Folk dance instruction in Devon; small or large groups or personal instruction.

Dance teaching in Devon. Learn how to dance. Updated August 2024.

So what is on offer?

Teaching you how to folk dance - but limited to English folk dance, American Contra, Irish Set Dance, American Square dance and French and Breton dances. Also individual tuition (for women) of couple dances - waltz, polka, schottische and mazurka - all of which I taught in folk clubs years ago. I have also taught an Israeli circle dance but it requires a minimum of 10 or 15 people. I do not dance or teach Scottish, Jive, Salsa, or Ceroc. And I certainly do not teach Polska - it is an offset dance that I last attempted at Towersey festival about ten years ago. To be confident at local dances you just need to know the basics - including a dozen or more of the most common moves, and how to manage a few couple dances. There is overlap between dance types - many Scottish dances are called in English dance clubs. You don't need to know all the fancy footwork.

Number of attendees - ideally a minimum of 7 so that with me dancing as well, we can practise in square sets.

Who would be suitable? Primarily I wish to get more people of ages 16 to 60 into folk clubs. Lively and fit people over 60 may in some cases be suitable.

More women than men generally wish to dance (which suits me!) so groups can be either all women or predominately women. People who smoke are unlikely to fit into any folk dance group - social settings these days are entirely smoke-free and the smell of tobacco or similar substances on clothes alone is enough to make you a marked man (or woman). So first - please give up the habit!

Where? Any local venue to suit yourselves within a reasonable distance of my home (Sidmouth) - or for small groups in one of your houses, provided that  you have enough space and a suitable floor. I used to do Advanced American Square dance in a friend's home locally - it worked well for a single square set (8 people). For some types of dance, a smooth polished wooden floor is almost essential. For others, short pile carpet can be tolerated. The arrangement will be that you find and book the venue (and pay for it as appropriate) and I come and teach you - all by prior arrangement as to dates and times. Local village halls charge from £10 per hour - some halls are more expensive.

If one of you has a large room with a clear space of 3 by 3 metres, that is easily large enough for a square set (4 couples, 8 people) and you would avoid hall hire charges. A space of 2.5 by 2.5 metres would be OK for more sedate dances. Ideally the floor would be polished wood, but kitchen lino can be OK. Ideally, you need to find a village hall, Church hall, or school hall that can be heated during the hire hours. Many school buildings are heated only during school hours and a single room cannot be heated in isolation (except if small, by using fan heaters!). Some school halls have a type of lino flooring - it is sometimes quite 'sticky'. As a consequence, it can be ghastly to dance on.

Cost? This will be minimal, apart from the hire charge for a dance hall if you use one. My aim is to get new people into dance - which should be more popular as a low cost way of both keeping fit and enjoying yourself for an evening. A group of 8 people might each budget for £2 per hour plus their own transport costs.

Children could be welcome, if with their parents (to comply with 'safeguarding' legislation). At one of the Anchor Gardens ceilidhs during Sidmouth Folk Week 2023 a woman came up to me and handed me two small girls. They were about 5 or 6 years old. She told me they would both be my partner, and walked off. I took them into a set where there were other small children and a few adults - none of whom knew what they were doing. The dance was very simple (Clopton Bridge) so I ended up not only dancing with these two small girls as my partner (they were both proficient) but telling everyone else in the set what they should be doing. For the final swing, I asked the two girls if they wanted to be lifted up (yes!) so with one under each arm I swung them around really quite fast. They loved it - yet the whole dance probably contravened some of the dictates of UK 'safeguarding' legislation.

At Towersey festival in 2023, the first time I have attended in many years (owing primarily to much of the dance music being stupidly loud), the family ceilidh afforded an opportunity to dance with a few children. Some were self confident, others so withdrawn they were terrified to leave their mother's side. The former group may be more successful in life.

What's in it for me?

I have two objectives:

To increase the number of people attending folk clubs in Devon and surrounding areas. Many dance clubs have died out in the last ten years and others are on life-support. There is scope for new clubs to be created. Fifteen years ago there used to be a well attended local Saturday dance or ceilidh almost every week, September to May. These attracted 60 to 100 people - most of them good dancers. Attendance nowadays at the few dances that are held can be pitiful and half the people do not know how to dance, which spoils the evening for those who do.

To raise the standard of dance locally so that ceilidh callers (for example) can feel confident to try more complicated dances. So many these days opt for safety - they only call simple dances. This problem is exacerbated by the modern trend to call 'gender neutral' dances where there is no distinction between men and women. This complicates the calling and makes some of the more intricate or fast dances difficult or impossible to call (Nationally known callers agree with me on this point, I discussed with a few during Sidmouth Folk Week 2024). In these dances you really need to know all the time who are the men and who are the women - and with men dancing as women (just to be politically correct) it disadvantages the entire set.

Possible scenarios:

If you are a woman who simply wants to become competent in couple dance then I can probably teach you. If you are a  man, I may be able to get one of my local dance partners to teach you. If you wish to become competent for some special event (maybe a wedding?) then I can probably teach you as a couple or as a group.

Ideally, you would be one of a group of people (7 minimum, mainly or all women) who already know each other and who simply wish to learn dance at your own pace and without the pressure of realising you may be spoiling a ceilidh for more experienced dancers simply because you don't know what you are doing.

Once I have taught you the basics of dance, you could choose in each session what you'd like to be taught. At so many events, for example at the Anchor Gardens in Sidmouth during folk-week, and at other festivals, I meet and teach women who have never danced before and who exclaim how much they have enjoyed it. So maybe I can do this outside of festivals? A session could be as long as you wished - I can dance for 8 hours, but I'm not sure if I could talk for 8 hours!

Once you become confident in the basics, you can go to local folk dances with the knowledge (and self confidence) that you won't stand out as someone who doesn't know much, or anything at all. I have become irritated at local ceilidhs because so much dance time has to be spent explaining the basics to newcomers. Other experienced dancers have given up on some of these events - simply because they prefer to dance, and not stand around!

Women sometimes tell me that they cannot dance, that they have two left feet, that they'll never be able to do it. I like to prove them wrong.

Other women tell me how good I am. I never disagree with them.

Music?

Music would be provided by CDs or occasionally via youtube.

Length of events and refreshments?

I would consider one hour to be a minimum, and maybe two hours if I have to travel some distance. I have to feel it is 'worthwhile' for me to come and teach you. If you wish to provide tea and biscuits at a break period, please feel free to do so. Village halls have suitable facilities.

Injuries? Videos?

You may be required to sign an indemnity to the effect that you undertake not to sue me if you are injured - or indeed if you are intimidated. Accidents occasionally happen when teaching fast dances such as polka. I very rarely land in a heap on the floor with a woman, legs and arms entwined and variously bruised or dislocated. And if I do, it will be entirely your fault. Videos and photographs will not be allowed. This is both to preserve privacy and to reduce the risk of me being sued (!)

Homework?

You can read a little of what is involved here - but DO NOT make the mistake of thinking it is all too difficult. It took me years to become competent. Some people pick it up in a few weeks, others take years.

I can well remember my own abject fear on the first occasions I ventured tentatively onto a dance floor at Sidmouth Festival in 1997 - the year of one of one of the great Sidmouth floods, or it may have been a few years after that. The Sidmouth International Festival is no more, it ended in 2004 and will never return, but you can still have a lot of fun dancing, including at its successor event, Sidmouth FolkWeek, as well as at one or two of the few remaining folk dance clubs in Devon.

Folk dancing is FUN - it is social, it is good exercise and it is recommended by GPs (a couple of my occasional partners have been GPs). It was also recommended by the TV personality Dr Michael Mosley in a series of programmes he made shortly before his untimely death.

What is not on offer?

Recently, in line with the obsessions of the 'metoo' movement, 'political correctness', and 'deplatforming' (cancel culture) in universities, folk dancing has become influenced by 'gender neutral' dictates, so men and women dance either roles and dance with each other - all as equal 'people' and where dance instruction does not permit use of sexist, discriminatory and outdated words such as woman, girl, or man.

Instead, the left hand dancer is called a lark and the right hand one a robin (or sometimes a raven). An example from a Halsway Manor dance event in 2023 is shown below.

I have little time for this - as far as I am concerned, men dance as men and women as women - but excepting that some women have often to take on the male role simply because too few men want to dance (this has been true for hundreds of years). Some women in American Square clubs have danced as a man all their lives. It is a good way of ensuring that you will rarely be left out of dances. Competent men are usually in demand.

A further example of 'woke' culture having permeated folk dance is that even use of the term 'gipsy' is now being discouraged. It derives (so I am told) probably from a Morris dance 'gip turn' move, Nothing to do with a minority group of people! So maybe it will be allowed to remain in use?

Quite recently (October 2023) I was told by a local musician that some newcomers at a dance in Somerset had asked that people be referred to as men and women because they found it so much easier to follow than 'line 1 and line 2', for example. There were similar observations at Sidmouth Festival in 2023.

So my dance instruction will be for men and women - the women being on the right hand side of men in many dances. This convention follows the received wisdom that women are always right. Some men only learn this after they get married.

CONTACT:  stevewozniak42(AT)hotmail.com  (replace (AT) by @)

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