Music for / Dancing to Music
Inspired by our young musicians experiences at UK Folk Festivals, Music for / Dancing to Music brought all things folk dance to Teesdale.
Primarily, Music for / Dancing to Music provided greater opportunity for Cream Tees to learn about playing for dancing, and dancing to tune playing, for Cream Tees in their regular Thursday jamming sessions. Through this, we were able to develop our links with external tutors from the Newcastle University Folk and Traditional Music BA and regular Dave Gray [Varldens Band, Katie Doherty and the Navigators], to tailor their tuition towards this idea. Playing for ceilidh dance was key to this, and fit in well alongside parallel project, The Ceilidh Project. Having danced our ways through the ceilidh halls of a number of festivals, it was fascinating to develop skills from the other side, playing for others to dance to. Using these newfound skills, Cream Tees were able to play for some set dances at the EFDSS Folk Educators Group development day, hosted at The Bowes Museum by Blaize Community Arts.
We were also able to start a new facet of Music at the Heart of Teesdale, an intergenerational rapper team. During our annual trips to folk festivals around the UK, the Cream Tees were excited to see the fast-paced, trendy-bendy sword dancing hailing from the North of England, and thrilled at the opportunity to learn how to do it themselves. As part of our community development remit, we made these workshops open across generations and level of experience in traditional music and dance. This was a particular hit, as we were able to connect with dancers who were familiar with other forms of traditional dance (such as Morris and Longsword), but hadn’t had the opportunity in Teesdale to be part of a Rapper side. Workshops were led by Coral Reid [Star and Shadow, Kingsmen Clog] and Rapper dance veteran Aubrey O’Brien, with Elinor Creaby-Attwood providing music and tuition on playing for step dance.
As if this wasn’t enough dance filled content, we also continued developing our Longsword programme. By connecting with a number of local primary schools, we were able to work with a whole new generation of potential traditional dancers in Teesdale.
These workshops were led by Patrick Langdon, with Rupert Philbrick and Helen Bishop providing music to dance to.
