Dance Information Site Link List
Introduction
Here are some links to sites that might be of interested to dancers,
particularly Balkan, Israeli, Scottish & Morris folk dancers. As always
with external links, these may change so if you spot any that are no longer
valid, please contact me (with their new
URLs if known).
Balkan, East European, Israeli, International & Circle Folk Dancing
Major Annual Events/Workshops/Classes in the UK & the Netherlands
- Balkan Festival, 'Zetten', in the Netherlands. Classes in Romanian,
Turkish, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian & Albanian dance plus
evening dancing etc. (The main page is on the Silviu Ciuciumiş's Doina Foundation site. Also see Ersin Seyhan's Ozan site, Ersin being the other organiser of the festival, and the English registration forms on the Eliznik site.)
- Machol Europa in the UK. Europe's
main Israeli dance course holiday. Classes from major popular Israeli
choreographers & teachers plus evening dancing, extra classes, lectures,
evening dancing, all-night dance marathon etc.. Visitors from many countries.
Organised by the Israeli Folk Dance Institute. (Unfortunately the site is
currently an awkward Flash-only only one.)
- Doe Dans in the Netherlands.
International folk dancing festival with classes, evening dancing,
performances, etc.. Half of it is Balkan etc. & the other half varies
between years. Only a couple of days long but about 2000 attendees, a party
atmosphere and a huge amount going on. (In Dutch.)
- Eastbourne International Folk
Festival in the UK. Typically breaks into two parallel festivals (although
one can switch freely if one wants), one on Balkan, Israeli, East European,
Breton etc. dancing, the other on Playford, English Country & Contra etc.
dancing. Classes, evening costume dances, performances etc..
- SIFD Website. Includes a
diary of events in, near or bookable from the UK. ('SIFD' is the UK's Society
for International Folk Dance.)
Dance Instructions/Steps
- Vitrifolk. Text notes for over
1000 Balkan & international dances (in a mixture of French, English &
Dutch). Also nearly 4000 costume and location reference photographs, over 700
tune basics as MIDI, nearly 900 tunes as sheet music and much else. By Pierre
Parent of the Vitrifolk dance group from Belgium.
- Dick Oakes'
Folk Dance Notes. Detailed text notes for about 300 Balkan & other
international dances.
- Bob Shapiro's Site.
Detailed text notes for about 200 Balkan, Israeli & other international
dances.
- Folk Dance Federation of California.
Notes for over 200 dances scanned from its monthly magazine's archives. Also
listing of Californian dance groups.
- Andrew
Carnie's Folkdance Notes. PDF text & own shorthand notation summaries
for about 200 international dances.
- Sacred
Circles Touchstone Farm. 500 Circle dances in handwritten Circle Dance
notation (plus 500 more for sale). They also sell music recordings for all of
them. It is a pity that most of the notes are very low detail.
- Andy Bettis's
Dance Steps. Text notes for about 100 Circle, Israeli, Balkan etc. dances.
- Tom Deering's Dance
Notes. Detailed text (plain, HTML & Wordperfect formats) notes for
about 40 Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Romanian dances.
- Israeli Dances dot
com. Search through thousands of Israeli dances by name or choreographer
for name, choreographer, year & album information. Some also have music or
video clips and many have notes in Shorthand Dance Notation Code.
- Esbjörn
Aneer's Dancesteps. Circle Dance notation notes for circle dances.
- Davidic Dance. Text notes for
religious Circle-style Israeli dances from a Jewish-cultured Christian
religious group.
- Elsche Korf. Text notes &
PDF sheet music for traditional Dutch dances.
- Agamemnon's
Greek Dances. Some popular Greek dances as text with ballroom-style foot
step diagrams.
- Duramecho's Balkan etc. dance
notes. This site. Balkan, East European, Israeli, Circle etc.. Detailed
text descriptions.
Dance Videos
- Dunav. An Israeli Balkan dance group
with a large & growing collection of Balkan dance video clips and music
recordings for download.
- Les
Posen's Israeli Dance Videos.
Tutorial video recordings of Israeli dances
from teaching sessions. (Unfortunately currently with most videos
suspended due to its web hosting provider having cold feet about
copyright issues. Hopefully it will eventually be back.)
Dance Notation
- Roma Notation. A notation optimised for fast yet fairly detailed notation
of this style of dancing. (Unfortunately I don't know of any explanations of it
on the WWW.)
- Circle
Dance Notation (on Andy Bettis's site). Sometimes called 'Nose Notation'
because of the appearance of the V-shape symbols showing facing directions.
Very simple & commonly used (in many personal variants) for Circle Dances.
Not detailed enough for learning or archival reference from but quick &
easy to read & write for reminders.
- Labanotation. A
complex form of notation but capable of great detail.
- Shorthand Dance
Notation Code (on Israeli Dances dot com site). A quick, typeable &
highly compressed but low-detail and very complex character based notation for
Israeli folk dances.
Links & Search Engines
Misc.
- Marucho's
animated GIF folkdances. Loads of cute animated images of small cartoon
characters in traditional costume demonstrating particular folk dances from
numerous countries.
- Balkan & West
Asian Folkdances MP3 Library. Over 100 free complete music tracks to
download. I amazed at how the collector managed to arrange with their
performers for them to be free.
- Rikud mailing list.
Mailing list (and WWW based archive) for Israeli dance information. The event
announcements are typically USA dominated but there sometimes useful
information & discussion (buried in lots of chat) also posted to it.
- Eliznik. The site of Nick Green
& Elizabeth Melish, avid British collectors & teachers of Romanian
dances folk dances. It has costume reference photographs and articles about
dance styles, history and regional distributions.
- Bognor Regis Dance Ensemble. An
international folk dance group run by a friend of mine. Despite the URL, not to
be confused with the Interfolk music publishers connected with the Doe Dans
festival.
- Israeli Dancing dot info.
Listing of Israeli Folk Dance groups, classes & events worldwide.
- Balkanfolk. Sells dance costumes,
holidays, instruments & recordings. NB. Costumes are hardly ever needed and
making them oneself is more fun, unique & ensures a fit but this site does
demonstrate what unexpectedly specialized retailers exist on the WWW!
Morris Dancing
Dance Instructions/Steps
Site Lists
- Morris
Teams Directory. List of virtually all currently existent Morris sides -
useful if you have to pick an unused name for a new side! With links to contact
information and websites where available. A Wiki.
- Mainly Morris Dancing.
Lots of links to sides & information.
- Rich Holmes. Lots of Morris links
& information.
- Directory Of
Online Morris Dancers. A directory of Morris dancers rather than sides.
- Morrisdancing dot
org. Links to the web sites of the various Morris associations.
- Side Finder.
Search for Morris sides in the UK by geographic location. Unfortunately it does
not seem to be being updated for a few years.
Misc.
- Shave The Donkey. An on-line Morris
news site! Has not been updated for years though.
Scottish Country Dancing
English Country Dancing
Folk Dance Music Scores
- The abc Page. Main site for the abc
music score format. Links to archive sites, players, viewers, specs, etc..
- The Web-wide abc
Index. Links to over 20000 tunes in abc format!
- Richard
Robinson's Tunebook. Lots of Balkan, Scottish, Irish, Scandinavian, English
& French tunes in abc format.
- Seymour.
Israeli & Balkan tunes in abc format.
- An ABC
Library of Morris Tunes. Morris dance music in abc format.
- Living Circle Dance.
Brian Steere's site with the phonetic words & guitar chords to
about 100 popular Balkan, Israeli etc. songs & some sheet music.
- The Big Round Band.
The band of the The Round, Cambridge University's English country dance
club, with English folk music in abc format with PDF renderings in
multiple keys.
- Gog Magog. Molly dance tunes in abc & PDF.
Groups I am or have been connected with
- Balkanplus. Monthly Balkan etc.
dancing in London. On 2nd Saturday of most months at Cecil Sharp House but see
the website for latest timetable. Different guest leader each month and
sometimes the Dunav or Vulpros live bands. Also organizes weekend workshops
with dance teachers from overseas. (I'm its treasurer.)
- Ipswich Dancer. Not
a dance group but this gushingly enthusiastic site of Circle Dance related
stuff includes the advertising of the regular Circle Dance group (Tuesdays
Nights at the Quaker Meeting House) in Ipswich, UK. (I sometimes attend and have stood in as
teacher a few times teaching Balkan dances.)
- Youlgrave Dance Weekends.
The Youlgrave (a.k.a. Youlgreave) May &
August bank holiday weekend dance holidays. A mixture of
Circle Dance, Balkan dance & whatever else people bring in very
friendly & fun atmosphere situated in beautiful UK Peak District
scenery. (I have attended & taught at it a few times.)
- Lagabag. Cotswold Morris.
Mixed. Near Ipswich. More relaxed than Westrefelda. (I was in it for several
years & maintained its website.)
- Westrefelda. Cotswold Morris.
Mixed. Near Ipswich. More perfectionist than Lagabag. (I was briefly in it at
its founding when it was short of dancers.)
- Dance East.
One of the UK's 9 national dance councils. It used to include
recreational folk dance (but is concentrating on ballet/modern for
training children into dance careers whilst its new centre is being
built; hopefully it will diversify again once the building work is
over). (It happens to be based in the town where I live and have been
to some of its classes & shows.)
- Cambridge University
Strathspey & Reel Club. Scottish Country Dancing in Cambridge. In two
sections, very lively ceilidh type dancing where beginners could join in to
learn and dance & a performance section for the advanced. (It is where I
first started folk dancing (in the beginners section) and discovered that I
liked it. Unfortunately it was my final year at university so I did not stay
long.)