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This is the Sussex Folk Association's list of the traditional folk dance and song groups, clubs and classes in the Lewes area including Seaford, Saltdean and Ringmer. We believe the data provided to be correct, but accept no responsibility for any reliance placed on it. The Sussex Folk Association will list all non-commercial traditional folk groups & clubs that are open to the public and run by volunteers.
Brighton & Hove French Dance Club
4th Wednesday (except July & August) 8:00 - 11:00pm, The Royal Oak, Station Street, Lewes.
Folk at the Royal Oak (Song)
Thursday 8.00pm (except August), The Royal Oak, Station Street, Lewes.
Knots of May (Woman's Morris)
Tuesday during the winter in Lewes
The Lewes Arms Folk Club (Song)
Saturday 8.00pm, The Lewes Arms, Mount Place, Lewes.
Lewes Israeli Folk Dance Group
First Sunday of the month (except August) 4pm-9pm Nov-Mar, 6:30pm-9pm Apr-Sept
St Thomas a Becket Church Hall in Cliffe High Street, Lewes
Ringmer Barn Dancing Society
2nd Friday 7:45pm, Caburn Pavilion, Ringmer, Lewes.
Saltdean Dance Class of the Brighton Branch of the RSCDS (Scottish)
Tuesdays 7:30 - 9:30 pm Intermediate/Social class
Saltdean County Junior School, Chiltington Way, Saltdean
Seaford and District Folk Dance Group (English)
Monday 7:45pm, Sutton Hall, The Downs Leisure Centre, Sutton Road, Seaford.
Seaford Folk Song Club
Friday 8:15pm (Sept - July), The Beachcomber, junction of the sea front and Dane Road, Seaford.
Sussex Harmony (Quire)
Thursday 8:00-10:00pm, South Malling Parish Church, Lewes.
The folk song and dance scene in the Lewes area seems to contain a good cross-section of all the traditional
dance and song forms. For traditional british folk dance styles, we have an English country dance club, Scottish dance
classes, barn dancing and a Morris dance group (and a woman's Morris side at that. Where are the men?). Have I missed them
out? International folk dance is well represented with a session of both French and Israeli dancing once a month. The French group
also offer live music which could be an opportunity to 'hear' how the other side play and dance. Anyway with three folk song
clubs, traditional music and song lovers in the Lewes area are spoilt for choice. Of course, the jewel in the crown, musically
speaking is the Quire - Sussex Harmony. If you know of more groups please let us know.
4th Wednesday (except July & August) 8:00 - 11:00pm
The Royal Oak, Station Street, Lewes.
Join this group for an informal evening of dancing to the sounds of hurdygurdy, cornemuse, accordeon, concertina,
cabrette & fiddle. And if you don't feel like dancing you can "parler francais" over a glass of wine and just enjoy the
music. For contact details see their website.
Thursday 8.00-11.00pm (not August)
The Royal Oak (upstairs room), Station Street, Lewes.
A typical evening will include two sets of around 45 minutes each by the guest artists. These will occurr within
a programme with an open session and spots from the resident performers and visitors. New talent is always welcome.
The aim is to encourage the performance of traditional music and song. The club is informal
and is based around a group of like-minded people who want to enjoy a range of musical traditions socially.
For contact details, map, events programme, and more information see their website.
Tuesday in Lewes.
The Knots of May are a woman's Morris team and were formed in 1974. Our colourful costume is unique amongst
English dance teams and sets off our individual dancing style. Our dances are drawn from all over the United Kingdom
and the Continent and include many that have been specially choreographed for us. We wear shoes or Lancashire clogs
and use short-ribboned sticks or garlands in most of our dances.
The music comes from a variety of sources but has been selected as being appropriate for the dances. Most of the
tunes are traditional, English or European, but former musicians have written a few tunes.
Our season starts on Good Friday at Alciston, on May Day we dance at Lewes inviting the children to make a flower
garland and join us in a procession through the town, we take an annual trip to Aldeburgh, in Suffolk, to join in
their carnival, and in the autumn we dance at the Old Ale celebrations at Harvey's Brewery in Lewes.
For contact details, this years programme, photos and more, see our website.
Saturday 8.00pm
The Lewes Arms, Mount Place, Lewes.
Entry £3.00 on guest nights unless otherwise stated. Free admission with hat collection on open or theme nights.
Floor singers and musicians very welcome. The Club has produced a book 'The Lewes Favourites' 180 of the tunes played in and
around Lewes. It is illustrated with dance notation from Sussex manuscripts, anecdotes, photographs of the habitats
where the tunes flourish, and an index of the combinations in which they are often played.
For contact details, map, programme and more information, see their website.
First Sunday of the month (except August) 4pm-9pm Nov-Mar, 6:30pm-9pm Apr-Sept
St Thomas a Becket Church Hall in Cliffe High Street, Lewes
A monthly gathering of dancers with some experience. For contact details see their website.
2nd Friday 7.45pm
Caburn Pavilion, Ringmer, Lewes.
For contact details see their
East Sussex Library Page.
Tuesdays 7.30 - 9.30 pm Intermediate/Social class
Saltdean County Junior School, Chiltington Way, Saltdean
Dance classes for dancers who know formations and those who like ‘gentle dancing’.
For contact details see their website.
Monday 7:45pm
Sutton Hall, The Downs Leisure Centre, Sutton Road, Seaford.
To promote and enjoy English and American folk dancing.
For contact details and map see their
East Sussex Library Page.
March 2006
April 2006
November 2006
January 2007
March 2007
April 2007
September 2007
November 2007
For more details, please contact: Janet Dingley, 01323 870145, John Gaunt, 01273 476978
Friday 8.15pm (September - July)
The clubroom of The Beachcomber, junction of the sea front and Dane Road, Seaford.
The evenings consist of two extended sets by guest artistes, supported by short spots from the residents and any
visiting performers. These meetings are not a formal club and the costs are covered through a collection which is used to
pay the guest performer. All forms of folk music and song are welcome and floor spots are always available for visiting
singers.
For directions, guest list, history, their CD's and book, contact details and more information see their
website.
Sussex Harmony was founded in 1992 to research, construct and perform the little known music of the
English Church and Independent Chapel from 1700 to 1850, and its derivative from New England and the Southern States - a
tradition which continues with new music to the present day.
The quire is always happy to consider bookings for
suitable events and has, in the past, performed both in this country and abroad for church services, concerts, mayoral
receptions, funerals and a wedding.
If you might be interested in joining our quire you would be very welcome,
whatever your ability. Tenors, trebles, altos, basses and instrumentalists are all welcome. The quire's membership is drawn
from people of all ages with a variety of interests. For contact details see our
East Sussex Library Page.
Sussex Harmony has, where possible, recreated the costume in rural England of
about 1760. The women wear-dresses with boned bodices, stomachers and full skirts. Complementing these are traditional shawls
and bonnets. The men's costume represents a cross section of society, with styles ranging from the more refined jacket and
waistcoat to the agricultural smock. Breeches, stockings and shoes or working boots (highlows) complete the picture.
"The Singing Seat" is a selection of 18th and 19th century West Gallery music taken
from the quire books of the parish church of St Laurence of Catsfield, near Battle in Sussex. The book has been researched by
Edwin Macadam and Tony Singleton, members of Sussex Harmony.
West Gallery church music, so described because it was often performed by a band of singers and instrumentalists from a gallery at the west end of a church,
was the repertoire of town and country churches from about 1700-1850. It differs markedly from cathedral music, both in style and function. It was written for, and
in many cases by, amateur musicians. Professional performance was not usually envisaged. As few local churches had organs at this time, it can always be
performed without organ accompaniment. A gallery band is well described in Thomas Hardy's novel Under the Greenwood
Tree (1872) and the repertoire is more scholastically examined in Nicholas Temperley's Music in the English Parish Church (CUP 1979).
Much of the repertoire consists of settings of the metrical psalms from the Elizabethan "Old Version" of Sternhold and Hopkins or the "New Version"
(1696) of Tate and Brady. There are also hymns, anthems and canticles, and some very lively Christmas carols. The music is often of a florid and joyful
nature; too joyful indeed for the reformers of the mid-19th Century Oxford movement, who sought to replace it with the more solemn repertoire typified by
Hymns Ancient and Modern. The style survived longer in the non-conformist chapels than in the established church, and remnants of it survive in the Methodist
Church and folk repertoire up to the present day. The sister tradition of Shapenote singing in the USA is unbroken, and as vigorous as ever.
West Gallery music was sung in many different ways - unaccompanied; with organ or other keyboard instruments; with one or more melody instruments
doubling the vocal lines; or with keyboard and melody instruments together. Doubling the voice parts with instruments helps singers whose sight reading is
limited, and is the performance style preferred by most specialist West Gallery quires. Traditionally the players used any available string, woodwind and some
brass instruments, and in modern practice one can use almost any melody instrument. Sometimes the instruments have brief passages to themselves, known
as "symphonies".
The underlay of the texts sometimes shows scant regard for classical standards. This is especially true in the metrical psalm settings, where a setting which suits
some verses of a psalm may give rise, in other verses, to inappropriate musical gaps in the sense of the text, or even to the splitting of a word.
The non-classical features described above are one reason why for many years the West Gallery music was ignored, falling between the stools of classical
musicians, who felt unable to take the often amateur composition technique seriously, and folk musicians, who felt that any notated style felt outside their
province. In recent years many musicians have re-evaluated the West Gallery repertoire by its own standards, and found much worthy of performance.
1n recent years many groups, or quires, as they prefer to style themselves, dedicated to the
performance of this music, have sprung up, of which Sussex Harmony is one.
Sussex Harmony is associated with the West Gallery Music Association (WGMA) which provides a coordinating body, and focus for
researchers in the field. Information on other quires etc. can be found on the West Gallery Music Association
website
