ART OF PEOPLE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 5, 18 October 1935, Page 8

ART OF PEOPLE

FOL«K SONG AND DANCE.

REVIVAL IN ENGLAND. ISir John (Squire, in his introduction to “English Folk Song and Dance,” suggests that the book may encoirage readers “to go out and: see what they can find” in the way of songs and dances that have so far evaded the. collector, writes - Evelyn Sharp in the “Manchester Guardian.” Mr lolc A. Williams’s admirable little handbook on .a fascinating subject may equally encourage his readers to sing the songs and dance the dances that have already been collected. Forty or oO years ago, as he points out, these national possessions of ours were not only undiscovered by the nation as a whole but were rapidly being forgotten by the peasantry themselves, who had hitherto acted as their preservers and transmitters. By a little band of; collectors they' were saved just in time, and are to-day an acknowledged part' of our national life. A folk-song, says. Mr Williams, “is now something which it is natural for an ordinary Englishman to sing.” Not Spontaneous. I think that is almost, if it is hot quite, true. It is always difficult for those who have been engaged in combating a. prejudice to recognise the moment at which it can be said that the prejudice lias ceased to exist; and that may be why I still get "lie impression that an ordinary Englishman, if he sings a folk song at all does so rather consciously as a performance, and not spontaneously as the errand boy whistles a music hall air. It remains remarkable in any case that there should ever have been a. serious prejudice against folk music, unless we explain it by the Englishman’s characteristic habit of undervaluing what he does best and reserving his enthusiasms for the arts he borrows from other nations. It is no longer possible to maintain, however, that our English folk revival is merely a diversion for cranks. Up; and down the country, more in the villages than the towns, folk songs are being sung and folk dances are being danced —as a tradition, by those who were on the point of letting them go for ever after preserving them down the centuries, and as a revival by . ordinary people of every class in the community. English musicians once again use folk air as a basis for composition, and the ancient jest that the English are an unmusical nation has lost what point it might appear to have had in the last century and earlier. The Idling of that jest is a debt we owe largely to the handful of enthusiasts who have recently collected! the songs and noted the dances and to the pioneers who started the revival of their practical use. The former association of Mr 1010 Williams with the English Folk Song Society (now amalgamated with the English Folk Dance Society) is a guarantee that he adds knowledge to enthusiasm for his subject, and his analysis of the musical folk treasures we possess should he of great value to those already interested, while serving as an introduction for the uninitiated. What he has to say about the “instinctive recognition” of a folk tunc as ’distinguished from a deliberately composed work of art will be accepted at once by men and women, not necessarily musicians themselves, who through the re-revival have come to know and to appreciate the distinction between the two; though it may appeal less directly to the average reader than his extremely interesting and informative discussions of the actual characteristics of folk song; while his non-partisan assertion that all folk music is not of equal value will please everybody except the folk fanatic, who is just as obstructive as the fanatic- of any other movement. And if what Mr Williams has to say of English folk dances is rather less inspiring than his description of the songs it is because there is little that can be-expressed in words about them except in the sense of their very great historic value, which can hardly he dealt with within the scope of his hook since this would involve a comparative study, of the dances of other nations. The Festival. But for that very reason, as it happens, his hook appears at an opportune moment. Of I> the poetry of the songs he writes that “through their subjects they can interest us by demonstrating the sort of thing that has for centuries entertained or caught the imagination of the simple English countryman. From them-we can learn who were his heioes, what his amusements, fears,, and aspirations, how lie loved, and how he looked upon life—not unimportant items in the history of our country.”

That is a statement that Jend's significance to the international Folk Dance Festival held in London; for it is at least equally true to say that the history and character of a race may.be read in its folk dances, and a gathering of 500 (Lancers front some 20 countries, in addition to traditional teams and others from our own country, should bo of importance from this point of view alone at a time in the world’s history when closer knowledge of one another’s origins and cultures opens one road to international peace. international Parallels. Language is a perpetual obstacle to international understanding; but the folk dancer has his own means of communication. The sword 1 dancers who are coming, to the London festival from Austria and Italy (Fenestrelle) will dance with understanding before our own traditional teams from Lancashire (Royton), from North Skelton, and from Earsdon; peasants from Switzerland, Russia, Hungary, Ireland, will meet on common ground in showing one another their country dances, jigs, and reels; the wedding ritual* dance from Poland, symbolising the cutting of the bride’s hair, will have, something in common with the Hungarian cushions dance, also connected with the marriage ceremony; the rather

magnificent Hobby Horse from Rumania will meet for the first time, his homelier, though equally mystic and mysterious, brothers from our own Mineliead and Padstow. Nor will the dancers of our English folk revival lack a counterpart in the dancers from other countries, for those from Scandinavia, Holland, and perhaps France, will be in many eases non-traditional teams.