The Full Folk Dance Experience

‘It’s next weekend, don’t forget Mum’. How could I? She had been badgering me about it on and off for a whole year. My husband and I were due to present ourselves at the Inter-Varsity Folk Dance Festival for a weekend of exciting and dynamic activity the next Friday. It had all seemed such a good idea whilst we were working 3000 miles away on an island in the middle of the Atlantic.

Now we were back in England the reality of this casual promise was dawning on us.

‘Are you certain that there will be people our age?’

‘Absolutely there are all sorts there.’

‘We are not as fit as we once were.’

‘You don’t have to join in everything you can sit out and watch.’

 ‘We draw the line at sleeping on a classroom floor with twenty other sweaty bodies.’

‘You can book into a nearby B&B.’

‘Well, at least it will be a chance to lose a bit of weight I suppose.’

And so, having left our luggage in our warm, comfortable Travel Lodge, we made our way with some trepidation to the secondary school that had been hired for the festival.

Despite the cold wind we were greeted by cheerful student officials clad in bright custom printed T- shirts, handed identifying wrist bands (you mean people might try to gatecrash the impending torture session!), and pointed in the direction of the main hall. A band was playing and a crowd of students was milling about the floor greeting friends or sorting out cables, notice boards and speakers. Our daughter was not due until later in the evening and a sinking feeling of dread and embarrassment was about to take hold when we saw two things simultaneously - three or four equally grey heads and the bar. 

The welcoming ceilidh in the sports hall sucked us in. After an hour or so this country-dance thing seems quite easy, particularly when you have a good caller and sympathetic members of your dance set who will give a deft push or point, in the relevant direction. Our system of ‘dance two sit one out’ gives us time to catch a breath and the excellent choice of local bitters definitely enables us to see things in a more palatable light.

It was time to look around. The majority of the four hundred or so participants were students and young professionals, but there was a good smattering of more senior members, besides a variety of oddballs that didn’t appear to fit in to any obvious category at all. The dress code was wonderfully eclectic ranging from the neat precise tidiness of the Scottish highland dress through matching skirts and blouses, shirts and trousers, and the inevitable unisex jeans and T-shirts, to multicoloured baggy pants and ethnic cheesecloth wraps.

The atmosphere was warm and at the same time focussed. Here we had a diverse collection of people all concentrating on one thing - cultivating and enjoying a common interest. Everyone appeared open, friendly and tolerant. Dedicated groups with special interests were only too willing to demonstrate and encourage others to join them whilst fielding good-natured bantering from friends and acquaintances. Making up sets happened naturally and if you stood up without a partner one was bound to just turn up. 

My daughter arrived along with boyfriend and another couple and my mood was sufficiently benign that I was able to greet her with a forgiving hug and a hint that I, or even we, might actually enjoy this weekend.

Arriving fresh the next morning it was time to choose a path through the mysterious world of workshops offering Irish, Ukrainian, Cajun, Broom, Playford, Cotswold Morris, American Squares, Contra, Molly and several more. I could only ‘do’ Scottish so decided to try out anything but that and drag my husband along so that I’d be sure of a sympathetic and equally ignorant partner. Apart from learning how to move and how to listen to the different rhythms, one enters upon a whole new language. To the uninitiated it sounded somewhat like a knitting pattern for a Shetland sweater. Slip to the left, cross over, turn single, first and third cast out, thread the needle, set twice, face first corners, stitch the fly, allemande right, dos-a-dos, promenade and cast off. It was exercising my brain cells as well as my calf muscles.

There is a certain look that comes over my beloved’s face that warns me it is necessary to take time out and by late afternoon that look was much to the fore. Gathering daughter and accompanying friends we sidled out and set off to a wonderful restful pub down the road, which offered comfy chairs, good Thai food and very quiet soothing background music. We returned suitably revitalised, to a series of ceilidhs, beginning with the genuine Scottish variety. These would take us well on into the night but by now we were getting the hang of it.

Getting up on Sunday morning was less of a struggle than I had expected it to be and there we were bright and early ready to face more challenges. My husband took the easy option and went singing whilst I decided that ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ I would tackle circus skills. I wasn’t sure that this was quite folk dancing but it certainly was fun. I swung poi in all directions without strangling myself or decapitating my neighbour, I spun plates though I didn’t know what else to do with them, and I tossed and elevated the diabolo with gay abandon. Now that was a really good workshop.

Historical dancing was next on my schedule. What a contrast! Half a dozen people in 16^th century costume demonstrated the pavane and galliard with their reverences, stately turns, step-step-rise and step gentle hops. Then it was our turn. The very music and moves made us stand two inches taller and try to move with a modicum of grace.

My dancing days ended, at least for the time being, with my daughter dragging me off to a rapper session. I really did not think that this was going to be quite me but by this

time I was ready for almost anything, which proved to be just as well. Those lethal lengths of steel with their wooden handles are rather fun when you’ve mastered the basics, and if you can develop sufficient trust in your partners!

So, I had dos-a-dosed and polka-d, rapped and boxed a gnat, made an oxbow loop with a holla’ and a hoop, and even rolled round some random man's bottom (part of the dance - honest) but did the pounds come rolling off -no! All that dedicated calorie-busting activity and I ended up exactly the same weight as when I started. I did spring hops and buzzy turns, starred clockwise and anticlockwise, did a women’s hey and made a basket but all to no avail on the excess baggage count.

However, although a folkdance festival might not be top of the list for couch potatoes it is certainly for those who are already fit and sylph-like and perhaps also for those who want to do something different, learn something new, have fun and keep their daughter happy.