More info

Come on join the chain, it’s very easy! It’s something you might have heard at a ball or festival and there is a grain of truth in there. Many chain dances are easy to join in with little experience. But the ease of entry can be misleading, once you dive into the culture and history of the dances from for example the Breton area you will see that these simple chain dances can hold a lot of complexity and challenges. Many other regions present in Balfolk will have different subtilities and cultural backgrounds in their chain dances which can open up a whole new world of experiences. In this workshop you will learn about some of the more common chain dances in Balfolk, we will teach you the common basic principles but also some of the finer subtleties. Join us at the workshop and hopefully, we can convince you to dance more chain dances!

A quick balfolk introduction.
More info: https://www.museumnachtenschede.nl/

A quick balfolk introduction.
More info: https://www.museumnachtenschede.nl/

During this workshop Leo Visser will explain the basis of Breton Dances and Fest Noz. During the workshop we will look at different dances which are being danced an how you can participate in them without knowing the steps (completely). The workshop is mostly aimed at beginners but people with less experience in Breton Dances or people who want to fresh up their skills are more then welcome!
Sign up information will be available soon!

A workshop about the culture of the Fest Noz from Bretagne. This workshop will cover different dances and their history and cultural impact.
Given by Leo Visser.

More info: https://www.balfolk.nl/agenda/fest-noz-workshop/

At October 23th Leo Visser and Marjolein Bente will give the workshop “Taking your couple dances to the next level” before the 3th Bal in Hoorn. The workshop will be open for everyone and the price will be 20 euro’s (for the workshop only).
During this 3 hour long workshop every dancer will be challenged with different exercises to find this next level in their couple dances.
Signing up for the workshop can be done HERE

The first of a series of lessons given by Marc Meijerink.
For more infromation check here:
https://www.balfolk.nl/agenda/proefles-balfolk-express-utrecht/

During this meeting Leo Visser will cover some basic theory about teaching. After this we will do some exercises to practice with this theory. And in the end there will be time for some discussion and sharing of experiences so we can all learn from each other.
To join go to the following link:
https://teams.microsoft.com/join/pt0j4bkl6g1h

You will see an screen like above. Enter your name and email address. A request will be send to us to allow you into this team. After we allowed you in (this can take a while because we don’t check out email all the time). After the approval you will get an email on the address you provided which looks like this:

If you click the button you will be prompted to log in. If you already have a microsoft account set to this email address it will ask you to login and then review the permission. After you accepted them Read on at *****.
If you haven’t set a microsoft account yet it will ask you to set up a microsoft account to this email address. This is a very simple procedure, just follow the steps they give you and then you will be all set.

*****
You will now see a screen like this:

You can choose to download the app if you want too or you can use the web app instead. Both look the same and have the same options. In this example we will use the web app. If you get a prompt like on the screenshot you can just cancel it and select the button “Use the web app instead”.
You will get a small introduction from microsoft explaining how Teams works. You can choose to follow it or skip it.
You will now end up in this screen:

Depending on what you use it’s possible the channel “Balfolk Teachers Meeting” is in the left column already. If not you can click on the hidden channels and click on “show” next to it. This will make it stay in the left colum.

After you open this channel you will see a message about the meeting with the question to reply to it.

Click the reply button and post a message under it that you are interested. Make sure that you are online in the app during the time of the meeting and you will be invited into the call. If you are later or you aren’t invited by the time it starts reply again under this message and we will invite you. Due to the fact that we are using the free version of this software we can’t schedule a meeting beforehand which you can easily join, this is why it’s done in this way.
If you have any other questions feel free to ask them in the General channel.

This workshop will be about dynamics in groupdances.

Dancing traditional dances in a not so traditional setting

In balfolk we have a lot of musical styles and groups from many different regions. A lot of these groups play some common Breton dances. But when we compare the music of a traditional Breton group to groups who play more Neo Folk music or something in between, we see something interesting. You might notice that the more modern music contains more variations in the music.

This workshop will explore how we can use these different kinds of music in our Breton dances. During this workshop we will explore communication in chain dances. Besides that we will experiment with core principles from many different Breton dances and see if and how we can use these principles in the dances we have in Balfolk. So expect to dance the hanter-dro, plinn and kost ar c’hoat and many more together with the whole group while still having room to play and have fun in the dance!

Are you tired of dancing these Breton dances the same way all the time? Well then this workshop is for you! Go with me on a journey through multiple dances from the Breton region. We’ll look at the traditional forms of these dances and then see how they’ve evolved over time. We’ll take this evolution one step further! This workshop will not be your typical workshop in Breton dances where you’ll just learn how to do the steps. During this workshop we’ll take the principles which have been cultivated in couple dances for many years and apply them to dances in chains. People who’ve done this workshop before can come back again, because this time we will not limit ourselves to just the hanter-dro and an-dro. This time we’ll also include the more challenging dances. If you still have difficulty dancing a Koste ‘r c’hoed then this workshop might be very challenging for you, as the goal is not to teach you this dance.

During this deep-dive workshop we will explore the possibilities in the couple dances featured in Balfolk. We’ll look at why we do certain things in couples the way we do them. We’ll question the steps we do in the dances and see if there are any alternatives which also fit the dance. During this workshop you will get a taste of multiple possibilities for variations in different dances. We’ll look at different ways of varying the dances, for example we will let go of the normal dance embrace and see which possibilities will open up. But we’ll also explore the possibilities we have while being in this dance embrace. Besides the dance couple we will also look at the dance floor as a whole and experiment with the group

During this workshop we’ll start with the Hanter-dro and An-dro and see which roles the dancers can have while being in the chain. We’ll look at which persons are the leaders and which ones are the followers and what can be done in these roles. Then we will look at how communication works throughout the whole chain and which types of communication we can utilize. Finally, we’ll introduce variation into these dances and see how they work now we’ve established the basic principles of leading and following in dances in chains.

During this workshop we’ll take a deep-dive into communication in the Bourrée. This communication will be examined in terms of posture, energy and musicality. To support this we'll go beyond choreography and challenge you to interpret the music into a dance together with connection and energy, taunting and reacting to each other.

During this workshop we'll take a closer look at this dance and try to disect it. After we've founded ourself in this dance and created a good basis to work from we'll look into how we can play in this dance.