Thank you
English Country Dancing (Folk
dancing) in the UK. Links to some of the webpages on this site.
Revised November 2022.
Please pass on this page to all your folk dance
contacts. The link is seered.co.uk/links.htm
Thank you
The coverage of folk dance topics on this website is extensive but in several different sections. This is primarily owing to the fact that they were written for diverse purposes over a period of 15 to 20 years.
NEW March 2020 - a discussion of Covid-19 virus (Coronavirus) as applied to folk dancing - and including many of what I consider to be the best scientific references.
NEW November 2022 Free lessons on folk dance - Devon and Somerset
This page should enable you to navigate to the most popular pages more easily. I started out writing my 'dance diary' for 2016 with the idea of showing just how much fun could be experienced in local folk dance clubs - however, owing to various feuds or vendettas that opened up during the year it became rather more extensive. It was originally intended to be all positive! These feuds originated in the behaviour of various of the proxy parents - a largely self selected group of people who exhibit a degree of control freak and/or despotic tendencies.
As a result of these developments, I now intend to write a book on my 25 years in folk dancing:
"Twenty five years of folk dancing - fun, frolics and feuds."
You are invited to contribute anecdotes about particular people or events I have been involved with - there is so much I have probably forgotten.
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. George Orwell. Proposed Preface to Animal Farm.
Dance Diary pages
Dance diary 2016 highlights - this was viewed over 150
times in the two weeks before I started to send out notifications of its existence - so
someone must have been passing it around. Thank you! First published late February 2017.
The month by month 2016 dance diary pages have been viewed far less - but it's early days
and I didn't expect many people to plough through them. Most viewed by far (over 50 hits
in the first two weeks) is the April diary owing probably to
its coverage of the Eastbourne International Folk Dance Festival and disputes with the directors, Robin James and Maureen and Graham
Knight. Owing apparently to a dispute with the new headmaster of the school, EIFF
relocated from 2020 onwards to what is a more attractive venue in
Evesham - so it can still be called EIFF!
The 2017 diary has already proved popular as has the page
covering feminism and the views of Camille Paglia on how women
should be taught to deal with men.
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Set and Turn Single.
The STS section will eventually comprise most of the articles and
letters that I wrote over a period of five years for Set and Turn Single folk dance
magazine.
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Other pages:
The linked CPS pages are highly relevant to folk dance clubs. The
topic of 'unsafe' convictions for sex offences is of increasing concern, including in the
legal profession. Major high profile police investigations in the UK have proven to be an
expensive shambles - yet the merry-go-round continues owing arguably to a feminist and
politically correct obsession with seeing as many men as possible convicted, and
irrespective of their guilt. If you don't believe this - read the summary and all of the
links provided.
Reviews of a few folk dance festivals. This needs to be
read by folk festival organisers, especially those at Towersey, but I doubt it will be.
Sidmouth Folkweek 2019 started off with some of the same stewarding problems dancers
complain about every year - how depressingly predictable!!
Amongst the older pages
are:
Folk dance moves - a glossary of moves and a few diagrams,
including a lot on teacup chains and double teacup chains.
These have been popular via Google for many years, gaining often many hundreds of hits per
month.
The original Gittisham Folk Dance Club website - historically
hits were around 80 to 100 per month, now they are less than 30.
Comprehensive coverage of the Sidmouth Folk Festival
(FolkWeek) - going back 15 years. This is a major section of the website.
One of the most popular pages is my 'Newcomers Guide' to FolkWeek.
The original folk dance clubs information page with
useful external links for events in and around Devon.
Please pass on this page to all your folk dance
contacts. The link is seered.co.uk/links.htm
Thank you