Malaga Airport, folk dance etiquette, Sidmouth Folk Festival!

[CrystalSingerFan]

Long-time lurker, I've registered just to post this. As a huge fan of Sidmouth Folk Festival, I came across these delightful and inclusive guidelines for the 2024 dance programme: sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk/folk-dance/

"... Calling / Teaching Styles Key:

(A) indicates that an event will be called using alternative ungendered role terms (e.g., lead/follow or larks/robins).

(G) indicates that an event will be called using gendered role terms.

(P) indicates that an event will be called without using role terms: positionally emphasising patterns, flow and relationships between dancers, e.g. neighbour, opposite, people facing the window"

Love the Malaga Airport choice of codes. Any Mumsnet FWR folkies know if this is deliberate or a happy coincidence? I'm reluctant to ask the organisers...

Mumsnet have suggested this thread is old, and why don't I start a new one, but I just happened to check this year's Sidmouth Folk Festival programme.

I was amused to discover they've changed the order in which they list the social dance teaching/caller styles. AGP, despite being alphabetical, has gone. We now have PGA: sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk/ceilidhs/

"Caller Listings Key

A variety of teaching and calling styles are used at dances and dance workshops. The calling/teaching style of an event is indicated in the event descriptions using a code: (P), (G) or (A): l (P) indicates that an event will be called without using role terms, emphasising positional patterns, ow, and relationships between dancers (e.g. neighbour, opposite, people facing the windows). l (G) indicates that an event will be called using gendered role terms, in addition to positional descriptors. l (A) indicates that an event will be called using alternative ungendered role terms (e.g. lead/follow or larks/robins), in addition to positional descriptors."

Obviously an organiser has been reading mumsnet......I do hope it reverts to alphabetical nest year

😎

Hee hee hee.

I wonder, for the A and P do dancers naturally align themselves based on their sex? Their was a ceilidh at my friends wedding and I can't recall them using gendered terms for calling but looking at the pictures there is a very clear man's side and woman's side.

At my Scottish country dancing group our teacher announced that we are not meant to use man or woman anymore but leader/follower all the while looking like she thought the world had gone mad. Everyone still asks "are you going to be the man?" before a dance and completely ignores this. Except for the fiddle player in the band there aren't any men present usually, only at the dances when we invite other groups, do we ever have male dancers.

After going to a ceilidh where my gay friends were sneered at for dancing with each other, I'm all in favour of non-gendered language for folk dancing. A genuine example where sex doesn't matter and an inclusive approach is great. (Except for the Cumberland Reel where the men have to lift the women...)

The ceilidhs I've been to still refer to the men/gentlemen and women/ladies, but it will be something like "those of you taking the ladies' part". It has to be flexible, because there are a lot of families, e.g. with mothers and young daughters dancing as partners.

Despicable they got sneered at! But you say it was because they danced with each other - changing the terms to gender neutral wouldn't stop that? Or was it because one was in a "woman's" role?

I'd argue that instead of changing to a non gendered approach then shouldn't we be tackling the misogyny and homophobia that led someone to sneer at gay men dancing together/one gay man in a "woman's" dancing role?

Also it's evident from PPs that the dances are already pretty flexible with genders, if that's accepted then just keep men and ladies and who cares who ends up where! It's not healthy to avoid things that make you anxious like being in the "wrong" gendered group at a ceilidh... These kids need a bit more resilience 😂

[Edited to clarify I'm not referring to the gay men in a previous post needing resilience here, but those who these gender neutral terms have been introduced for!]

Chippenham Folk Festival use the same options. One Contra dance was particularly funny when the caller earnestly explained she would be using larks and robins and she wouldn’t be doing walkthroughs so if you make a mistake or don’t know if someone’s a lark or robin just smile, be gentle with each other, ask, move on etc.
She then paused before starting and a man said “could somebody tell me if I’m a lark or robin?”
Given her job is explaining the dances she’d failed at the first hurdle.

The Cumberland Reel comment is interesting, it highlights the problem with gender neutral calling. You no longer have men’s and women’s roles at all, they don’t make exceptions for particular dances.

I also think that in leader/follower type dances it works much better for me to be the follower when dancing with a man because it often helps if the leader role is the stronger heavier person and if the follower is lighter. As a 5 ft small woman in her fifties (currently prone to shoulder injuries) trying to lead men is extremely uncomfortable. If dancing with a child (family members) I would then naturally take the leading role.

It's like this whole trans debate - trying to change the language and shape society with that. Whereas surely it should be the other way around and society shapes the language. Fact is that dancing is gendered (for valid reasons). Calling the roles by different names doesn't change that fact.

I'm pretty much always dancing as the man (nearly 6 foot) because elements like the allemande are really uncomfortable if you have someone much shorter on the man/leader side.

Yes - I think it should be accepted that there are some dances where it is better if the taller dancers take the leader role, and the caller makes an announcement to that effect. This will generally but not always be men.

This is entirely about physical build, and totally different from the trans debate which is primarily about privacy/security/dignity for women. When country dancing, everyone is fully dressed in a big room full of people of both sexes, and by the time I'm dancing Orcadian Strip the Willow I've lost any sense of my dignity a LONG time ago

When was this? Recently? Startled to learn that ceilidhs are so less tolerant than any other event where it’s accepted that an imbalance of sexes often results in same sex couples.

There are probably recordings of Joyce Grenfell performing Stately As A Galleon.

It was a few years ago - maybe 2019 - in a rural area. Yes I was shocked. But IME (and I've been to a lot of ceilidhs) having two men dance together is much, much rarer than two women, just because more women like dancing than men. But I think it's really important to normalise men dancing together, for obvious reasons of inclusion.

Certainly at the English ceilidhs and other folk dancing I go to - European balfolk and contra dances it’s completely normal to see men or women dancing in single sex couples.

I wonder if this will eventually change as a spillover from folk or traditional from various other cultures as it’s common to have same sex dancing.
I went to a weaning celebration for Nepalese neighbours recently and the dances there were a joy.

FB suggested this to me. I thought some people might like it.
https://www.facebook.com/UofGlasgow/videos/hundreds-of-scientists-are-set-to-take-part-in-the-first-performance-of-a-new-sc/2644898275870063/