Dear
Chair of the Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund,
Please, find enclosed two copies of my report of the
project I carried out from January 2004 – June 2005. I am sending a CD-R with
the report but unfortunately cannot send a video of the dance rehearsals as the
folk dance groups I studied with like to retain a certain amount of secrecy
about their dance forms and their community.
The experience made possible by LUTSF was invaluable
to my PhD research and I am extremely grateful to the LUTSF. The money enabled
me to visit various folk dance groups across the
I plan to share my research at the New Scholars’
Conference in December 2005.
Lucy Wallis – report
Introduction
To summarise my research process, I am exploring the
work of a major British choreographer, David Bintley, who is currently director
of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. I will
be making particular reference to
Still Life at the Penguin Café (Premiere, 1997) and the
extent to which Bintley draws on English folk dance. I was awarded a Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship to help carry out ethnographic
research into English folk dance and work with performance teams across the
Location
of study
I carried out research
into the following dance forms at various locations: border Morris dance,
rapper and longsword dance, woodshoe clog, maypole dancing Cotswold Morris and
English country dancing.
|
Study |
Group and location |
Timescale |
|
Maypole dance |
Padstow, Old Cornwall Society - The Old ‘ |
May 2004 |
|
Cotswold dance |
Ravensbourne Morris men |
April 2004 |
|
Wood shoe clog dance |
Singleton Cloggers, |
January 2004 |
|
English Country dance |
Jane Austen Dancers, Bath |
September 2004 |
|
David Bintley |
|
November 2004 June 2005 |
During my ethnographic
study, I worked closely with the groups learning traditional steps, dances and
patterns and acting as a participant observer, recording the groups’ work at
rehearsals and performances.
The groups provided me
with feedback on my own expertise and admitted that I adapted to the style
well. However as a trained dancer, it is difficult to adopt the relaxed posture
and heavy footwork, dominated by a use of weight through the flat of the foot
that is needed in folk dance, something that I found particularly useful to
note for my research. I found it very interesting that the various groups were
quite secretive about their work and liked to retain the individuality and
mysticism of their tradition despite sharing a network of steps that can be
recognised across the entire folk dance community.
My ethnographic research allowed me to
draw conclusions as to how English folk dance has adapted within theatre dance
and I was able to draw conclusions as to various issues over posture, weight,
arm lines, basic steps and figures, rise and fall and use of props and
costumes. An example is that I found a Cotswold Morris dancer’s posture is
relaxed, with the weight slightly back and the arms hung by the sides with a
feeling of weight in the wrists. The shoulder girdle is heavy and the ribcage,
although supported, is free to move forward and backwards as weight is thrown
into a step. Use of weight in the arms is difficult to achieve for ballet
dancers, and I am now able to compare these variants within the work of David
Bintley and other choreographers and compare them to the work of the folk dance
community.
Cotswold Morris dance is also characterised by a low
centre of gravity. Weight should go through the whole of the foot, emphasised
by wearing heavy shoes or boots and flexing the feet. It was detailed
observations like these that have proved extremely useful to my research.
I was able to notate and learn how to perform
specific folk dance steps from the dance vocabulary such as the Morris dance
caper and the two-step, and found variants in rhythm and counts. I was also
able to analyse the various figures used across the dance form such as the very
popular grand chain, in which dancers weave in and out in a circle, and
threading the needle, which is another series of chains where dancers weave in
and out underneath an arch and pull other dancers through the chain.
I am going to be running some experimental dance
workshops to help disseminate the knowledge I have learnt and will draw from my
ethnographic research and will be able to demonstrate variations when comparing
authentic folk dance and theatre dance.