We recently enjoyed a fantastic weekend at Spring Live, which took place (with Covid precautions) on 24th and 25th April at the South Of England Showground in West Sussex.
In normal years our performances at Spring Live include a demonstration of Sussex Country Dances and an invitation for members of the public to try their hand at maypole dancing and ceilidh dancing. This year that wasn’t possible due to social distancing requirements, so we seized the opportunity to show off our members’ expertise in a wide variety of folk dance genres, including broom dances, solo Cotswold morris jigs, and clog dancing. We also adapted our repertoire of maypole and country dances for a smaller number of dancers, and demonstrated these with extra-long-ribbons and larger formations.
Our performance area may have been off-limits to the public this year, but the surrounding area provided the perfect space for spectators to watch our performances and enjoy a picnic at the same time.
The sun shone throughout the weekend, although it did get a bit breezy at times and we really had to hang on to those maypole ribbons!
We now look forward to our first visit to COAM on 23rd May, where we will spend time developing our display dances in an ‘open rehearsal’. More info on that in our next blog post!
Beth’s morris jig 
Sussex Bonny Breast Knot 
Sellenger’s Round (with socially-distant elbows) 
Mike’s morris jig 
Deb’s clog dance 
Maypole dancing 
mAy team photo 
Maypole dancing