Moira Furnace Folk Festival is a small event usually held in late-August in the North West Leicestershire village of Moira which advertised a ceilidh:
For comparison here's video of the 2019 event which shows the same band, venue and number of dancers as at the 2021 event. It's typical of many smaller festivals in that the ceilidh is a small event with a local band and attracts a crowd of 30-40 people.
So, does this imply that Covid-19 has ceased to impact public dance events? Almost!
I saw just one face covering and the wearer did not attempt to dance
Hand sanitiser was available and I saw a few people use it
The caller asked at the beginning if we were Ok with dances involving touching other people and did we mind changing partners? There was no dissent and many accepted "Dance line it's 2019" stickers from me
On a couple of occasions, the caller made (possibly humourous) concessions to infection control such as calling for "elbow stars"
Two "fire doors" were open. This would be welcome at any summer ceilidh before Covid but was sometimes refused on the grounds of security
Taken with the experience at Sidmouth, it seems reasonable to assert that the public will show up and participate in dances much as in 2019.
This post is written to document what is and is not happening as of early August 2021 at a festival that usually sees lots of dancing. It's hoped that the observations will help dancers, organisers and others to plan for the future.
Introduction
In normal years, this festival has a lot of social dancing in the form of ceilidhs, contras, American squares and the odd Bal or two. Typically, theses events are in marquees or local community halls. The number of different people dancing over the course of the week probably approaches 1000.
By the time the festival started in 2021, "dancing like it was 2019" had been legal for several weeks but due to the long lead times for booking infrastructure, etc. the cut-down festival planned no indoor events and no dancing.
The Anchor Ceilidhs
One of the pubs, The Anchor Inn put on their lunchtime ceilidh series. Differences from 2019 included:
No late-afternoon ceilidh
Another row of tables on each side of the dancefloor which reduced the dancing area by around 25%
The density of dancers on the floor was probably a little lower than normal. Some, including some under-18s wore masks but this declined during the week. A small minority danced as fixed couples so they didn't touch anyone outside their household.
I offered people stickers like these to indicate their preference. A small minority declined
Dancing at the Anchor
Unofficial Dance Fringe
I organised this. Essentially this was a daily offering of a Ceilidh/Bal at 8pm with a scratch band and callers. The main location was on the sea front outside the Bedford Hotel and typically attracted 20-30 dancers and up to 8 musicians. Each morning, the weather from the Met Office was checked and if the probability of rain from 2000-2200 was low, the event was posted to Facebook and announced at the Anchor lunchtime ceilidh.
Irish Set
I came across a couple of instances of people dancing Irish Set in the afternoon although I was told it was a modified form designed to reduce contact between people not of the same household. One session was on the lawn of the The Triangle
There was also a small gathering on the sea front.
Bal Miniscule
Fine musicians are always attracted to Sidmouth for the Festival and when they gather for sessions, people often dance. (This is the essence of Bal Miniscule) - 2021 was no exception
Discussion
We have demonstrated that there is at least some demand for dancing "like it's 2019" as the Covid pandemic wanes in the UK. The number of people at the Festival was only a fraction of the normal numbers. This was partly due to people fearing the virus but also because the Festival was much smaller and possibly because the "official" campsite had much less capacity than usual - and as this was sold out, it may explain why some younger dancers were absent. I met some people who usually dance but made the decision not to dance this year.
It's difficult to draw many conclusions about whether people will want to dance indoors during the coming Autumn as they might have done during 2019. Informal conversations with a number of festival-goers indicated that some were eschewing indoor life as much as possible. Some of the musician's sessions that would normally have been indoors were in outside spaces. One explained to me that she expected to catch Covid at some point and would rather it was as a low dose rather than the large dose that could be available in a crowded pub.
It could be that if the pandemic continues to decline in the UK, people who were happy to dance outdoors during August will be happy to dance indoors a few months down the line.
It was odd that some people danced in the open air wearing masks when this is contrary to the WHO guidelines for exercise.
There were no "vaccine passports" or any testing regimes but there was this interesting approach to getting partners
