A brief history
Ann Hinchliffe with Anne DayeHave you ever wondered where our wonderful folk dances come from? Why Cotswold morris echoes the structure of Black Nag and Picking up Sticks? How Jane Austen’s characters could talk so much while they were dancing? These are topics that the Historical Dance Society researches, publishes and teaches, in UK and other countries. They’ve been doing that since 1971, and next year will celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. It began with Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940), who crystallised current interest in early music just as Cecil Sharp did with English folk dance, music and song. You may remember Dolmetsch recorders from your own school-days. Dolmetsch was trained as a craftsman at his parents’ piano manufactory in France, then studied at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles where he encountered musicians playing…