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the Society’s magazine, English Dance And Song, in 1944. Over the first few years of peace, Kennedy managed to reposition folk dance in the social life of the country. American square dances and traditional English dances were adopted as the core repertoire – simple dances that people could join in without any prior knowledge. Formal teaching in classes was rejected in favour of watching, joining in and imitat- ing what others were doing. Music was provided by small bands, with The Square Dance Band (Nan and Brian Fleming- Williams on fiddle and guitar, Helen Kennedy on English concertina and Dou- glas on drum) providing the role-model. To guide the dancers, and briefly explain the formation and moves, the dance caller was introduced – Douglas himself was The Square Dance Band’s caller.
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The focus for this new approach in the provinces was the annual Stratford-upon- Avon Festival, started in 1946. A hundred or so dancers performed morris, sword and country dances in the public gardens next to the theatre, but the main focus was on involving the audience in the social danc- ing. It was a tremendous success, with townspeople and visitors joining in and then going home to search out their local folk dance events. The format was copied ten years later at Sidmouth.
In London, Cecil Sharp House was the venue for Saturday night dances where, again, the emphasis was on the square and traditional dances for everyone to join in. Before the War, the folk dance movement had been dominated by women, many of them teachers. For Kennedy, the social aspect of men dancing with women had been lost. He introduced a policy of mixed couples only at the Cecil Sharp House public square dances. As Ron Smedley recalls, if two women attempted to dance together, they were politely tapped on the shoulder and asked to sit down. We might now see this policy as dictatorial, sexist even, but at the time it was an attempt at positive discrimination, and in its aim to make folk dancing truly social once again, it was a success.
From the 1940s, the BBC broadcast reg- ular folk dance programmes on the radio, which again attempted to normalise folk dancing in the country’s social life. Then, in October 1951, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip were photographed square dancing in Canada, and there was a sudden craze for square dancing, with queues up the road to get into Cecil Sharp House dances, and folk dancing at Mecca Ballrooms.
In 1934, men’s morris and sword clubs had created their own organisation, The Morris Ring, with continuing reliance on the English Folk Dance & Song Society (EFDSS – the dance and song societies had merged in 1932) for teaching the dances. From the 1940s, the number of sides steadily increased and dancing on the streets – previously a rarity – became acceptable. Still men only though. It wasn’t until the 1970s that women chal- lenged this position by establishing their own sides and eventually their own organ- isation, the Women’s Morris Federation (later the Morris Federation). In the decades since, the repertoire has diversi- fied from the handkerchiefs and sticks Cotswold morris collected by Sharp to
ar brought the opportunity for Kennedy to reassess the dance revival. He set out his blueprint for a new approach in an article in
include north-west morris in clogs, black- faced Welsh Border morris and East Anglian molly dances, while the short- sword, rapper dances are currently under- going a resurgence of enthusiasm.
The EFDSS received local authority funding for its programme of teaching folk dancing in schools, and in every region they employed staff to run teach- ers’ courses and go into schools. The staff also concentrated on popularising folk dancing to the general public. But by the 1970s, financial pressure and changes in education policy led to the end of this funding with a significant reduction in the EFDSS’s staff and regional involvement. EFDSS activists in the regions tended to concentrate on organising dances for themselves, rather than continuing the missionary zeal of earlier years.
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Alongside all this expanding enthusi- asm for folk dancing, the folk song revival, with inspiration from the States and left- wing cultural activists, was slowly taking root. During the 1960s, the festival scene expanded, and the young singers realised that folk dancing was a great way of putting your arms round a member of the opposite sex. By this time, the folk dance scene had settled down into clubs, where familiarity with the repertoire led many dancers to seek something more challeng- ing to dance and there was a return to the Playford repertoire. The ceilidh scene became the repository of the simpler, tra- ditional dances, with younger dancers, and usually with song and morris displays.
t wasn’t until the 1970s that a new attitude to folk dance music emerged. Musicians such as Rod and Danny Stradling, Peta Webb and Tony Engle (as the band Oak) were visiting, recording and playing alongside village musicians. They found that the likes of Scan Tester in Sussex and Oscar Woods in Suffolk were playing more slow- ly, in a more rhythmic style with plenty of polkas – all features that were absent from the established folk dance music scene. The Stradlings went on to form The Old Swan Band which, with John Kirk- patrick’s Umps & Dumps, London-based Flowers & Frolics and The New Victory Band from the north, revolutionised folk dance music. The established club-based dancers complained that the music was too slow to dance to, although the new wave received support from EFDSS staff, and established callers such as Hugh Rip- pon, Tubby Reynolds and Tony Foxworthy
A post–1970s English festival ceilidh
Headington Quarry Morris Dancers in the ’80s
were only too happy to call for these bands, especially as the dance repertoire relied so heavily on the traditional dances. Slowing down the dances made it possible to step to the dances, rather than use the dance walk that was then prevalent.
Folk dancing thereafter tended to separate into the club-based scene, with an increasingly complicated pattern- making repertoire, and the ceilidh scene, with simpler dances and livelier, more rhythmic music using electric instruments and drum kits alongside melodeons, fid- dles and, increasingly, brass instruments. Both scenes have increasingly relied on recently made-up dances – the difference lying in their complexity.
The position today is one of diversity. Clubs and the established ceilidh scenes are both faced with ageing dancers. Younger dancers have been attracted to the ceilidhs at festivals such as Sidmouth and Towersey but have then perhaps failed to find the same atmosphere back home the rest of the year, although some of the universities – notably Sheffield – have very successful ceilidh societies. For these young university students – as well as former students and enthusiasts who love to dance – the annual Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festival (IVFDF), held in a different university location each year, is an early spring celebration that cap- tures the festival vibe. Ceilidh bands exhibit a variety of styles and influences, but rarely – if they are good – lose sight of their role to play functional music. As someone once said, in a different context, ‘dancing is music made visible’.
www.efdss.org F
Photo: Jak Kilby
Photo: Ian Anderson
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