SALISBURY FOLKDANCE CLUB

For more details contact Chris on ChairSFDC@hotmail.com

 May it whet your appetite

A potted history

Since medieval times dances have been recorded from parts of England, and since

the 16th century they have been documented in print.  Elizabeth 1st brought many country dances to Court where they were performed along with the more stately dances of the time. In the following century John Playford published collections of  dances in his English Dancing Master most of which are still danced today and  referred  to loosely as “Playford dances”.


Some basic facts

What’s it all about?

The members of Salisbury Folk dance Club are a group of people interested in folk-style social dancing. We meet for the pleasure of listening and dancing to traditional and modern folk dance music on Tuesday evenings at  South Wilts Grammar School, SP1 3JJ  from 7.30 to 9.30m. Our year runs from September to August and membership costs £5 per year with a £3 fee per evening for members and £4.00 for non members. People coming for the first time to try us out are admitted free.We are a friendly group of mainly 40-70 year olds but have several members outside this  bracket and all ages are welcome. We all enjoy the company of others and welcome visitors from other clubs and newcomers. Our regular Caller is David Tullis who encourages other members to take up the challenge of calling on regular “club caller” evenings and ensures a variety of Callers perform  throughout the year as can be seen from our  Programme and Latest News pages.We hold several dances a year with professional Callers and bands and other special events in the summer and at Christmas. Do come along and give us a try for your regular exercise, companionship and emotional uplift!


Awaiting instruction!

Fancy dress party

Berea Dancers display USA

Collectors of the old music and dance notations in England and the USA

Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles

. Collectors such as Cecil Sharp  and Maud Karpeles who recorded  tunes, notations and variations on  the dances saved many of these  dances for posterity.  They also  very importantly interpreted the   Instructions that people like John  Playford wrote into modern English  that we can understand now.

 With the introduction of “modern “  dances such as the Foxtrot, Waltz  and Quickstep and following the  second word war the traditional  dances started to decline.


The world has changed

Since then.....

 Many of these dances  migrated to other parts of  Europe and to America with  the early settlers and  morphed into contras and  squares as still danced  today.

Traditional folk dance

Modern folk dance

Contra dance

Square dance



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