I have sung in clubs for around 40 years. I danced with Chester when they did Cotswold, 2 years, Bathampton Cotswold for about 4 weeks and Gorton, Northwest for around 5 years.

My own subjective experience is how I come to the left right thing. I think their is an assumption on the behalf of singers that they can sing left leaning songs and the audience will be comfortable.

"When you distinguished between song (slightly left-biased) and dance (slightly right-biased), did you mean social dance or Cotswold, North-West, Border, Molly ….)?"

Kitty, this is an excellent point and one I had not really considered. The boring old "should women dance Morris" argument seems to be a good example of the right wing no verses left wing yes. But other areas of "ritual" dance seemed more open to mixed sides.

As for social dance, who kept it alive after Sharpe and co? They were quite a different collection of people from those who started the second song revival.

I remember seeing Woodfidley(?) at Sidmouth 1975 and being amazed at the extraordinary costumes. They seemed to be dressed as the rich people of some bygone times and really enjoying it. I could never imagine the people who came to song clubs doing that. Some people did dress "down" at song clubs - wastecotes, clogs, caps, mugs - but not many and it was sort of down, not up. I know most social dance isn't like that it is much more egaliterian. perhaps it is the social dance demonstartion teams that I feel odd about.

As for the individualist verses group behaviuor it sounds a bit too simplistic but I am sure we will bash it about a bit.