English country dance is an even better place to meet people with
historical interests. There are many branches of the Country Dance and
Song Society in the US. Their website is:
http://www.cdss.org/
Despite being a historically inauthentic revival, English country dance
is easy, fun, full of friendly people, and many places have excellent
live musicians playing. I think the SCA uses English country dance a
lot at gatherings, not because it's really authentic but because
everyone can do it. So do baroque and Regency gatherings where people
don't know authentic steps. And a fair number of people who do English
country dance also do other folk dance forms, especially contra dance,
Irish country dance, Scottish country dance (their society's URL is
http://www.rscds.org/), and Morris dance. And, a fair number of people
who are interested in one or more of these dance forms, are interested
in historic dance (especially Victorian) or can become interested in it
if they hear about an event. All these dance groups are open to having
flyers for other dances deposited on tables somewhere near the entrance,
put there for exactly that purpose. Everyone does it, there are usually
piles of them.
Many people do several of the (related) dance forms above, so local
groups try to pick different regular nights and not to hold big special
workshops on the same day. It's not because they feel threatened
(especially since the organizers are often the same for more than one
group). Quite the reverse, it's because they know a lot of dancers want
to go to everything in the area and don't want to deprive anyone. (I
should add, though, that Morris dance is a performance dance. You can
attend open "try this dance" intro workshops, and many groups welcome
beginner members; but regular rehearsals are usually not open for
people to drop in.)
Fran
Lavolta Press
http://www.lavoltapress.com
Kahlara wrote:
Another possibility for finding like minded people, if you are at all into traditional or folk dancing you might check out some of those groups as well. I used to contra dance (old country dancing) quite frequently and met people from several groups,
<snip>
_______________________________________________
h-costume mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
