Monday 12 Jun 4pm — Friday 16 Jun 10am, 2023
To book visit the Halsway Manor webpage. The caller and dance teacher is Mark Elvins.
More about the musicians in the next post!
Mark Elvins tells the story of how he became a dancer and a caller.
My parents met though dancing, so I grew up in home where dancing happened regularly and was frequently the subject of conversation. On the shelves was all the printed material that was available; Sharp’s country dance books, the CDMs and one or two other odd bits.
As a boy I got dragged along to dances but never quite got the bug. However, when I was 15 the family went away on a folk holiday on the Isle of Wight where there were other families and I really started to understand and enjoy dancing. This of course coincided with an interest in the opposite sex, and indeed I met most of my girlfriends and my wife through dancing.
In those days folk dancing was a much more mainstream activity than it has become now and most towns in our area had their own folk dance clubs. These clubs would run weekly club evenings and Saturday night dances, so every Saturday night there would be a dance on within a forty-minute drive. And, of course, Cecil Sharp House had a dance on Saturday and often Friday and Sundays too! Generally, these dances had much larger attendances than we see today, and the audience were more every local – you didn’t have to travel far for a dance. Admittedly we found over time that some were more fun than others. The programs of dances were also much more mixed, although there have always been Playford balls and American evenings. Most dances would contain a mix of Playford, traditional, contra and even some square dances. The polarisation of an evening into ceilidh, contra or English (Playford style) had not occured. Neither had contra evolved into its zesty form although some dances such as Devils Dream were always danced with high energy levels.
The local folk dance club had started out as an evening class (part of the local tech) and, when the fees were hiked, the members decided to become an independent club. My father became chairman, and when the leader moved away at relatively short notice, he had to step up and start calling himself. He vowed that the club should never be short of a caller again, so cajoled other dancers to also take a turn behind the mic. So, at the age of 16, I too had a go! Another local club ran a series of callers’ workshops which Dad and I attended and my calling career had started!
Generally, I would call a couple of dances each week at our local club. Then another local club asked me to do a guest evening which was exciting and nerve wracking in equal measures and a huge step up.
All of this was done to recorded music; vinyl, with even the odd old 78s. When I did the odd dance at a folk holiday and worked with a live band it was a revelation that you could control the tempo and had to tell them when to stop!
I also went out and called barn dances for local organisations; scouts, PTAs, weddings, etc, which taught my to be an entertainer not just a technical caller. It also helped with my student finances.
I called my first Saturday night folk dance in June 82, and around that time joined forces with a new young band “Tarragon”, who appeared at Sidmouth in 1982 with me as their resident callr. Although the band were relatively inexperienced, for me it went really well. The following year I called my first evening at Cecil sharp House. By ’94 I was calling regular guest evenings for other folk dance clubs, doing a number of Saturday night dances, including my first LBC, and appeared at Sidmouth festival, calling in my own right. In ’87 I did my first Litchfield Festival, first residential weekend (Avon Tyrell), and the following year Chippenham. Over the next few years this pattern of dances and festivals continued, calling once or twice most weeks, including some festivals and days of dance which sadly no longer exist.
Looking back, dancers and other callers, were on the whole, very tolerant and supportive of this young up-start, and it all happened very quickly, bearing in mind the lead time for many dances is 12 – 18 months. I was also, at the time, the first of my generation to have taken the leap into calling (Joe Hodgson and Colin Hume being that bit older).
In 2002 (I then had 3 young children), something had to give, and other than the odd local village barn dance and occasional local club night, I called very little until 2009. However, as the kids got older, they realized that if Dad was calling there was a night out for them to be had, and they became keen for me to once again pick up the mic.
It was interesting to see what had happened in that time out: audiences had become older, and their numbers smaller, which meant that bands also had to contract to fit the budget. Two and three-piece bands had become the norm. Equality had also made an impact and I was at first surprised to be asked to dance by ladies. The Sidmouth festival had also had a major meltdown and was (as far as social dance was concerned) a shadow of its former self.
From March 2020 we had another break, this time enforced by the Covid pandemic. I tried to do my bit with virtual dances, but as a caller, hated the lack of significant interaction. I have to say that the joy of going back to real face to face dancing and calling in November 21, when we did our annual zesty contra weekend, was immense.
When I first started calling, the repertoire of available dances was relatively small, and I am sure that some of the most experienced callers knew most of them by heart. So, in order to keep an interesting programme, I started writing a few of my own. When a significant event came along it was a good excuse to put together a new sequence of figures, to give a new, unique, interesting flow or interaction with the other dancers. Over the years the number of these stacked up, (currently over a hundred), so I published them in a series of three books, under the “In With Both Feet” title. I need to gather up the next tranche for a fourth book, but so much is now on the internet this may not be necessary.
These days I don’t call as much as I used to, (sadly some dance clubs have not survived Covid). When I do call or dance it is mainly contra. I love the energy of both the dance and music and the audiences that tend to frequent these dances. That said, I love calling mixed dances where I can interpose traditional with Playford and then slip in a singing square and patter call. I find it is actually less work to do a mixed dance, because a program of varied dances, some with their own tunes, is easier to remember.
I strongly believe that folk dancing needs to be presented professionally and attractively, in order to compete on Friday/Saturday evenings with the local restaurant, theatre or even Netflix. I believe dances should be danced not plodded and get frustrated with dancers who don’t. I also believe that we should be using our energies to promote what good fun folk dancing can be and not wasting them infighting about political issues. I am not a fan of gender free calling both as a dancer and caller, as I think dances can be explained more quickly and clearly using the terms ladies and men. This gives me scope to call more complicated dances, with less teaching time. That being said, I am very happy for anybody to dance any role! I enjoy improvising in the dance and encourage others to do the same – provided of course that it doesn’t spoil the enjoyment of others.
in theory and in practice 