I was invited to teach the Irish Set Dancing workshops at Chippenham Folk Festival this year. The Chippenham festival runs over the bank holiday weekend at the end of May. I had attended there several times before, but not for a few years, so was pleased to be invited back there again.
I was especially pleased to be allocated the Town Hall for the Irish Set Dancing workshops and ceili. It is a lovely venue, right in the town centre, beautifully decorated in Regency style, with a good floor for dancing, and just the right size for the numbers we usually get there.
As the festival runs over the bank holiday weekend we had three sessions, workshops on the Saturday and Monday afternoons, and a longer session for a ceili on the Sunday afternoon. The Perfect Cure provided perfect music on each day! On the Saturday I taught the Naas Set, from County Kildare. I remember learning this in a workshop with Pat Murphy in Killarney about ten years ago. We learnt the Moycullen Set on the same day (which is on the page before the Naas in Pat Murphy’s book), which we dance often now, but we very rarely dance the Naas set, so I thought I would revive it for the festival. The stewards told me afterwards that we had 80 participants in the hall at one time, so I was very pleased with the turn out.
We danced the Naas, and a selection of other sets in the ceili on Sunday afternoon. I was pleased with the numbers of people there too, up to nine sets on the floor at any one time. The numbers were down a bit on the Monday afternoon, which is always the case, as some people leave on Monday to travel home, but we still had five or six sets to learn the Sliabh Fraoch Set, from County Cork. This dance is done occasionally in Ireland, and I enjoy the single file lead around in the first and third figures, which is why I chose it for the workshop.
As well as set dancing I also enjoyed attending a number of concerts over the weekend. The highlight for me was the Big Top concert on Saturday evening, with the Wilson Family, Magpie Lane, and Melrose Quartet. I have seen the Melrose Quartet a few times before, but not the other two acts, and I thought Magpie Lane were particularly good, with the variety of instruments they played and songs they performed. Many friends from the set dancing community were also at the festival, and I know some of them were enjoying the variety of dancing available on the programme.
All in all, a great weekend, and I hope I’ll be asked back to teach there again in 2020!
