Keep Calm and Carry on Dancing
English Dance and Song Autumn 2020
This article was published in English Dance and Song, the magazine of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The world’s oldest magazine for folk music and dance, EDS was first published in 1936 and is essential reading for anyone with a passion for folk arts.
Caller Rhodri Davies discusses how social dancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has become possible thanks to online innovations.
When lockdown started in March, an important aspect of many of our lives became impossible. Folk dancing is the antithesis of social distancing; close contact with large numbers of people coming from far and wide, with many participants in the higher risk category due to age.
None of us have socially danced since – or at least we have not been dancing in the same way. Dancing has moved online. Cyber Playford and Oxfolk’s Zoom Ceilidhs were the earliest instances that I am aware of. Many clubs, dance series and festivals have taken up the idea. There has been a flurry of innovation around technology, new dances and adaptations, but there are challenges:
1. There are rarely more than two dancers in the same household, so sets must be small, should avoid some moves and make use of ‘ghost’ dancers.
2. Delays inherent in transmission make it difficult for musicians and callers in different locations to synchronise in live performances.
3. You need access to reliable technology and the ability to use it.
4. The technology tends to give ‘focus’ to whoever is being loudest, which is not helpful if you want to obtain an intelligible mix of a caller and multiple musicians.
5. Unlike live performances where we have learned over years what can go wrong and how to cope with it, this is all new and there can be a lot to master.
6. Video editing takes a surprising amount of time. Even live online performances take a lot of preparation, but at least they cut out the travel time.
In order to be able to partake in online social dancing, you need a computer, tablet or mobile phone, an internet connection, some free software, space to dance and your imagination. Connect, listen, watch, or join in as you see fit. You can drop out of a dance part way through without disrupting a set. If you are using a mobile device, you can pair up with another dancer, set your cameras to selfie mode and see the other person as though you were looking at them during the dance moves.
A basic experience requires no more than that. It is practically impossible to bring together multiple musicians in different locations and make an acceptable sound, but it is possible to transmit the music from a single location, add a caller at a different location and make it work. The caller will need to avoid verbosity and deliver prompts well ahead of the music. Alternatively, a caller feeding in recorded music can avoid latency and balance the audio inputs. As restrictions are relaxed, having live callers and musicians in one location can overcome many of the issues.
There are ways of improving the experience. Use of quality microphones is a good first step. For those with the know-how, time and access to equipment, it is possible to set up sophisticated environments that can enhance the experience. Use of backstage audio and video connections, digital mixing desks that can be operated by remote sound engineers, video mixing so that the audience can see the band and caller on the same screen, all contribute to this.
There are many options for the backstage channel, trading off latency between the band and caller against quality and reliability of the resulting output. Ultimately, it comes down to mixing and broadcasting the audio from a single location to overcome problems with delays. This can cope with the caller and a single location source for the music. But if musicians are split over multiple locations, delays make a coherent performance impossible. There are techniques still to try but we may never be able to produce the big band live experience effectively.
Select dances where most of the action is with your partner. Dances requiring large sets and interactions with many other dancers are not effective. Some moves such as heys are also problematic. Dances in duple minor formation, where the number ones do most of the actions, work well. There are dances in styles from Playford to contra to ceilidh that will work or can
be easily adapted.
Online dancing does not work for everyone; the technology is not available or acceptable to all, network reliability may be insufficient, and the entire concept is not satisfying for some people. For others, it has become a way of remaining connected with friends and participating in an activity they love.
Having been forced to develop techniques for online dancing, we can continue to use them, uniting people who can’t dance together under normal circumstances.
We should consider the concept of dance miles, akin to food miles, and carry on some virtual events even when real ones become possible.
Folk dancing has adapted and survived as it has done before; bear in mind that the third edition of Playford’s dancing master was published in 1665, the year of The Great Plague of London. So, keep calm, carry on dancing – and innovating and interacting – and look forward to the time when we can all dance together again.
But let’s also take some of the good things that have developed and carry them into the future, too.
Event listings appear on many of the existing mailing lists and Facebook is another rich source of notifications. For more information and ideas, see facebook.com/RhodriDaviesCaller or search for Rhodri Davies Caller on YouTube.
Social dancing advice from the English Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society are not public health experts. Most importantly, you must always follow the latest government guidance.
In addition, please check our summary of the latest advice for dancers.
For dance classes, you can read detailed advice provided by EMD UK (previously known as EMDP, The Exercise Movement and Dance Partnership).
For general advice for dancers and useful links, see the sector support organisation One Dance UK’s regularly updated and comprehensive information.
Organisation People Dancing has produced some links for community dancers. However, as they note, there is little government guidance yet that is specific to participatory arts activity.
