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Saturday morning into the afternoon, we’ll have opportunities to familiarize ourselves with the idiom of bal folk dancing and music, in all its forms. There’ll be dance workshops in the ballroom, along with mini-bites of dancing during the breaks between workshops. There’ll also be musicians’ workshops in the Q Street Pub, a room upstairs at the Whittemore House (no need to go outside!). The Q Street Pub is accessible by stairs or an elevator.
Before dinner, we’ll pause for a concert open to the public, where our featured bands will give us a moment to absorb the complexities and subtle beauties of Western European traditional music.
And immediately following dinner, we’ll reconvene to dance the whole night away into the early hours of the morning. Upstairs, experienced session leaders will host a musicians’ jam for tune learning and sharing.
Sunday morning, we’ll have some more workshops, then say farewell to each other with a daytime bal.
Full Schedule
SATURDAY, 4 JANUARY
| BALLROOM | Q STREET PUB | |
|---|---|---|
| 9.30 – 11.30 | Orientation to bal folk Jeremy Carter-Gordon and Eloise & Co. | |
| Mini Workshop: Branle de Cassandre | ||
| 11.50 – 13.00 | Breton dances Lisa Tamres and Mike & Alex | Contemporary Belgian Tunes Nova |
| ───────── | Lunch break | ───────── |
| 14.00 – 15.10 | Bourrées Jeremy Carter-Gordon and Nova | Breton tunes Mike & Alex |
| Mini workshop: Kost ar c’hoad | ||
| 15.30 – 16.40 | Irregular waltzes Lynn Baumeister and Eloise & Co. | Bourrées in 3 Leslie Barr |
| 17.00 – 18.30 | Concert* Nova and Eloise & Co. | |
| ───────── | Dinner break | ───────── |
| 19.30 – 24.00 | Bal* Eloise & Co., Mike & Alex, and Nova | Jam* Box & String |
*Saturday evening events are open to the public! If you’re not planning to come to the whole weekend, you can book à-la-carte tickets to the concert, bal, and jam here.
SUNDAY, 5 JANUARY
| BALLROOM | Q STREET PUB | |
|---|---|---|
| 9.45 – 10.45 | Mazurkshop Jeremy Carter-Gordon and Nova | The bal folk tune toolbox Eloise & Co. |
| Mini workshop: Rondeau en couple | ||
| 11.05 – 12.05 | Bal Nova | Teaching the teacher Jeremy Carter-Gordon |
| ────────── | Lunch break | Bal folk organizers discussion The Bal DC Committee |
| 13.20 – 16.00 | Bal Eloise & Co. and Nova |
Workshop Descriptions
DANCE WORKSHOPS
Orientation to bal folk for everyone
Jeremy Carter-Gordon and Eloise & Co.
Saturday 9.30 – 11.30 (2h)
If you’re an old hand at bal folk dancing or if you’ve never danced a step in your life, this workshop will put us all in sync, learning (and dancing!) the most common bal folk dances so you can hit the ground dancing, or bring some embodied context to your music-making.
Breton dances
Saturday 11.50 – 13.00 (1h10)
The ecstatic and entrancing Celtic rhythms of Brittany are a blast to try out! We’ll be dancing mostly in circles and chains, practicing elegant footwork and blissing out to the bagpipes and bombard.
Bourrées
Saturday 14.00 – 15.10 (1h10)
Bourrées are unique dances in the bal folk canon: even though they are partner dances, leading and following is collaborative and fluid, and partners communicate visually rather than by feel. This session will include variations on the 2-time facing bourrée, bourrées in sets, and the 3-time bourrées of Berry and Auvergne.
Irregular waltzes
Lynn Baumeister and Eloise & Co.
Saturday 15.30 – 14.40 (1h10)
Come learn 5-count, 8-count, and 11-count waltzes. These are turning dances (like the 3-count waltz we all know and love) but with additional steps that give them a different feel. The emphasis is on the turning, rather than on figures. Once your feet get the hang of it, you will enter a zen-like trance as you spin about the floor.
Mazurkshop
Sunday 9.45 – 10.45 (1h)
Find the gaps. Listen to the silence. Look for the space in between the steps. The mazurka is a complex, versatile dance, and this workshop will help you explore every facet of it. Wake up in the morning to this workshop that will dive into a place of creativity, going beyond the basic pattern so you can create your own unique mazurka style.
MUSIC WORKSHOPS
Contemporary Belgian tunes
Saturday 11.50 – 13.00 (1h10)
Come learn by ear a curated selection of contemporary (recently-composed) bal folk tunes by Belgian artists such as Naragonia, Trio Dhoore, and Snaarmaarwaar! We will teach a few tunes we love which are not traditional, but are on the front wave of innovation in bal folk music.
Breton tunes
Saturday 14.00 – 15.10 (1h10)
Explore the entrancing melodies of Brittany, from the an dro and hanter dro to gavottes of every style and region. Through learning by ear and reading, the workshop will tell the stories of these dances and tunes. For those with diatonic instruments, note that tunes will be taught in the keys of A and G (not the traditional key of B♭!)
Bourrées in 3: The Soul Music of the Massif Central
Saturday 15.30 – 16.40 (1h10)
Long before “modern” dances like polkas and mazurkas came to the mountains of central France, people danced 3 time bourrées. The tunes, with their modal melodies and strange-to-our-ears phrasing, conjure images of long-ago weddings and village bals in lost corners of Auvergne. In this workshop, we’ll learn some bourrées in the style of the violoneux of Cantal and Corrèze, focusing especially on playing with what French trad musicians reverently call “la cadence”: the pulse of the music that makes people want to get up and dance.
The bal folk tune toolbox
Sunday 9.45 – 10.45 (1h)
Much of today’s bal folk repertoire is compiled in tunebooks. But how do you take a tune off of the page and truly turn it into dance music? This workshop for all levels will help build ensemble skills with harmony and chord/backup ideas in the specific context of the bal folk tradition. At the end, participants will be able to play a fully crafted tune medley that’s a pleasure both to listen to and dance.
…AND MORE!
Teaching the teacher
Sunday 11.05 – 12.05 (1h)
Bal folk communities will only thrive if they can grow and introduce more and more dancers to this living tradition. In this session, Jeremy will share tips and advice for teaching bal folk dances so that you, too, can become a bal folk dance instructor!
Bal folk organizers discussion
The Bal DC Committee
Sunday 12.20 – 13.20 (1h)
Join us with your lunch if you want to hear more about being a bal folk organizer, if you have experience organizing bals or festoù-noz, or if you want more bal folk in your community! This is an unstructured, round-table discussion; all perspectives are welcome.
Bal DC 