Barndancing Home Page        

Organising a dance? -  book a Folk Dance Duo, contact The Hoedowners

Barndancing is a popular form of the folk dancing genre. Barndances are organised for parties, socials and fundraising events. Each dance is taught by a caller and the figures or moves in the dance are "called" by the caller during the dancing to guide the dancers. Barndances are normally informal events and the dances are deliberately chosen for their uncomplicated and entertaining nature. This sort of dancing  is usually termed social dancing.

Terms used in social dancing]

Particularly enthusiastic folk dancers generally call their dancing "Folk Dancing" and they learn social dances from the English Country Dance tradition, and the Playford era, dances from America and to a lesser extent, Scotland, Eire and the rest of Europe. New dances are being written all the time.

Morris Dancing, originally a male preserve, is often danced by mixed teams or entirely women's teams but it doesn't figure in the Barn Dancing repertoire or in the Folk Dancers' social dance repertoire.

This site aims to gradually increase the number of available photos and illustrate recent examples of the varied British Folk Dance repertoire. It is intended to give more detail of Folk Dance clubs and Social Folk Dancing.