For various reasons it has been a quiet time here on the blog for several months now; although we have still been out and about a fair bit, dancing at Rochester, Sheringham, the Ship, and too many other pubs to mention. Today though we have returned, slightly wet and bedraggled from FolkEast.
All week I had been keeping a nervous eye on the weather forecasts; it didn't look promising! As it turned out we had two and a half glorious days of August sunshine before the obligatory FolkEast downpour hit us late on Sunday afternoon.
On Friday we had a very successful workshop teaching Dragon Dance to over twenty members of the festival audience. All of our workshop dancers, and also the crowd that came just to watch, seemed to enjoy themselves. In fact one of them posted on Facebook today that our workshop was one of her festival highlights. Another couple who took part asked if they could take the dance back to their own morris side. And finally we have had an email asking if we can do a workshop for another dance group that are interested in a bit of morris as a change from what the usually do.
Throughout the weekend we danced exceptionally well. As usual we had lots of positive comments from members of the audience. However, when several of those comments have come from members of The Witchmen then that is high praise indeed!
The Witchmen were, as always, wonderful to watch; although we didn't get to see them as much as we might have liked. The other sides also provided great entertainment, especially Anstey Morris and Rockingham Rapper. As for the rest of the festival, there was the usual great atmosphere, even more variety of stalls and entertainments, and, of course, loads of great music. My personal musical favourites being the Peatbog Fairies, the Young'Uns, and the Woodland Creatures.
Now we have just a couple more dance outs planned before getting stuck into the winter practice season.