History of Social dance

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: danensis
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 04:54 PM

Cor, I'd forgotten about school. My big sister used to drag me along to the High School on a Friday night, where I had to dance with girls! We learnt all the basic folk dances to the sound of an old gramophone.

Before that, of course, there was "Time and Tune"!

John

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: GUEST,Diva
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 02:15 PM

me n' the hobbit and the dwarf were out dancing on Sat night at a celi dance at Hermitage. Well done to Stuart and Drew BTW First time I'd danced in an age but even I noticed some differences. Course the Hobbit was working since it comes within the remit of his PHD!!!!!!! Still it was lots of fun and jane didn't surface til 2pm

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 02:08 PM

Does evidence support the "Tunes recovered from dancing middle classes" hypothesis or the "Tunes recovered from the rural working classes" hypothesis?

I'm not trying to make a political point here, I am simply trying to understand the heritage of "Country Dance" tunes that survive.

Les

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: IanC
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 11:17 AM

From here ...

The Hardy Fiddle Manuscripts
His writing apart, Hardy's collection of fiddle music manuscripts is of great interest. The Hook Manuscript was given to his grandfather by its compiler's son, James Hook, around 1820 - an entirely different James Hook, as Dave Townsend notes, from the one who wrote 'Sir Sidney Smyth's March' - tune 42. The Hook MS contains over two hundred items, mostly eighteenth-century hornpipes, reels and jigs - including 'Dribbles of Brandy'- tune 6. Its later pages also include quadrilles, waltzes and polkas, reflecting changes in dance fashions in this transitional Napoleonic / early-Victorian period. The second manuscript is a collection of ninety-seven 'Tunes for the Violin' that Hardy's father compiled himself. Photocopies of both manuscripts are held at the Vaughan Williams Library at Cecil Sharp House, London.

Thirty-four of Hardy's country dance tunes, edited by Joan Brocklebank, were published as 'The Dorchester Hornpipe', Dorset County Museum, 1977, and as far as I know remain in print. A bigger selection of 101 tunes, edited by Roger Trim, Bonny Sartin, Pet Shutler and Mac McCulloch ('The Yetties') appeared as 'The Musical Heritage of Thomas Hardy', Dragonfly Music, in 1990.

:-)

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Fidjit
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 04:48 AM

Not telling thats my secret

Chas

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 06:46 PM

Would that be tijdif then Chas?

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Fidjit
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 04:41 PM

Yea. Perhaps you're right Les.

I'll find my password.

Chas

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 03:52 PM

Were are not a secret society, we are a society with secrets, but nobody cab agree what they are!

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Fidjit
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 03:11 PM

But John. It IS a secret society!

As I've posted somewhere else

It's the freak show at the fair ground.
ROLL UP! ROLL UP come and see the folksinger.....

Chas

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: johnadams
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 09:46 AM

I'm all in favour of keeping folk underground, secret, and slightly wicked!!!   :-))

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 06:26 AM

I guess the feeling that many of us had when we discovered folk song in the 60's was that it was "alternative, underground" or some such thing. The fact that it was done at school put some people off. Perhaps I should run a secret folk club and see how good that would be.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: johnadams
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 06:17 AM

Doing it at school is useful in letting kids know that it exists as an option and if it's presented in a fun way it can be really productive.

I was at the Ryburn Dance on Saturday where a room full of adults danced to the Boat Band. (Brilliant night - thanks Greg Stevens!). One of the dances Pete Coe called was one several made up by kids in a school in the North East (UK) during a series of end of summer term workshops run by him and Sue Coe. The kids had a great time and although they may not become regular dancers they will have a knowledge of the genre.

I did country dancing at school, enjoyed it and even participated in some country dancing competitions. I didn't come back to it for many years and even now don't dance much, preferring to play the music. Same goes for folk song, which I also did at school, rejected in my teens and then made my career for a decade.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 05:56 AM

Cecil probably wasn't the first person to see schools as a way of getting something or other to children and hence the rest of us.

I recall Concrete across the Curriculum from the Association of Concrete, White Fish across the Curriculum from the White Fish Authority and something for Infants about Investments and Pensions from, well who do you think?

I loathed Country Dancing at school but was that just me? I find it difficult to see why anybody cannot enjoy it and simply pick up the dances from the caller.

Dance On as someone once said

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Marje
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 05:08 AM

You're right, Fidjit, the Scottish dances done by RSCDS tend not to include progressive dances where you change partner, but they make up for that by the etiquette at their dances and balls, whereby you're supposed to dance with a different partner for each dance. They'd regard as extremely bad form just to dance with the person you arrived with.I also got told off for not keeping my arms neatly by my sides - the English-ceildh style I'm used to is a lot more untidy and abandoned, and I'm used to lollopping around with my arms flailing, but that's not how it's done in the RSCDS - they seem to think it's some sort of Health & Safety hazard!

As for the schools in England - well, there is the occasional one-off dance project supported by Folkworks or whatever, but in the main I think folk dancing is confined to the odd special occasion such as May Day or the school's Summer Fair. It's not, as far as I know, in the National Curriculum, so it doesn't get much fo a look-in.

Marje

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Fidjit
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 02:28 PM

Les.
There are dance clubs around that have dance nights just for dancers. Meaning they ain't gonna call them. You have to know them. Usually danced to records/cd's.

Went to a Scotish dance once where they wouldn't dance with anyone other than their own partner. So no progressive stuff.

In Occitan an area near Toulouse, France I have a friends video where all the people there knew the dances and just got up and did them. Where did they learn them. At school !

What are the schools doing about that in England?

Chas

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: IanC
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 10:49 AM

Or in English ...

You are quite right, as naturally the male and female seek one another and nothing does more to stimulate a man to acts of courtesy, honor, and generosity than love. And if you desire to marry you must realize that a mistress in won by the good temper and grace displayed while dancing, because ladies to do not like to be present at fencing or tennis, lest a splintered sword or a blow from a tennis ball cause them injury.... And there is more to it than this, for dancing is practiced to reveal whether lovers are in good health and sound of limb, after which they are permitted to kiss their mistresses in order that they may touch and savor one another thus to ascertain if they are shapely or emit an unpleasant odor as of bad meat. Therefore, from this standpoint, quite apart from the many other advantages to be derived from dancing, it becomes an essential to a well-ordered society....

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: IanC
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 10:46 AM

Theodot Arbeau, in Ochesografie (1594) has a bit to say about using dancing to choose a mate ...

Vous le prenez fort bien, car naturellement, le masle & la femelle se recherchent: & n'y a chose qui plus incite l'homme à estre courtois, honneste, & faire acte genereux que l'amour: & si voulez vous marier, vous debvez croire qu'une maistresse se gaigne par la disposition & grace qui se voit en une dance, car quant à l'escrime & au jeu de paulme, les dames ny veuillent assister de craincte d'une espée rompue, ou d'un coup d'estœuf, qui les pourroit endommager: vous souvient il pas des vers virgilians parlans de Turnus ... Il y a bien plus, car les dances sont practiquées pour cognoistre si les amoureux sont sains & dispos de leurs membres, à la fin desquelles il leur est permis de baiser leurs maistresses, affin que respectivement ils puissent sentir & odorer l'un l'aultre, silz ont l'alaine souesve, & silz sentent une senteur malodorant, que l'on nomme l'espaule de mouton: de façon que de cêt endroict oultre plusieurs commoditez qui reüsissent de la dance, elle se treuve necessaire pour bien ordonner une societé.

:-)

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 10:35 AM

There was apparently a French dance during which the females raised their skirts to exhibit the quality of the goodies beneath... and of course whether they used Persil.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Mo the caller
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 05:16 AM

And the custom, in the 18th century of standing in the line, wating for the first couple to work their way down to you gave you an opportunity to talk to a member of the opposite sex under the eye of, but not overheard by, her chaperone.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: danensis
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 01:41 PM

The original country dance was a good way to choose a mate. You wanted a partner who was sound of wind and limb, and the ability to dance through the evening was a good sign of both. The progressive dances enabled one to assess each prospect in turn, and the trickier dances enabled you to assess their mental agility as well as fleetness of foot.

John

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Mo the caller
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 01:56 PM

Yes, he draws a distinction between 'country dancing' and 'folk dancing'.

As, now some people draw a distinction between 'ECeilidh' and 'D4D' (what the Americans call ECD - English Country Dance, or EFDSS people call Playford dance and used to label Dancers dance)

And then there are those shocking inventions the Waltz and the Polka, that were going to oust country dancing.

I've heard the suggestion that 'folk dance' is just the previous generations ballroom dances. And you might well dance Circle Waltz or Pat-a-Cake Polka at a barn dance now.

"Is it Folk Dance?" could probably be as contentious as "What is Folksong"

Me, I just dance. (But I like things properly labelled so I've some idea what I'm getting)

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 11:16 AM

"The history of the Country dance is puzzling. If it was the dance of the country people, how comes it that new figures and tunes are first heard of in the London ball-rooms (see London magazines and musical publications throughout the eighteenth century), whence they gradually spread into the rural districts? I for one cannot explain, and am inclined to the belief that the now discredited opinion on the origin of the name ('contre-danse') may be after all the truth of the matter; and this would accord with the fact that these dancers displaced the simpler folk-dance."

From Mr Hardy I believe. Again this seems to place what we call "Country Dancing" a lot nearer the City?

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Mo the caller
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 08:44 AM

Thanks Malcolm, that was fascinating .I didn't know that Hardy was still alive while the folk dance revival was going on.

And the midi of Mozart's 'Michael Turner's waltz' on the same site was another find.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Tootler
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 07:36 PM

I was once told, or read somewhere that the caller became necessary in America because the immigrants arriving from different places did not know each others dances. So someone was needed to call the steps for the dances. Perhaps our USA friends could comment on this.

The reason for the caller in the UK, as far as I can see is basically similar. At one time people would know the local dances, but with a more mobile population and the tradition in decline, this could no longer be guaranteed.

Brueghel's painting, "The Peasant Wedding" shows country folk in late mediaeval Flanders dancing to bagpipes with obvious vigour.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:21 PM

On the subject of callers, the Alnwick (Northumberland) Gathering up until a couple of years ago ran two "dances" in its weekend programme. One was billed as a ceilidh, with caller. The other was billed as a traditional dance, without. The locals go to the dance - they don't need the instructions, thank you. If you don't know it, find a partner or follow someone who does, or sit out, was the attitude.
Some of the dances at the two events, and a percentage of the music, would be the same. One or two years there was a workshop to teach the folkies the uncalled dances.

There is employment enough for ceilidh bands in the area, what with PTA events, weddings, village dances etc etc, but there is a shortage of (good) callers with a knowledge of the local dances - and some of the bands seem to have abandoned all pretence of using local tunes.

Then there are a few bands apparently copying their entire programme from the Folkworks "How to play for a ceilidh" instructions (or whatever it was called). Painful.
And the RSCDS dancers, who regard themselves as above mere ceilidh dancing. And a very few, now, dance clubs, doing complicated dances to recordings.
And the barn dances. Yes, in a barn. Playing from a flatbed or something. Exactly the way the harvest "kirn" suppers happened in the C19. And probably in the C18 as well - but then the social mixing would have been greater.

Usually with a drunken Northumbrian piper in the corner.

Paws (a usually sober Northumbrian piper)

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 03:40 PM

Returning for a moment to Hardy, there are some interesting comments from him at Dances Mentioned by Thomas Hardy in Under the Greenwood Tree.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Mo the caller
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 02:44 PM

Some of our longways dances come from around Jane Austins time.
At the balls you wouldn't need a caller because the first couple danced a figure of their choice with the second couple while all the rest were watching admiringly, or still finding a partner. Then the 1s danced with 3s, next 1s and 4s / 2s and 3s danced the figure, and so on till everyone was dancing.
Books of dances for the year .... were published, which now give great fun to dance interpreters, trying to decode them.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 02:01 PM

Thanks again John,

Its seems that most of what we call country dancing has less to do with the country than I imagined. This in no way detracts from the great fun and general sense of a social get-together that current "Barn Dances / Celidhs make possible but seems to place them some social distance from the life of the rural population that we often assume kept songs alive.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: johnadams
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 01:32 PM

Les in Chorlton asked:

Did the dances come to the Industrial towns with the Industrial Revolution? One suspects not.

The dance fashions including 'country dance' were propogated via the Assembly Rooms in the late 18th early 19th centuries. There were assembly rooms in Vauxhall and Bath (famously), York, Derby, Bury St Edmunds and a host of other towns.

There were also classes for those who were wealthy enough. John Winder, a dancing master in Lancaster, advertised in the Lancaster Gazette in 1792.

Mr Winder, Dancing Master, begs leave to acquaint the Ladies and Gentlemen of Lancaster and its vicinity that he is just returned from London and intends to open a school...... where he proposes teaching that elegant and graceful accompishment - DANCING - in the genteelest and most fashionable taste, particularly

The Minuet, and Minuet Dezea, Minuet de la Cour, and Gavott, Allemands, Cotilions and Hornpipes, English and Scotch Country Dances, etc.

Mr Winder assures the Ladies and Gentlemen that every attention will be paid to the children committed to his care.

A Night School will be open'd for the instruction of such Ladies and Gentlemen who cannot conveniently attend in the Day time.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Marje
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 01:25 PM

Yes, thanks for that evocative piece of Dickens, Tim. I think there's every reason to trust his observation and description of such an event - he may have been inclined to exaggeration and caricature, but by and large he wrote about what he knew. It's refreshing to get away from the Jane Austen depiction of the country dance as stately and prim.

I should think the dancers in those circumstances would know the dances - they'd have a particular repertoire of favourites with familiar moves. Callers are necessary now because we (in England, and I don't mean Britain in this instance)like to try dances from different countries, regions and traditions, and even brand new dances devised by callers or bands. I daresay, too, that the advent of the PA system has helped establish callers as a regular part of the English dance scene. Callers are also useful for the large numbers of people who only dance at weddings etc, and aren't used to doing it regularly.

You ask about whether this is urban or rural dancing, Les: it sounds from the dress style as if it's town or city-dwellers, and the town was the social context that Dickens knew best. But I wouldn't imagine the social dances of the towns were very different from those of the country - the dances would mostly have had their origins in country communities. Whether the country people performed them with the same abandon I really don't know, but I'd guess they may well have done so, albeit without hats and silk handkerchiefs.

Marje

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 01:09 PM

Any mention of callers?

I am loosing my way now. I was trying to gte some idea of who did county dancing in the 18 & 19C.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: RTim
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:54 PM

I know from my own experience of looking thru the Janet Blunt Manuscripts of what she collected in Adderbury, Oxfordshire - She collected Morris Dances and Songs - but also collected social (or Country if you will) dances too - and that was from 1905, etc./ After Dickens.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:47 PM

Thanks Tim,

An amazing piece of writing. Clearly no caller hear!

A couple of points: Is this a description of "Country dancing" or is it "Social dancing" in town or city? I am unclear about how to treat a fiction as a source of evidence about what people did years ago. As someone pointed out Dickens had extensive experience as a journalist. That is, of itself no guarantee of accuracy just check today's papers.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: RTim
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:37 PM

By Dickens, Sketches from Boz

There is no master of the ceremonies in this artificial Eden - all is primitive, unreserved, and unstudied. The dust is blinding, the heat insupportable, the company somewhat noisy, and in the highest spirits possible: the ladies, in the height of their innocent animation, dancing in the gentlemen's hats, and the gentlemen promenading 'the gay and festive scene' in the ladies' bonnets, or with the more expensive ornaments of false noses, and low-crowned, tinder-box-looking hats: playing children's drums, and accompanied by ladies on the penny trumpet.
The noise of these various instruments, the orchestra, the shouting, the 'scratchers,' and the dancing, is perfectly bewildering.
The dancing, itself, beggars description - every figure lasts about an hour, and the ladies bounce up and down the middle, with a degree of spirit which is quite indescribable. As to the gentlemen, they stamp their feet against the ground, every time 'hands four round' begins, go down the middle and up again, with cigars in their mouths, and silk handkerchiefs in their hands, and whirl their partners round, nothing loth, scrambling and falling, and embracing, and knocking up against the other couples, until they are fairly tired out, and can move no longer. The same scene is repeated again and again (slightly varied by an occasional 'row') until a late hour at night: and a great many clerks and 'prentices find themselves next morning with aching heads, empty pockets, damaged hats, and a very imperfect recollection of how it was they did NOT get home.

Tim Radford (who is in a band called - Beggars Description.)
www.timradford.com

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 12:30 PM

Perhaps long-term members of EFDSS could shed some light on this. Are callers part of the tradition going back 1, 2 or 3 hundred years or are they a more recent phenomenon?

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: IanC
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 11:44 AM

Mostly people seem to have known the dances very well, so no callers were needed. The use of callers seems mainly to have been introduced from the USA from the 50s onwards, with the introduction of US style "Sguare Dancing".

:-)

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 11:14 AM

I am all in favour of callers otherwise I would be more than a little confused. Are callers a 20C thing or is their evidence going back a bit?

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Mo the caller
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 07:20 AM

Dancing without a caller.
If you are dancing 'local' dances you don't need a caller.
E.g. the Breton couple and circle dances at a Fez Nos
E.g Irish set dances that were danced in farm kitchen and had developed from the Sets of Quadrilles taught in the early 19th Century. Each area took the set and made it their own, and only danced it one way.

If it becomes a hobby, and you want variety, then you need a caller.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 07:00 AM

Thanks Mo. That's most interesting. I remember going to Barn Dances at a Village Hall near Delamere around 1970. The Band were The Border band who became Foxes Bark. They were, and remain, excellent.

It's hard to get a clear picture of who did what and when and how this business of "Country Dancing" has continued.

We were camping near Niort in Western France this summer. They had an evening of Country Dance on our site. The Band had melodeons, fiddles etc and were excellent. The most striking thing was that most of the dances were local people, not campers, and the dances were not called, they were simply announced and people danced very well.

That would be surprising here? I sort of assume that the EFDSS has played a major role in keeping dances and dancing alive. Is that true?

I get the feeling from earlier posts that the dances were moving between the Couts, the land owning class and the class just below, if that makes any sense, and that farm workers were only rarely part of that.

Did the dances come to the Industrial towns with the Industrial Revolution? One suspects not.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Mo the caller
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 06:26 AM

Les asks
"Who was dancing "country dances" in 1900? "
How about dances in the 'servants hall' at Christmas, and other celebrations.
It amazes me that 100 years can sometimes seem like only a step away.
We started going to a barn dance club 25 years ago and one of the callers was Reg Holmes. When he was starting out he had been given some dances by another Cheshire caller who used to call for servants dances at the turn of the century. I occasionally call one of them - Peckforton Gap (the Peckforton Hills are part of the mid-Cheshire sandstone ridge). Dave Hunt calls a similar dance, under a different name. Sicillian circle formation, 1s gallop through the 2s and back, 2s through the 1s; a 'callers whim' figure; forward and back, move on.
Reg is now 94 and living in residential care, but still plays and sings at folk clubs and sessions.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: johnadams
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:58 PM

LOL. Now there's a chance for a caller to write a new dance! The Caravan Shuffle - top couple do something at snails pace while the rest of the set (im)patiently wait for their turn!! We'll need some very long tune sets.


On rural life, I bet the work was often too tiring and time consuming to allow much dancing in the evenings or even at weekends. Probably dancing was reserved for special occasions like harvest suppers and hiring fairs and the like.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:08 PM

I'm no expert, in fact I know little and I would like somebody to give some background to the life of rural working people. If we go back far enough, say the 14C, people who worked on the land, as I understand it were virtual slaves. I think "The Black Death" changed this relationship as the number of farm workers dropped so much they began to be much sort after.

The idea that rural working people lived in nice Villages with Halls in which to dance may not be true.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Marje
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 01:02 PM

Les, I am no expert on social history, but I don't see that people who lived in tied cottages would have had a problem getting together to dance. There would have been village halls and other buildings used for communal functions - and don't forget the barns (where better for a barn dance?). They would also have danced out of doors at summer fairs etc - old paintings show this taking place. All they needed by way of accompaniment was a fiddler.

I'm pretty sure they didn't just sit around grumbling: "What a pity the Civic Hall hasn't been built yet - I'd have liked to go to a dance!"

Marje

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 12:07 PM

Perhaps it's the Camping and Caravaning Club? Different beast altogether.

In the 18C, say, were not a majority of people employed on the land as farm workers, probably living in the countryside in tied cottages?

I wonder what access to country dancing they had?

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 11:49 AM

Majority of barn dances run by the Caravan Club? WOW!

"...Down the middle, hey diddle diddle" with 74 fuming drivers behind, presumably :-)

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 07:56 AM

No, I am sure your right. It's just that in the folk world of myth and story telling real evidence can be a rare beast.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: johnadams
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 07:54 AM

In the late 18th and early 19th century dancing took place in a variety of places. The more fashionable end was Vauxhall Gardens, York and Bath Assemblies, those sort of places.

The tune books that the Village Music Project inspects were mostly put together by people from the artisan classes (architect, paper maker, gentleman farmer, etc) who would have maybe attended the larger fashionable dance events but also run their own dances nearer home, which is why they collected tunes into their manuscript books.

The music notebooks diminish in number once we get to the era of mass printing but the accounts of dancing continue. The fact that there were tunes and dances collected by Sharp shows that the dancing and playing continued even if the evidence gets thinner.

And the dancing continues today. There are lots of barn dance bands who are not very much part of the folk scene (clubs and festivals etc.) but who work regularly at birthday parties, weddings, fund raising events, etc. I've heard it said that in England the people who run the most barn dances are the Caravan Club. Looking at the media evidence, you wouldn't guess that folk dance was so healthy but my impression is that it never went away and it's not going to.

Change it might - but then that's what living traditions do. Country dancing has had it's thin times in history, but it's had enough revivals to keep up the momentum to survive.

.... and the process of revival is a tradition in itself.

J

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: IanC
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 07:00 AM

Dickens was a newspaper reporter. His fiction was based on real events ... often only the names were changed. He didn't invent social dances but described ones he'd witnessed himself (and taken part in on occasion).

Hardy's fiction was like Laurie Lee's. It was fundamentally autobiographical, particularly in terms of the "backdrops". The Puddletown manuscripts (owned by his family) include loads of dance music and illustrate that what he described was based on his own experience.

Being fiction doesn't stop things from being evidence.

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 06:27 AM

I think most songs were collected from rural working people. Were they also the people who were dancing?

Just as an aside, Dickens and Hardy wrote fiction. It may well have brilliantly and accurately informed by life and it may not.

Subject: RE: History of Social dance
From: IanC
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 05:45 AM

Loads of people. For example Kilnsey Show in Yorkshire always finished with dancing.

Though the waltz and polka had become favourites, they had never entirely displaced the old dances. You only need to read Dickens and Hardy to see that the whole thing was going on perfectly well through the whole of the 19th century.

Most "collectors" think things are dying, and Cecil Sharp was no exception. It's part of the reasoning behind collecting things, I think.

:-)