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Welcome to Cam-French |
(This is a copy of the welcome leaflet that is put out at monthly
sessions.)
Cam-French exists to increase awareness, appreciation and
participation in French folk dance and music. Our repertoire includes
the popular dances from central France and a number of dances from
Brittany.
We welcome new members at any time. We aim to be a friendly club where
you can learn at your own pace. We emphasise enjoyment of the dance
over historically accurate reproduction, and recognise that
development of these dances occurs in Britain as it does in France.
Time and place
We meet on occasional weekend afternoons, in the Storey's Field Centre,
Eddington, Cambridge, from 2pm until around 5pm.
Cost
We ask that each person contributes 2 pounds towards the cost of the
event. Those who are playing and not dancing do not have to pay if
they do not wish to.
Constitutionally your 2 pounds also makes you a member for the year.
Please write your name in the book so we know who our members are.
Mailing list
Club announcements are made on the mailing list
(cam-french@cambridgefolk.org.uk). Please email
cam-french-subscribe@cambridgefolk.org.uk to subscribe; you must be on
the list to post messages to it. If you need a lift
then please e-mail the mailing list to ask for one.
Dancing
You will enjoy dancing more the better you get at it, and you will get
better by dancing with different people. If you have a preferred
partner, please consider dancing with other people for at least half
of the event. If you are an experienced dancer then we would be
grateful for your assistance in spending some (but not all) of your
time dancing with less experienced dancers and helping them learn.
Likewise, if you are a less experienced dancer please feel free to ask
others to dance in order to assist your learning. Where there are
sufficient experienced dancers, we rely on individual tuition such as
this to teach the basic dances.
Where required some dances, especially those involving more than one
couple, are taught to the whole group at once. Where something
particularly complicated needs teaching, we aim to teach it at the
beginning of the session.
If you know a dance or variation which you think would be of interest
to the group, we would love to learn it, provided it will not take an
unreasonable time to learn. Please discuss with whoever is
responsible for the programming of the meeting.
Music
We welcome musicians of all levels. There is a
club tune book containing popular tunes for the dances, which can be
found at http://www.cambridgefolk.org.uk/cam-french. We ask that at
least every other dance should use tunes from this book. We would love
to learn new tunes for dancing, so please feel free to play things
which we do not know in between things we do, provided that it is
reasonable to expect that other musicians will be able to learn the
tune, and the dancers will be able to dance to it.
Organisation
Cam-French is run by a committee: Dave Holland (Chairman, leads the
music on the hurdy-gurdy), Elizabeth O'Beirne-Ranelagh (Treasurer),
Andrew Swaine (Secretary, resident teacher), Alison Edmondson, Joachim
Kehren and David Barylko. If there is an aspect of the club which you
dislike, please tell a member of the committee. If you like the club,
please tell your friends. If you are able to help in the organisation
of the club, please volunteer to be on the committee.
We hope you enjoy dancing and playing at Cam-French.
dave@biff.org.uk
Thu Nov 16 10:01:35 GMT 2006