 - 06:21 PM

So tell me, WAV, as you've never been to a ceilidh, what do you imagine goes on at them?

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: GUEST,JM
Date: 28 May 08 - 06:20 PM

Got it!

Walkaboutsverse. You are Robin Cooper and I claim my five pounds...

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:32 PM

and "Jimmy Allen", e.g.

I play Jimmy Allen on pipe & tabor; next time you're in Durham check out the cell where he died - it's now a tapas bar called Jimmy Allen's under the dry arches of Elvet Bridge by the boathouse, at least it was the last time I was passing. He was also a distant relative of mine, a horse thief, womaniser, ne'er-do-well, and a fine piper who reportedly absorbed the influences of the music he heard in the various countries he travelled through, including India...

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:24 PM

You also don't respond to questions, me thinks your silence to my queries has been because you can't.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Def Shepard
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:20 PM

You have no point other than to constantly quote your dead Godmother as an academic source. It won't do, it really won't do.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:19 PM

WalkaboutsHearse, get it into your head that you are talking cobblers. It's rich for someone who doesn't dance to make demands of the dancers, especially when he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's been shown that the events were NEVER called ECDs.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:17 PM

I've written a poem too!

Well, I've written most of it. I could actually do with a bit of help with the ending, if anyone's interested. Just the very last bit.

Well, I say the last bit. Actually the middle could probably do with a bit of work, if anyone wants to chip in.

Actually I've just got the first line. But it's very good.

Here goes:

One evening, while posting on Mudcat

Good eh? Four more lines and I've nailed it.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:15 PM

"Your point is what in this regard?" DS...see above (not far).
"You know what, WAV, it's time for you to actually participate in some social dancing, you do need to get out of the house more"... Today, as well as jobearching, myspace, and posting here, Shepard, I was in the audience for the Newcastle Uni. stundents' final recitals, at The Sage, Gateshead. And what if I participate in the other facets of folk and just watch the dancing, Shepard/Volgamum?!

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Def Shepard
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:03 PM

Look, let me say this ONCE more, your late Godmother wasn't the only one to do country dancing in school. There are those of us of a certain age who also did it. Your point is what in this regard? I think it's also been pointed out that your late Godmother (late for what? :-D) is not an academic source. These figures you're bandying about are totally meaningless.

You know what, WAV, it's time for you to actually participate in some social dancing, you do need to get out of the house more .

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 May 08 - 04:52 PM

Fine, that's just a little humour, but now address some of the other points I have posed to you.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 28 May 08 - 04:51 PM

Yes, but your original point, that the event should be called an English country dance, is ridiculous. Judging by how you've quoted her, that's not what your late godmother ment either. Can't you be satisfied that people are dancing, having fun, in a good productive way, no matter where the dance originates from? Besides, people are dancing ECD, and it is really rich for you, who doesn't dance, to make pronouncements upon it.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 May 08 - 04:47 PM

To DS and IE: I said above "mostly/all" English dances/tunes and I'll stop whinging, and "that my late Godmother told me that at her English school they did learn one or two Scottish dances, BUT at least 90% of what they danced was, indeed, English". I stand by that.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Def Shepard
Date: 28 May 08 - 04:26 PM

I give up, Scottish dancing in Durham, well there goes the neighbourhood, as an American friend of mine constantly says, and with very good reason.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 May 08 - 04:23 PM

Scottish dancing in Durham, what were they thinking?!

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 May 08 - 04:19 PM

The dancing I've seen at the festivals of Durham and Northumberland was English and Scottish, mostly - I'm not sure of the percentages (off the top of my head, callers mentioned "The Dashing White Sergent" and "Jimmy Allen", e.g.). And, in anticipation, no - so far I only introduce the tunes of the above-mentioned songs on my tenor-recorder.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Def Shepard
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:53 PM

Ahhh..thank you, that clears that up, well not really.

At the moment I'm read a piece on English country dance (the form). The short essay, dated April 2004,by Colin Irwin, is to be found in the archives of fRoots magazine. In the paragraph I'm reading, Irwin wonders what Scan Tester. the fiddle and concertina player, and step dancer would have made of the resurgence of ceilidhs and social dances. Tester, I have to admit, I have only just discovered (I think I said somewhere that I'm still learning).

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:49 PM

Have a look at what? Please be a little more specific, because I don't want to wade through the website.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:47 PM

...So - if do-si-do - why not Ceilidh?

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:46 PM

We used to waste bandwidth in a number of really dumb ways but with shit of this ilk, the 'Cat is now plumbing new nadirs of deeply ridiculous bullshit. I couldn't imagine why this thread was of much interest as I'd read the somewhat sillyass opening post and assumed (my mistake) that most would get a laugh and move on. It never occurred to me that a serious conversation might ensue. 'Course its hard to see this crap as a serious conversation. But my fascination was so great that I read on and on and I am ashamed of myself as I would be if I watched races for the accidents.

WAV.....you're obviously some kind of pathetic fuckin' broke-dick jadrool with a large streak of ego-inflated bigotry.   Go have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. Barring that, I'd instead suggest that the rest of you take this entire sorry excuse for a thread topic right over to WAV's myspace blog and flood his bandwidth with this friggin' monkeyshit.

Just a thought..........

Spaw

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:41 PM

(and can recognise stars, arches, do-si-dos, swings, etc.)

Isn't do-si-do a French term finding its way into ECD via the American Barn Dance?

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:38 PM

It's UN eco-travel I think.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Def Shepard
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:29 PM

Actually I was wondering what Nepalese (or anyones elses) politics have to do with country dancing

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Nick
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:20 PM

You see I've been inspired to write

POEM

I went on the train on Tuesday
From Halifax back to Leeds
And saw a charm of chaffinches
Eating loads of seeds

To the west in the distance
The Pennines stroked the sky
And as I got further away from Manchester
The weather even dried.

(C) Me

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: irishenglish
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:16 PM

So WAV, answer my question. Following your logic, should English origin songs found in America, or Newfoundland, or wherever be sung by the inhabitants of those areas, or does that prevent our fine American music from being heard? Do your rules apply only to your England, or do you carry your theory to everywhere? Read my above post to see how flawed that is. By the way, little slow on the news about Nepal.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Def Shepard
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:15 PM

You see, WAV, there's another difference between you and I, I have the capability of being silly, it's part of who I am. Having said that, I have no faith, as you appear to do, in the UN, they really are rather useless, but what all this has to do with country/social dance/ and ceilidhs, I have no idea, and your extremely bad verse isn't helping any at all.

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:07 PM

P.S: I just heard that Nepal (great place to visit) has become a republic. Here's a toast to that...

Poem 23 of 230, walkaboutsverse.741.com: ABOVE EVEREST

When flying from Nepal to Thailand,
    I was given a "good-side" seat;
And, as I looked out the plane window,
    The view I saw was really neat.

For breaking through a thick sheet of cloud
    Were the high Himalayan peaks;
And, rising the highest of them all,
    Mount Everest - heaven bespeaks!

(C) David Franks 2003

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 May 08 - 03:07 PM

"I've never danced - I won't attend anything in England advertised as a ceilidh (maybe if I vist Scotland I will), but have enjoyed listening to and watching the dancing at festivals in Durham and Northumberland (and can recognise stars, arches, do-si-dos, swings, etc.)."

So you've never been to an English Ceilidh, you don't dance yourself, but you're still going to not only try and define it, but also dictate to the many participants and bands out there about what they ought to be calling it.

Plus ca change...

PS - So what is this dancing you're watching at festivals in Durham and Northumberland?

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 May 08 - 02:59 PM

To DS and Volgadon: have a look, instead of being silly.
To Phil: I do participate and know about 50 English songs, chants, and hymns, just about by heart (see RECORD OF REPERTOIRE, on above link, if you like). I've never danced - I won't attend anything in England advertised as a ceilidh (maybe if I vist Scotland I will), but have enjoyed listening to and watching the dancing at festivals in Durham and Northumberland (and can recognise stars, arches, do-si-dos, swings, etc.).
To Cushie - I don't want Geordie nor Cornish independence (in this case I DO like the status quo, and am NOT whinging!).

Subject: RE: 'English Country Dances', Please
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 May 08 - 02:50 PM

No, WAV, because English country dance already means something ELSE(when I clicked on this thread I didn't realise it was another of your crackpot meanderings, I actually thought it was going to be about English country dance tunes). E-ceilidh is one thing, and English country dances, as done by social dancers, is something else entirely.

I repeat my question: have you attended any E-ceilidhs? Social dances? D4D? Do you dance at all, or are you, as usual, pontificating from a position of complete ignorance?