Graham Foster

Please send correspondence, queries or comments to: g‌r‌a‌h‌a‌mgfoster.info

Local clubs

Information (including contact details and/or links to a web page) for folk dance clubs in and around Bedford, England, UK are given in the Clubs & programmes section of this web site.

Other relevant web sites

1. English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS)
2. The "Full English" archive collections and the collections in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at Cecil Sharp House, London
3. The Dancing Master, 1651-1728: An Illustrated Compendium
4. Antony Heywood's Country Dance Database which contains over 24,000 entries.
5. Cambridge folk dance index
6. Elements of English Country Dance explains the meaning of the terms used in descriptions of English & American folk dances.
7. Webfeet site encompasses English ceilidh, folk dance, barn dance, contra, Morris, etc. Their extensive "Annotated Jargon" explains many of the terms and calls used by folk dancing in England.
8. English Country Dance Manual, by Village Green English Country Dancers (Winnipeg, Canada), gives an extremely detailed account of dance forms, movements, steps & figures. In a few cases the terminology differs from that usually employed in England.
9. A database of over 1000 traditional British related folk dance tunes.
10. The Traditional Music Library.
11. Thomas Green's Barn Dance Repertoire
12. English/American dancing - a comparison
13. CDSS Online Library by the Country Dance & Song Society in the USA. This includes collections of dances written &/or interpreted by Charles Bolton, Ken Sheffield, and others.
14. Dance Video Archives has links to videos of Contra dances, English Country Dances (i.e. Playford), Morris, and Square dances together with instructions for each dance.
15. English Country Dance videos is an extensive list, by the Lambertville Country Dancers, covering Playford and modern English Country Dances. As of January 2023 this database had 4035 links to videos of 1321 separate dances.
16. Dance and music resources by The Round, which is Cambridge University's English Country Dance Society. This includes explanation and transcription (where copyright allows) of most of Cecil Sharp's "The Country Dance Book".
17. So You Want to Play for Traditional Dances will download this introductory book by John Letheren. He explains many tactics to improve playing for folk dance. However, some of his criticisms against using recorded music no longer apply with modern equipment and software.
18. A web site for Pat Shaw
19. Bedford Early Dance and Music organises historical dance workshops in Bedford.
20. Restoration of 78rpm records by Roger Wilmut
21. Dances from English Dance & Song magazine - 1921-1989 by John Sweeney
    

    and last, but definitely not least...

22. Colin Hume's web site, which, in addition to lots of information and discussion of folk dancing, now includes over 1500 folk dance tunes which can be listened to, and downloaded as sheet music, midi files, or in abc notation.