Spreading the Word
An introduction to Social Dance for our neighbouring village.
The neighbouring village of Abilly has very kindly offered their Salle des Fetes as a venue for our dance club “Danse Pressignoise” whenever our regular venue is unavailable.
They asked if we could offer them a musical and social dance event by way of saying thank you for the use of their hall. We gladly said, “Yes!”
We offered a concert with our band Celtiqua, followed by an introductory dance.
This would involve teaching the basic “English Country Dance” movements to the villagers most of whom would not have had a background in this style of dance.
It is interesting to note that from the 15th and 16th Centuries this style of dance was taught throughout Europe by English dancing masters in the courts and households of the nobility and therefore, as the common language in court was French, many of the dance movements have French names.
Examples are :
Right Hand Turn “Allemande Droite” = a la main
Left Hand Turn = “Allemende Gauche”
Do-si-Do (Passing your dance partner and moving right and then returning to your original place in French is “Dos à dos”)
More of these instructions and historical background can be seen in this blog post Social Dance Explored:
A good crowd of people turned out for this event.
The afternoon started with a short concert by our band Celtiqua and the dances were introduced and taught by David Henderson and Patience Scott-Brown.
The dancers were a mixture of our club members (Danse Pressignoise) and visitors from the community in Abilly and beyond.
Danse Pressignoise meets every Tuesday Morning in the Salle des Fetes in Le Grand Pressigny, Indre-et-Loire, from 10h30 to Midday. All dances are taught and beginners are very welcome.