Day after I presented my paper about the dance Morpeth Rat at the Social Dance Conference at Cecil Sharp House.
It went well. Within time, and received well. The practical dancing exercise showing the difference between the polka and rant step went down very well, with some of the audience saying how welcome the dancing was. A tip of the hat to Chloe Middleton Metcalfe for playing the fiddle at this time.
A couple of questions at the end. One about the use of the term polka by the Royton Morris Men, and another indicating that Northumbrian’s in the 1980s still did dance the rant step differently. Two more discussions took place afterwards, one about using the rant step as a travelling step (quite difficult and not much distance covered) and one about the relationship between the polka and the rant step.
Robert Moir presented about Playford and related dances in the following presentation.
I enjoyed the whole conference. A broad range of papers were presented as well as some practical discussions and dancing, I am hoping that there will be a record of the day: perhaps some proceedings?
You did indeed get some feedback didn’t you. Here’s a question, now the dust has settled by a couple of weeks, has your reflection changed from the day after?