Dancing in public

Subject: Dancing in public
From: Mo the caller
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 09:56 AM

I'm helping a local school to learn dances for a town St. Georges Day fair.
We have 2 'spots'. I shall call a few dances for audience participation and have some demonstration dances mixed in each spot.

How long would be reasonable for a spot? Can any morris teams, etc. advise please. There will be other events through the afternoon (Nantwich, Sunday 20th April).

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: Mo the caller
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 02:37 AM

How long do you usually dance?

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: Alan Day
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 03:57 AM

We did a similar dance for the Coin Street Festival and with three bands it went on for the whole afternoon. It was a mixture of Audience Dancing and dance demonstrations and included Hammersmith Morris.
How it will work is that you get a constant flow of people watching and a few participating if you can overcome their shyness.A useful trick is to get the show dancers to go into the audience and pick a partner.
The Audience will stay and watch for about thirty minutes and then move on and you just repeat it with the next batch. From memory there were about thirty thousand people moving through at the time of the dancing.
I would suggest as it is a smaller affair to go for 40 -60 minute X 2 spots including the demonstrations.
Al

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: Mr Happy
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 04:26 AM

What sort쳌fve dances might your 쳌evictims쳌f be called upon to do, Morris or Country dancing?

When I danced with Erleseye Morris in the 쳌e80쳌fs & 쳌e90쳌fs, the duration of each dance initially depended on the length of the verse + the number of figures to be completed.

Also the time taken could vary depending on the number of dancers & their quotient of stamina!

The time signature of the tune, i.e. how long it would take to play a single verse if it were 2/4 or 6/8 etc.

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: Mo the caller
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 06:04 AM

I think it's described as a Medieval Fair, so we'll do some Brawls and Farandoles. I.e. organised chaos. So the individual dances will last till the band stops.
And since it's to celebrate St. Georges day I thought we'd dress the dances up as a contest between a team of Geoges and a team of Dragons. Since the dances won't be 'authentic' anyway we may as well descend into fantasy! There is also a dragon trail in the town, as well as guided tours by the museum.
The Forlorn Hope will be bringing their Hurdy Gurdies, Crumhorns, bagpipes etc. to play for us.

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 03:58 AM

I'd suggest something like 2 demo dances to show the crowd and then 2 audience participation dances per set. Should take 20-30 mins depending on how quick the audience are to pick up the steps. Finish off the set with another demo if the teams are up to it and you've time. People at these things always want to see their little darlings perform.

LTS

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: Folkiedave
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 04:11 AM

Try and fit it into 30 minutes if you can stop for ten and then start again.

If there are thousands passing through then that will give you a new audience as often as you like.

Dave

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 04:44 AM

Of course, you could subscribe to the notion that one should try everything once, EXCEPT incest and folk dancing.

LTS

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: Mo the caller
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 05:17 AM

No, my view is

"There WILL be folk dancing; at sword-point if necessary.

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: nickp
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 07:35 AM

At the risk of starting a selection of posts about how crazy the law is (true!) don't forget to check if you need a licence.

Nick

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: Folkiedave
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 08:04 AM

There is absolutely no doubt - you need a license under the 2003 Licensing Act.

Sheffield licensed the whole of the town centre to avoid this problem.

(You still need permission - but then you always did!)

PM me if you have any questions and I will do my best to help.

Subject: RE: Dancing in public
From: Mo the caller
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 06:24 AM

This one is organised by the town council, I'll leave it to them to check.