Folk Dancing

While you might not get up and dance a gig in the morning, there are many people in the world who might. Folk dancing has been around for centuries now, helping people celebrate their culture and remember their past. From the time that people were able to move, people decided to dance. And even when you think they might look strange, they’re telling a story of their history – one that you might want to learn too.

Types of Folk Dancing

There are as many types of folk dancing as there are cultures around the world. Each group of people has their own way of moving, based on what others have done before them and based on what they want to express. Here is a small sampling of the types of folk dancing in the world:

• Clogging
• English country dance
• International folk dance
• Irish dance
• Maypole dance
• Morris dance
• Nordic polska dance
• Ball de bastons
• Square dance
• Sword dance

Why Folk Dance?

For many people, the idea of folk dancing seems unnecessary in the modern world. Since we can now communicate in hundreds of other ways, the dance seems to be more of a frivolity than something that is useful. However, these are some of the reasons why folk dancing persists:

• Celebration – When you’re excited about something, you want to get up and dance. Whether you’re excited about a birth, a holiday, a new job, or a marriage, you might dance around, even when no one else is watching. For many, folk dancing provides a way to celebrate life’s biggest occasions.
• Devotions – For others, the dance is a way to connect to something bigger, something more mystical. For example, dancing the Maypole is a celebration of fertility and often for fertility goddesses.
• Art – The dance that a group does might become a bit of an art form, especially when there are people who are better at the dances than others. Watching these dances as performances allows others to see the value in this art.
• Cultural reverence – In the end, dancing is also about having cultural reverence for a group of people, their history, and their qualities.

Folk dancing may not be something you pick up and try to do with your friends, but you can begin to see just how valuable it is in a world that doesn’t focus much on culture anymore. In a dance, you can communicate something that goes beyond words and beyond Blackberries. With folk dancing, a person can relay the story of their lives – of those they have lived and of those who have lived before them.