[Reclaimmayday] Maypole dancing

Sam sam.nightjar at gmail.com
Sat Apr 14 16:33:52 UTC 2012


Hello all, 

I've been wondering what to do to overcome the difficulty we had with music to accompany the maypole dancing last year. 

Basically, the maypole dancers need music to dance to but last year we could only hear our musicians in between the sounds from the stage.  

I have thought of having the maypole far away from the noise but I don't think that would work. 

Lawrence who fiddled for us last year now has a ceilidh set that he plays with a double bass player. He had an idea that I think would work really well.  We put up the maypole reasonably near one of the stages, he and Andy play from the stage and we have a large scale audience participation ceilidh dance. We can call some traditional dances from the stage and  culminate in a mass maypole dance. This would also be called from the stage.

It would be possible to choreograph something simple and non traditional that a hundred or more people could join in with. 

After that there could be small maypole dances that happen on the hour or half hour through the afternoon which would dance along to whoever was playing on stage. Possibly the least traditional maypole dance ever but I think it would be fun. 

So in terms of afternoon stage programming, is everything sewn up or would this fit in? It would probably need 30 min slot to make it worthwhile but i think it is something that would draw people / more families in to the event. Are people in support of this as an idea? Please feedback. 

Lawrence and Andy can work for free but would need travel from Lancaster. 

I look forward to your feedback

Sam (art farmers)


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