Conference, Workshops and Ball
Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regents Park Road, London
Saturday-Sunday, 24-25 March 2001
Over 200 people from both the historical dance and folk dance worlds in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Sweden and the USA gathered in London for this event jointly organised by DHDS and The English Folk Dance and Song Society.
The formal paper presentations were divided into five sessions over the two days (click on any photograph for a larger version). The proceedings have now been published, containing all the papers and summaries of 3 of the workshops. See the publications page. Links from authors' names lead to abstracts of their papers.
The conference was opened by Brenda Godrich of the EFDSS and Anne Daye of the DHDS
Session 1. Playford's English Dancing Master and its antecedents (chaired by Moira Goff)
Jennifer Kiek, Anne Daye, Jeremy Barlow and Robert Keller looked at Playford's work itself and the period around its publication.
Session 2: English Country Dance in the 17th-19th centuries (chaired by Peter Ede)
Diana
Cruickshank
, Ann
Kent 
,
Annie Richardson,
Ellis Rogers considered
country dancing as found in later sources, its appearance in
art, and the reasons for its decline.
Session 3: English Country Dance on the Continent (chaired by Jennifer Thorp)
Peter Bohlin, Birte Hoffmann-Cabenda and Hannelore Unfried traced the development of country dances in Sweden, Germany and Austria respectively.
Session 4. Playford revived and Playford renewed (chaired by Linda Tomko)
Derek Schofield and Colin Hume looked at the revival and continuing tradition of English country dancing in England during the 20th century, while Gene Murrow surveyed the American scene.
Session 5. The Playford tradition (chaired by Barbara Segal)
In two contrasting papers, Hazel Dennison returned to the 17th century to examine the similarities and differences between the dances described as jiggs in Playford, and how they may be realised, and Diana Jewitt looked at the place of country dancing in education.
Workshops
- To complement the papers, there were 4 workshops in 2 sessions:
- Michael Barraclough on interpretations of Newcastle
- Julia Sutton on Lorin and Playford
- Nic Broadbridge on playing music for country dances
- Jørgen Schou-Pedersen on Dubreil's Contredanses
In addition to the formal programme, there was a ball on Saturday evening with callers Anne Daye, Colin Hume, Ann Kent and Andrew Shaw, with music from the Broadside Band.
And on Sunday afternoon there was a tea dance called by Colin Hume, Gene Murrow and Andew Shaw; music by Orange and Blue.
Other links
On-line version of Robert Keller's database