English Dance and Song Spring 2019
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.
EFDSS’ Education department has been running youth ceilidhs at Cecil Sharp House since 2016. Hosted by EFDSS’ Youth Forum, the ceilidhs are funded through our Dance Development programme as part of our commitment to getting more young people involved in social folk dance. Youth Forum member Lauren Ward discusses what she’s learnt from the experience.
We hosted our first youth ceilidh at Cecil Sharp House in November 2016, with live music from Ceilidh Tree and caller Chris Faulkner. Our youth ceilidhs now run termly as fun, friendly, social events for young people aged between 12 and19 years old. From planning and evaluating our youth ceilidhs, we have gained insight into what is important to consider when starting up youth folk dance events.
One of the first things to consider is logistics. This encompasses many factors, from venue and budget to safety and participants. Our ceilidhs have been held in both Trefusis and Kennedy Halls at Cecil Sharp House, and we work with EFDSS staff to manage the events and make the venue safe and welcoming.
Our funding, along with ticket sales, ensures that we can have live music from great bands. We have been lucky to have fantastic musicians play for our youth ceilidhs, such as Alex Cumming and Nicola Beazley. Alongside their stage presence, what makes them great is their ability to be friendly and inclusive. They are able to adapt their music to fit the dances; they choose interesting tunes and arrangements; they bring a great energy, and if you’re not dancing you can still enjoy great music. We tend to choose young musicians because we feel it inspires participants to see young professionals on stage.
Without a doubt, our most important factor has been inclusion. Being inclusive at a youth ceilidh is the responsibility of everyone involved – and this includes the band and callers. Along with a briefing sheet for event staff, we have introduced a briefing sheet for callers that outlines our policies. Our ceilidhs are social events and we understand that, for a variety of reasons, some people may not want or be able to dance but would still like to be here, to meet other young folk enthusiasts and to enjoy the live music. We encourage our callers to use gender-free calling where possible, and to choose dances that are suitable for both beginners and more experienced ceilidh dancers. We also make our callers aware of our policy to never pressure or bully anyone into dancing. So, callers, if you don’t have the right number of dancers in a set, and no one else wishes to dance, you have to adapt to make the dance work (this is something we like to term ‘ceilidh maths’).
Inclusion also involves making our ceilidhs appeal to a wider demographic. In June 2018, EFDSS hosted its first Youth Dance Showcase Ceilidh, where youth dance groups from Camden in London were invited to show us their talent, interspersed with ceilidh dancing – it was great fun. To appeal to those who haven’t danced at a ceilidh before, we have a section on the EFDSS website called ‘What is a ceilidh?’, enabling any young person to get an idea of what our event will be like. This has been useful, as we’ve had new attendees come to each of our ceilidhs despite having never experienced one before.
Just as important as the planning and the running is the evaluation. It is good to be aware of what went well and what could be improved for future events, and the best way to do this is to ask participants. We encourage attendees to fill in anonymous evaluation forms and we take all opinions on board when planning for the next event. It is through these evaluations that we have been able to improve our policy on inclusivity at the ceilidhs. We also provide the chance for attendees to sign up to a mailing list to make sure they don’t miss the next event.
Taking all this into account, here’s a summary of how to run a successful youth ceilidh:
• Know your budget – consider the costs of venue and band hire, refreshments and marketing. Will this be covered by existing funding? Through ticket sales?
• Make sure staff, bands and callers are fully briefed on the aims, policies and logistics.
• Choose callers and bands that are youth-friendly, welcoming and inclusive.
• Choose callers who can cater for beginners up to experienced dancers. • Remind attendees of essential event information, for example, the location of toilets and fire exits.
• Don’t pressure anyone into dancing if they don’t want to.
• Ask for feedback to gain insight on how to make future events even better.
• Be sure to let people know about your next event, such as using a mailing list and social media.
Some members of the Youth Forum, myself included, have external experience of playing and calling for ceilidhs, and feel that our work on making the youth ceilidhs successful at Cecil Sharp House has positively influenced our other ceilidh work.
