Dancing with children online
English Dance and Song Summer 2021
This article appears in English Dance and Song, the magazine of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The world’s oldest magazine for folk music and dance, EDS was first published in 1936 and is essential reading for anyone with a passion for folk arts.
Folk educator Rachel Cole-Wilkin tells us how she’s adapted her children’s dance workshops to enable participation on the online platform Zoom.
Like many other educators, lockdown left me scrambling to reinvent my work, which was very much dependent on human interaction. So, I developed dance workshops to take place on Zoom. Timewise, I chose lunchtime to deliver them because I know from many years of teaching that’s it’s a time of day when children are ready to let off steam. I advertised on local parent groups and immediately had sign-ups for dancers aged between five and 12 with a wide range of dance experience.
When designing the workshops, I had to think about the essence of folk dance: how do you take a social and interactive art form and adapt it for people in their own living rooms? What is so integral to the dancing that not even social distancing can take it away?
Here are a few of the dances I chose, and the takeaway from each.
Swedish Masquerade (traditional ceilidh dance)
Musicality and role-playing
This is traditionally a partner dance, but works incredibly well for one dancer moving around their own space as the music changes from a stately march, to an elegant waltz, to a lively polka. I introduce it playing different characters; first, as someone quite snobby, then very elegant, and finally someone with a lot of energy. This was easily the most popular dance I’ve taught on Zoom, and the students came up with increasingly exaggerated character variations.
Shepherds Hey (Cotswold morris jig)
Variations in movement quality
At its simplest, this dance offers a movement variation that even my 14-month-old son can enjoy: there is a bouncing bit and a clapping bit. Meanwhile, older dancers can try out more technical footwork and intricate clapping patterns and select where to tap during the ‘heads-shoulders-knees-and-toes’-style choruses.
Bacca Pipes (Cotswold morris jig)
Spatial relationships
hen your students are in different rooms, spatial relationships can be a particular challenge. So, I wanted a dance that would give the students something to interact with and this fits the bill perfectly. Traditionally danced across crossed clay churchwarden’s pipes, it has the advantage of being contained, perfect for even the smallest spaces. It requires dancers to think in multiple dimensions; their relationship to specific points on the floor as well as to their audience.
With lockdown easing and students back in school, my online classes have come to an end for now and I’m excited by the possibility of dancing in person again in the not-too-distant future. However, I believe that anything that forces us to think critically about our practice makes us stronger and more adaptable teachers. I’m grateful to have had this opportunity to reflect on my own style and develop new approaches which can be incorporated into my live lessons.
The past year has been a reminder that folk dance is truly a living tradition which can be adapted to any circumstance – even virtually!
Rachel is a member of the Folk Education Network.
To join for free, see efdss.org/folk-education-network
