Actions as well as attitude

English Dance and Song Winter 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. 

Katy Spicer, the English Folk Dance and Song Society’s Chief Executive and Artistic Director, explains why equality, diversity and inclusion are at the very top of the Society’s agenda.

The folk arts are by definition the arts of the people. The sector prides itself on being inclusive, welcoming everyone to join in.

But life is not that simple – it is not like a scenario out of the film Field of Dreams, ‘build it and they will come’. A welcoming attitude has to be accompanied by welcoming actions.

The aims and objectives of the English Folk Dance and Song Society include ‘celebrate diversity and promote equality’; it is becoming increasingly crucial to place this aim at the centre of our thinking and our activities. If we want everyone to engage with our wonderful dances, songs and music – and for these things to survive and thrive – we have to find more ways to broaden engagement.

We connect with organisations to help us reach a more diverse cohort of artists, teachers and participants, and to explore different ways to engage people with our folk arts. This has resulted in:

• Activities for disabled young people and training and development events for folk arts educators. The significance of these activities has been recognised by funders Postcode Community Trust and John Lyon’s Charity.
• Expanding opportunities for young people – ceilidhs, a folk club, ensembles and projects both in and out of schools – encouraging the next generation of artists, organisers, participants and audiences.
• Increasing diversity amongst our tutor team to expand the range of people teaching English folk.
• Supporting the work of Folk Dance Remixed, our associate company, which fuses folk and hip-hop in contemporary and highly-engaging shows, workshops and social dances.
• Ensuring all our artists’ development programmes are advertised as widely as possible to attract artists from wide-ranging backgrounds.
• This year, we hosted a Library Lecture on blackface and a conference on racial and ethnic diversity in folk, both historically focused and in contemporary discourse.

It is not just through our activities that we strive to increase diversity of all kinds.

We have been engaging with a wide range of voices – including artists, teachers and academics – to inform our attitudes, working practices and the activities we deliver.

An internal working group of colleagues and Trustees has looked at our policies and practices.

We have continued to diversify the Board in gender, age, ethnicity and disability.

And now we are exploring our name.

We remain focused on preserving, promoting and developing the English folk arts. To ensure a healthy and vibrant folk culture in England for decades to come, we need to do everything in our power to engage everyone – regardless of ethnicity and heritage, gender, age or ability.

This work is hard. It can be disorientating, as it forces us to challenge long-embedded preconceptions. But we hope you are able to join and support us on this journey.

 Photo of Folk Unlimited: Roswitha Chesher