Music/Dances



OUR DANCES AND THEIR TUNES

Some of these dances have been part of Belfagan's tradition since the early days; others are ones we or other sides have created ourselves; others are old dances we have learned from other sides. Some of them have sort of slipped into abeyance, but I've included them here anyway, for the sake of completeness, and who knows, we might bring these sterling old dances back into service again at some point. They're all great dances! I guess we just enjoy learning new ones, and then don't have time to practise everything.
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DANCE	1st TUNE	2nd TUNE	3rd TUNE	NOTES
THE ABBEY	The Keel Row	Katie Bairdie/Kafoozalum		A garland dance learned from the Hexhamshire Lasses
BADGER'S SETT	The Jolly Badger			Written for Brockhole, the Lake District Vistors' Centre
BELFAGAN	William Taylor's Tabletop Hornpipe			A handkerchief dance for 6 created especially for us - now our signature dance. The tune was written by Dave Shepherd of Blowzabella, and is more traditionally played in a minor key, and often somewhat slower than we do. I do hope Dave would forgive us for mangling his tune. None of the current members is responsible for this!
CLARENDON PARK	Wait for the Waggon	Winster Galop		Learned at a workshop with
CUMBERLAND CROWN	The Waterloo Dance			A garland dance which can be performed by 6 or 8 dancers. One of our favourites. We often use it when we dance at a wedding, as the happy couple can stand in the middle while we dance around them with specially decorated garlands making a lovely romantic crown over them.
DOLLY	Over the Hills and Far Away	Twiglet		learned from...
EAGLESFIELD	Birds in the Wilderness			Eaglesfield is a village near Cockermouth. This attractive, energetic, ranting dance is for groups of 4 dancers with garlands.
THE FLAGS	Cock o' the North			A very fast, energetic dance for 6, written by a member of Hexhamshire Lasses. The flags in question are the flagstones outside Hexham Abbey.
GREENHAM	Long Odds			A lovely communal dance, created originally by the women protesters at Greenham Common. We often use it to finish the evening, and encourage all comers to join in.
HINDLEY STREET	Rosin the Bow			We used to practise this dance quite a lot, but hardly ever perform it in public, partly, I think, because most of the positions are not interchangeable, so either we need the right people to be present, or everyone needs to learn several positions. The full title of course is The Hindley Street Dance, as in the one danced in the street in Hindley. I've left it in, as I hope we may try it again sometime.
LITTLEBOROUGH	Rattlin' Bog	Donkey Riding		Another really nice, but complicated dance, that we haven't danced out for a long time, but since we do keep revisiting it from time to time it's included here. Maybe this season?
MONA'S DELIGHT	Eunyssagh Vana			One of our very favourite dances, Mona's Delight is named after Mona Douglas, an inveterate collector of folk tunes and Dances in the Isle of Man. The tune is traditional Manx, and the dance, when performed in shoes rather than clogs, is very elegant. (Belfagan don't really do elegant.)
PLYMOUTH	Soldier's Joy			Another dance we used to perform a lot, but it seems to have slipped into disuse recently. It involves sets of 3 so is ideal when not many dancers turn up.
POULTON	John of Paris	Hot Punch		A really interesting dance to watch, we learned it at a workshop and quickly incorporated it into our repertoire.
PORTLAND (HILL)	Jamie Allan	Astley's Ride	Davie Davie Nick Nack	A wonderfully complex dance which everyone enjoys performing, taught to us by Great North Clog, another great morris side which is no longer with us.
ROSE AND CROWN	Roxburgh Castle	Flowers of Edinburgh		Learned in recent years at a workshop with Betty Lupton's Ladle Laikers, and now one of the favourites of both dancers and musicians, who enjoy the challenge of playing those great Scottish tunes really fast!
SHAWFORTH	The Olive Branch			A favourite of ours, Shawforth is a good stomping, ranting dance with garlands - it's all that's best in NW clog dancing and everyone enjoys it. If you've ever watched Belfagan in action, this is the one with the high kicking! The tune - The Olive Branch - is by John Kirkpatrick    © Looking Glass Music Ltd.
SILLY MOLLY	Speed the Plough			Silly Molly (more correctly, Silly Bonky-Headed Molly, comes from the East Anglian molly dancing tradition, and in its pure form involves men dressed as big clumsy women. Even performed by real women it's not what you'd call a gentle, demure sort of dance.
SINGLETON	Dorset 4-hand Reel			A nice dance for groups of 4 dancers, which follows very closely that original Dorset 4-hand Reel on which it's based. Another one which seems to have fallen into disuse, but I'd like to see it revived, so it's staying in the list.
ST. GILES	The Athole Highlanders.			The signature dance of the sadly defunct Jenny Geddes Clog Morris from Edinburgh. They taught it to us a number of years ago, and we now dance it regularly in order to keep it alive. (Also, we love dancing it, despite it being very energetic!) It's a really attractive and interesting dance, which depicts the crown of Edinburgh's St. Giles' Cathedral in the final figure.
WHITBY	Shafter’s Shindig			This garland dance represents various features of the town of Whitby, and was also taught to us by Jenny Geddes Clog Morris. One of our favourites.
WIGTON	A Hundred Pipers			Originally created as a processional dance for Wigton carnival, we mostly perform it in situ these days, though still know how to process to it when the need arises.
YELLOW SHEEPSKIN	Yellow Sheepskin			An unusual dance for any number in a circle, this one is more concerned with interesting steps than with interesting figures. Taught to us by the Hexhamshire Lasses, we usually do it with some of the musicians standing in the centre while the dancers whirl around them.
...ALSO ... Missing from this list are a number of dances we used to perform, but are still in my music book. Many of our more recent recruits have quite probably never heard of them, but for the sake of completeness here's a brief list: Abram Circle Dance which used to be our rain dance: every time we danced it, it rained. We liked it but felt compelled to give up. Ashton to the tune of the same name, plus British Grenadiers. I think most people found it a bit boring. Blackrod. This uses the tune we know as John of Paris when used for Poulton. I don't know why this slipped out of our repertoire. It's a jolly good dance which we should revive. Churchtown to the tune of The Three Sea Captains. We used to use this as our regular processional dance, and I learned to play it on the hoof, as it were, while marching through the streets of Cockermouth during the Cockermouth Carnival one year. Cockermouth. We created a new dance for our 21st anniversary. Original music by Ally McGurk. I suspect it was just too complicated. We worked away at it for ages, but it's never really become part of our repertoire, and even the composer of the tune can't remember it now without looking at the dots. Keswick to the two tunes, Oyster Girl and The Miller of Dee. The musicians liked this better than the dancers who found it a bit long winded and repetitive. We now use the first tune for Chandos Five