Call to the Dance

Over the course of the 40 years between 1970 and 2010 Britany has experienced an intense revival of activity in the area of vernacular traditional music performance and social dancing. Circle dancing there is arguably the most popularly enjoyed community based dance form in Western Europe. In its mo [...]
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Over the course of the 40 years between 1970 and 2010 Britany has experienced an intense revival of activity in the area of vernacular traditional music performance and social dancing. Circle dancing there is arguably the most popularly enjoyed community based dance form in Western Europe. In its most traditional form the music and singing which drive the dance are immediate and arresting in their raw appeal. Addressing both scholarly and musical constituencies, Irish musician and academic Desi Wilkinson opens a nuanced window, informed by his own experience, into this vibrant socio-musical reality. The book deals with issues of local identity as expressed through the aesthetic medium of music and dance and includes access to field recordings of selected singers and musicians. Directly related to these recordings are basic transcriptions of both text and music that, taken together, give readers a good template from which to develop some understanding of its aesthetic features. The Pan-Breton selection to be found here is the cohort of round dance music forms that are most representative of the Breton tradition in the 2010s. A description of what has emerged as the most iconic dance form, the suite gavotte montagne, is included. The notional world of contemporary popular Celticism (Celtitude) is tied to folk music performance and Wilkinson examines the particularity of its Breton and francophone construction.