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[WendyG]

There are several programs about folk (music and dance) on BBC 4 TV starting at 9.00 pm tonight and then repeated later on in the night.

Wendy

[Ebor_fiddler]

I'm glad I read your post before going to bed! I made a complete and utter pig's ear of recording the 9.00 broadcast and thought I had lost it for ever    . The programmes on either side were first class, but just not what I was looking for!  Thank you Wendy!

Regards,
Chris B.

[Noodle]

I'm just watching them on iplayer.

Kind of ironic given that according to this page, The BBC are axing Folkwaves in the East Midlands... http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Folkwaves-on-BBC-Radio-Derby/173039876049804?v=info

[ganderbox]

The Bacup Coconut dancers are particularly interesting to me because they give a clue as to what morris dancing in Cornwall might have been like. References exist to morris being danced in Cornwall in the fifteenth century, but of course nobody has the faintest idea what sort of dancing it was.

It was also refreshing to see some young athletic Cotswold dancers. Their performance gave a much better explanation for their being a male-only side than his (I thought) rather silly verbal reply to the question!

I was a bit disappointed, though,  not to see the Abbot's Bromley Horn Dance being done to that lovely haunting tune I usually associate it with.

PS I'm afraid I switched off the programme after it. Bellowhead were OK, but after that....no, not for me!

[Chris Ryall]

See this Mudcat thread http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=104600&messages=50 with respect to the "modern" or "Robinson" horn dance tune.  The music commonly used has been collected on a web page but it would seem that "Robinson's" gets in only rarely.

http://www.btinternet.com/~radical/thefolkmag/abromley.htm

I met Nancy Lady-Bagot at a dinner party a few years ago. She's great fun and has settled into our quaint english ways very well - including making tea and cake for the dancers. AFAIR she said she'd only heard the Robinson tune "rarely" but I think she tends to wait on the hill rather than follow the dance in the village.  To my shame I've never seen the day myself. I always either forget or have something on.

The programme's 7/8 leitmotif wasn't all that English trad either!  But I though it had a nice "drive"

[Thrupenny Bit]

ganderbox:
The earliest reference to morris in the country * I think* is for bells being bought, in church records down Penance way?? somewhere right on the end of the peninsula. I remember Roy Dommet chatting about it and referring to a book published by one of the folk historians as part of his pHD. Might be jumbling up references as to who, but the 'where' was accurate, unless another reference has come to light. That was late 80's so something more may have turned up.
As you indicate, and dommet always eluded to it, there was most probably an indiginous 'morris' of which we have no idea about, that was then overlaid with the new cotswold morris that probably came over with Catherine of Aragon,  wiping out our original versions. But we'll never know....!

I quite enjoyed the programme. The 'male only' stuff always gets up my nose. Especially as I have a picture hanging in my front room of my wife's Great Great grandfather, top hatted, high breeches, fiddle on hip at the back of a large group of women dancers, ( one being his future wife, and great grandmother to my wife ). It's marked 'Spon End ( coventry ) June 19th 1909'....
After all the male only stuff was an invention of Sharpe in response to Mary Neal getting into the Esperance ( sufferagette ) movement and so Sharp distanced himself and made it 'men only'....
Sorry. Rant over.

I've only seen the Bacup dancers at Sidmouth and totally bowled over. It is just * so wonderful and bizarre* I truely love it.
cheers
Q

[Gary]

Clog dancing on Sat at 1900

[Thrupenny Bit]

Yep. Recorder set!
Q

[Johnjo]

Yay!! Just spotted Theo on the clog dancing prog. Fame!

[Broadland Boy]

Other than being horrified to see I had not lurked out of the way adequately enough while they were filming the step dancing at Stowmarket and appear to have been immoralised on film I thoroughly enjoyed the dance program, wondered how many of the box players I might 'know' here and was saddened not to hear anything like the 'known' AB Horn Dance - also interested to see the horns were kept in the church and the age of some. Similarly enjoyed both the Coconutters and the Saddleworth rushcarters, particulalrly the quantity of rushes transported - presumaly back to when they were regularly strewn on the floors to keeps the dust down.

Did anyone watch the Folk at the BBC programme from Durham, there was some archive film of a colliery steam winding engine along with a song apparently about two campos of miners, one liking the old means of drawing cages and one the new - I'd love to find if the film features on any purchaseable video / dvd and if the song or lyrics are on line anywhere - Durham winding engines are not well represented in presevration and other than some stills I had beleived them unrecorded on film - the restored ones at Beamish and the NRM are not like the real thing working in collar 

I watched the Xmas extravaganza but wasn't overly impressed with some of it, apart from the few rude or comedic folk songs the rest are supposed to be delivered in dirge like form by doleful old relics, there, thats lit the touch paper 

Richard, having now fixed his errant master clock, is about to get round to tuning the aged Hohner, probably...

[Owen Woods]

Just watched Still Folk Dancing... I'm a day behind Enjoyed it very much and learned some things that I didn't know previously. Somewhat surprised that rapper was mentioned so little, given that it is perhaps the most accessible tradition to the uninitiated; i.e. it looks cool. Also bemoaning the lack of Molly, Border and Longsword, but other than that it was very good. I suppose that if you wanted to document everything it would take a hell of a lot longer than an hour!

[Ollie]

Just watched Still Folk Dancing... I'm a day behind Enjoyed it very much and learned some things that I didn't know previously. Somewhat surprised that rapper was mentioned so little, given that it is perhaps the most accessible tradition to the uninitiated; i.e. it looks cool. Also bemoaning the lack of Molly, Border and Longsword, but other than that it was very good. I suppose that if you wanted to document everything it would take a hell of a lot longer than an hour!

What they need is a series of 6 programmes...

[Ebor_fiddler]

Who else spotted Theo on the Cloggie programme tonight? 

[Lester]

Who else spotted Theo on the Cloggie programme tonight? 

JohnJo about four posts up 

Oh and me 

[ladydetemps]

and me

[Owen Woods]

Just watched Still Folk Dancing... I'm a day behind Enjoyed it very much and learned some things that I didn't know previously. Somewhat surprised that rapper was mentioned so little, given that it is perhaps the most accessible tradition to the uninitiated; i.e. it looks cool. Also bemoaning the lack of Molly, Border and Longsword, but other than that it was very good. I suppose that if you wanted to document everything it would take a hell of a lot longer than an hour!

What they need is a series of 6 programmes...

That sounds good

[Martyn]

Who else spotted Theo on the Cloggie programme tonight? 

Pip Ives and Matt Quinn too.

And a load of my mates from Newcastle, and my dear lady wife.

[brianread]

and I've just watched the follow-on program tonight (Sunday).

A real feast of 60s and early 70s performers. Seeger (both), McColl, Al Stewart, Incredible String Band, Sandy Denny (one of my long time loves), Pentangle, Bert Jansch, Steeleye on Crackerjack (actually that is on youtube as well), Donovan (twice), Richard Thompson, Billy Bragg, etc.   to an ageing folky in his 60s - just the ticket.

the 50s/60s one not so good  - more American and diatribes about guitars!

And of course the Clogging Flash Mob was homework to those of us involved in the Liverpool Folk Ambush!

All power to the Aunty Beeb 

[Ellie]

And of course the Clogging Flash Mob was homework to those of us involved in the Liverpool Folk Ambush!

Yes - hell of a lot of organising! Thoroughly enjoyed the clog programme tonight, though missed Theo  Thought it was rather better than yesterday's - the Unthanks don't quite make the best presenters, do they 

[mab]

Thought it was rather better than yesterday's - the Unthanks don't quite make the best presenters, do they 

I didn't mind them as presenters but I think a lot of that could have been to do with the accents making me homesick
I was wondering where the Longsword, Molly and Border had gotten to as well and could definitely have done with more rapper. Ah well.
Just off to watch the clog dancing from tonight.