Dance annotation guide

Dance notation is often contentious, but for the purposes of the barn, country or ceilidh dance, a very simple description will suffice. There will be some moves which will need defining and these definitions will develop as Folkopedia grows. Here is a starting point for annotating dances - it may well change as people come up with ideas for good practice.

Check out Soldier's Joy as a guide to how to present information.

Dance Title plus the version (county version, caller's variant, identify why this is different from another version).

Origin Did somebody collect it? Did somebody write it?

Source Where is it written down? Is it in a book or magazine? Was it observed by you, the contributor, at a dance.

Form Is it a circle dance, a longways, 4 or 5 couple set...........

The Dance

This is based on the music - A, B and maybe even C and D music parts.

An 'A' is usually 8 bars of music (but sometimes 4)

Many dances consist of two A musics and two B musics but there are lots of variations.

Music Here you can suggest tunes, rhythms, etc which will suit the dance. Don't assume that anybody will take any notice of what you suggest. If they don't, just accept it as the 'folk process'.

Historical Information Did it evolve from an earlier dance? Did somebody re-write it? Did it travel to anothert country and come back? Anything interesting about the dance can by included here.