Folk Dance: Grappling with Tradition conference

Folk Dance: Grappling with Tradition

Conference of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, English Folk Dance and Song Society

Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 November 2023

The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library's 2023 conference examines folk dance in its wide ranging forms, and asks speakers and delegates to consider the meaning of tradition, both historically and in the present.

Papers will be framed around a set of words which are at the same time related and distinct: revival, reproduction, reimagination, re-creation, reformation, refashioning and reconstruction. We will invite you to unpick these and consider what each suggests in relation to folk dance, whether it is possible, whether we should attempt it, how, and why. How can one reconstruct historical forms and why should we? How do reconstruction and reimagination collide or collude? How does tradition sit in the 21st century and what should we do with (or to) it? To what extent is reimagination the same as invention, and does this matter?

In person
Full weekend: £60
One day only: £35

More info and tickets: https://www.efdss.org/about-us/what-we-do/news/12803-library-conference-2023-on-sale#

Published 19th October 2023