Webfeet: English Folk Dance index

The English Folk dance index; convering English Country Dancing, Folk Dancing, Social Dancing and so on.... There are many names or descriptions for this style of dance...

• Index of English Folk Dance or Barn Dance Bands and Callers
• Index of English Ceilidh Bands
• Folk dance and Ceilidh Events and clubs - dance series and one-off's
• Track listing and samples - biased towards English Ceilidh Bands at the moment

FAQ's covering:

• What is Folk Dance?
• What is a English Folk Dance or Barn Dance?

You can search the webfeet site and neighbouring pages for bands and dances:

What's on?

• Events in the next month
• The full list

and Tony Kelly's Set and Turn Single site.

EFDSS The English Folk Dance and Song Society

• EFDSS and Cecil Sharp House site
  ...and some history and context of the EFDSS and dance scene by Colin Hume.
• NYFTE, the National Youth Folkfore Troupe of England

Resources Schools and Teaching Resources

• EFDSS Education Department
  • Education Catalogue
• Folk In Education - FIE
  • Children's Dance Packs
• Tradamis
• Why Dance? information pack.

Collections Dance Descriptions

• Andrew Swaine's Getting started notes..
• The Round's
  • Collected index of dances, this is the source.
  • Descriptions of a whole list of dance elements
  • Transcriptions of as much of the Country Dance Book that is out of copyright
• John Brown's index of dances
• The English Country Dance Database index of titles, authors, recordings etc
• The EFDSS's Folkopedia has started an index of 20th Century dances
• Webfeet also has a small collection of Annotated eCeilidh dances which include some Playford classics:
  • Guidman of Ballangigh and Portsmouth

... and Callers' Notes

• Bob Archer's - dances and comparsion of the English and US dance scenes
• Bob Archer's and Mike Courthold's
  • notes... for (or from) their 1998 Sidmouth Caller's Workshops and
  • Mike Courthold's Art of Calling doc.
• Thomas Green's excellent
  • Dance Collection, indexed by formation and by name
  • List of resources
  • Caller's Check List
• Richard Mason's Dances
• Brian Scowcroft's English Country Dance Archive
• Hugh Stewart's Cambridge Contra Dance... pages with...
  • A collection of Contra dance descriptions...
• Anthony Stone's Notes on Calling...

Plus:

• Mr Red collated the tips discussed on the eCeilidh list
• ... and some Scottish Ceilidh dances appear quite at home in English Ceilidh

... Tunes and Music

• Richard Robinson's tune book for folk and Morris tunes.
• Eric Foxley's's Music Database.
• Chris Walshaw's tune collection in 'ABC' format for folk and Morris tunes.
  • Index of tunes (large!)

... Organising things

• Derek Kingscote's guide to organising a Barn Dance
• Plus, the Barn Dances and how to make them work page.
• If you are thinking to run a dance series, Fee Lock collected together notes about Funding for Ceilidhs etc, 2002 but still useful.
• More hints and pointers in the English Ceilidh area.

History A little looking back...

• The Early Dance Circle site
• Colin Hume's notes on the 2001 Playford Conference and the 2003 Dolmetsch Historical Dance Conference
• Notes about the Origins of Playford, collected for the Society of Creative Anachronisms
• Country Dances, Contredanses and Quadrilles by Dave Hunt in the Magazine for Traditional Music site
• Thoughts on Thomas Hardy and the dances he portrayed and what Jane Austin would, and would not, have danced