BBC World Service: Why dancing could be the ultimate brain workout

Why dancing could be the ultimate brain workout - BBC World Service - YouTube

NPR: The right way to 'Slavic spin'

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5429574/the-right-way-to-slavic-spin Here are some examples from TikTok videos:

https://www.tiktok.com/@arius.s/video/7499600640516066578

https://www.tiktok.com/@zpitaghkrakus/video/7509523740204551446

https://www.tiktok.com/@mearinas/video/7507332050219715848

Documentary on the Contra Dance Community

In  The Picayune Sentinel I came across a link to this youtube video of a short documentary about the contra dance community:

 

Not meeting next 4 Fridays, 3/21, 3/28, 4/4, 4/11

 We're taking a 4-week hiatus from our usual Zoom folk dance meetings on Friday nights.  We'll keep in touch with a weekly e-mail if you're on our list, to point out upcoming events in the folk dance world, virtual or otherwise, with a "funny" at the end, and to send out a reminder when we resume our Friday Zoom meetings.

Here are some links where you can find other live and virtual folk/dance and related events in the meantime:

https://argonneifd.blogspot.com/2025/01/2025-upcoming-events-you-might-be.html 

https://nfo-usa.com/virtual-events-calendar/ 

https://nfo-usa.com/major-events/ 

https://www.virtualdanceroom.net

 https://www.facebook.com/PFDCouncil/ (hosts the monthly Global Dance Parties on Zoom)

You can also check out the 5-years-worth(!) of annotated playlists from our Zoom dance sessions, which have links to dance videos, music, and dance descriptions  where available, so you can dance and listen to the music you enjoy from Friday dancing at your own convenience:

 https://argonneifd.blogspot.com/search?q=annotated  (There's also a search box at the top left corner of the blog where you can search dance names.  More recent posts are more likely to have valid links that haven't crumbled over time).

The Folk Dance With Henry youtube channel has lots of folk dance videos and playlists suitable for dancing along -- https://www.youtube.com/@folkdancewithhenry5122/videos

There are also 5 years of Zoom videos of Dit's Wednesday night Zoom/hybrid folk dancing archived on this youtube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@Olshanr1 

Tons of dance descriptions, many with videos and links to music are available on the Folk Dance Musings blog:  https://folkdancemusings.blogspot.com/

 So, keep dancing, and we look forward to seeing you next month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NPR: Science Magazine's 2024 Dance Your PhD: Kangaroo Time

"Science magazine's annual contest "Dance Your PhD" invites grad students to present their research through dance. This year's winner, Weliton Menário Costa, showcased his work on kangaroo behavior." 

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/05/1236075487/a-dance-contest-let-this-grad-student-share-his-research-and-celebrates-his-iden

Le Grande Bal de l'Europe

 

Xfinity, our cable provider, occasionally offers a few days of free streaming of various premium channels.  This week it includes a French streaming service, TV5 Monde.  Scanning the offerings, a 2018 film called Le Grand Bal caught my attention, and I looked around for more info about the event that it documents, Le Grand Bal de l'Europe, https://www.gennetines.org/en/ . 

Looks like the 2023 Grand Bal is going on right now.  Here are a few short videos from  previous years.  In the first one, just after the 8 min timestamp, you may recognize a short clip of "L'homme Que Marche".  If you search youtube for "Le Grand Bal de l'Europe", you can find a lot more clips, if you're interested.

Chicago Summerdance In Place 2020 videos on YouTube

On the WBEZ radio show Reset this morning, they were talking about Chicago Summerdance (which starts this weekend), and they mentioned that during the pandemic, when they couldn't hold Summerdance in person, they put up "Summerdance In Place" videos, which are available on youtube:

SummerDance in Place 2020 - YouTube  

SummerDance in Place: Swing - YouTube 

Balkan Dance Remix Video - 12 Countries in 12 Minutes

This video must have been a lot of work to put together -- really nifty effects:

For more, click on the channel name, Vasílis Petropoulos

Wellerman Sea Shanty and Ievan (Tokyo) Polka

 When the "Shanty-Tok" trend came along a few months ago, we looked for something in our repertoire that could be danced to the New Zealand sea song Wellerman  (technically not a shanty, since it lacks the call and response structure of a true shanty, as has been pointed out by sticklers, but never mind), and came up with Šetnja, because "Šetnja" and "Shanty" have a similar set of consonant sounds, so we could be clever and call it "Sea Šetnja".  Meanwhile, apparently lots of people have noticed that Wellerman and Ievan Polka (to which we dance Richard Powers' Tokyo Polka) blend quite nicely, and there are many youtube videos that combine them one way or another:

wellerman ievan polkka

Hatsune Miku - Ievan Polkka but its Sea Shanty Wellerman

Wellerman vs Ievan Polkka! PIANO BATTLE

The Wellerman - Ievan Polkka Mundharmonika-Loituma Cover

Ievanman (Wellerman Sea Shanty and Ievan Polkka)

Brasstet Skopje: Corona Ciao (Bella Ciao)

 Youtube suggested this Serbian brass band video when I was looking at the Bulgarian "Coronavirus Shoo!" video:

Here's the "Bella Ciao" that it was based on, by Goran Bregovic:  https://youtu.be/PEp711KyvgI

And here's a Serbian orchestra performance video with the original lyrics in English:

https://es-la.facebook.com/rmsmusicschool/videos/performance-of-serbian-orchestra-bella-ciao-for-coronavirus-hit-italy-on-video-c/422714041936893/

 And the Wikipedia entry with the history of the song, a lot of other info, and sheet music for the melody:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bella_ciao#Melody

And a line dance to go with it: https://youtu.be/Mk17UDCbqLs

Coronavirus, Shoo! by Dragostin Folk National Choir

 Came across a link to this on the Society of Folk Dance Historians Facebook Page

 

Chicago SummerDance In Place on Youtube

In July there was a stay-at-home version of Chicago SummerDance, now available to watch on youtube, with some episodes also available on the WTTW website.  Despite being so close to Chicago, I'm embarrassed to say I was unaware of this until I saw an item about it on Dale Adamson's blog.

https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/chicago_summerdance.html
https://www.youtube.com/ChicagoDCASE
https://schedule.wttw.com/series/31262/Summerdance-In-Place/
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ9kKRKc1Y--3rDqKK7FpTGNgVRKYfOeq

Bardcore Macarena Medieval Cover, and others

 I stumbled across this on youtube this morning:

 

 

And quite a few others, for example:

Popcorn (Medieval Cover)
Y.M.C.A. (Medieval Cover)
Ievan Polkka (Medieval Cover) 
Dragostea Din Tei (Numa Numa) (Medieval Cover) 

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardcore "Bardcore (from the Celtic word “bard” meaning ‘poet’ or ‘storyteller’)^[1] or tavernwave is a 2020 internet phenomenon consisting of medievalised remakes of hit pop songs.^[2]" 

Here's an article about it: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/24/never-mind-the-ballads-how-bardcore-took-over-pop-music 

Finnish Polka in Quarantine

Came across this video on this public facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/stuff.folkdancers.say/

https://youtu.be/csU0rTtdsMg

Playford Pandemic Ball

Another video linked from the Playford Pandemic site:

Lego Jackson Rag

While looking around for videos/instructions for the Solo English Country Dances from this evening's FolkMADS Zoom session, came across this cute video:
https://youtu.be/d7mhTezoPlM



Reminiscent of this Lego Chilili photo from some time ago:
https://argonneifd.blogspot.com/2011/03/lego-chilili-video.html

Lockdown Waltz

If you feel like waltzing around your living room, you can pick up various waltz line dance steps from this youtube video:  https://youtu.be/OuyYhhEK6aQ
And then do them to the lovely waltz music in this video:  https://youtu.be/oCd9kBw0s8c

Websites with collections of dance videos, instructions, etc.

If you're looking for more videos to dance along with when no "live" virtual dancing is available, or notes to remind you how the dance goes, here are a few sites to check out:

http://dunav.org.il/
http://folkdancemusings.blogspot.com/
https://www.dancilla.com/wiki/index.php?title=Videos/en
http://www.socalfolkdance.org/videos.htm
Folk Dance With Henry
http://rikudim.net/dance-video
https://ifdo.ca/~seymour/videolinks/
http://www.folkdance.com/resources/dance-notes/
https://www.copperknob.co.uk/
https://www.youtube.com/user/Mirri360/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/kolokoalition/videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7sPsV9ezGm6VOSMNV9nB3A/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/royisdancing/videos
https://www.sfdh.us/encyclopedia.html#dances

There are undoubtedly many others - feel free to add to the list in the comments.

Facebook videos from Yves Moreau

Another item from Dale Adamson's blog:

https://daleadamson.com/2020/04/13/yves-moreau-posted-videos/

Youtube Folkdance workshop with Dimitar Petrov (Mitko)

Saw this item on Dale Adamson's blog:
https://daleadamson.com/2020/04/12/folkdance-workshop-with-dimitar-petrov-mitko/