 | |
| Abbreviation | CDSS |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1915 |
| Type | Nonprofit organization |
| Headquarters | Easthampton, Massachusetts [1] |
Region served | United States and Canada |
| Membership | 2400 individuals and 260 affiliate groups [2] |
| Katy German | |
| Budget | $1.2 million (2021) [3] |
| Staff | 12 [4] |
| Website | www.cdss.org |
The Country Dance and Song Society (abbreviated CDSS) is a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote participatory dance, music, and song with English and North American roots. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
CDSS began in 1915 as a series of American chapters of the English Dance and Folk Society established by Cecil Sharp. [10]
Several US branches united under the English Folk Dance and Song Society of America in 1933, [11] and May Gadd was appointed as its first national director. [12] The organization consolidated in 1940. In 1949, its name was changed to Country Dance Society; “and Song” was added in 1967.
CDSS moved its office from New York City to western Massachusetts in 1987 and started a mail-order store for books, recordings, and supplies around the same time. Its website was launched in 2009. [11] Today, CDSS supports more than 260 local affiliate groups. [13]
CDSS promotes a number of types of participatory dance, including contra dance, [14] English country dance, square dance, [15] morris dance, rapper sword, and clogging. [16]
CDSS runs several week-long summer camps at Pinewoods Dance Camp (MA), [17] Camp Cavell (MI), Agassiz Village (ME), and Camp Louise (MD). [18] They also run web chats [19] and other online programs year-round. [20]
Contra dance is a form of folk dancing made up of long lines of couples. It has mixed origins from English country dance, Scottish country dance, and French dance styles in the 17th century. Sometimes described as New England folk dance or Appalachian folk dance, contra dances can be found around the world, but are most common in the United States, Canada, and other Anglophone countries.
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations, music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that.
A country dance is any of a very large number of social dances of a type that originated in England in the British Isles; it is the repeated execution of a predefined sequence of figures, carefully designed to fit a fixed length of music, performed by a group of people, usually in couples, in one or more sets. The figures involve interaction with your partner and/or with other dancers, usually with a progression so that you dance with everyone in your set. It is common in modern times to have a "caller" who teaches the dance and then calls the figures as you dance. Country dances are done in many different styles.
Morris dancing is a form of English folk dance. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers in costume, usually wearing bell pads on their shins and/or shoes. A band or single musician, also costumed, will accompany them. Sticks, swords, handkerchiefs, and a variety of other implements may be wielded by the dancers.
The folk music of England is a tradition-based music which has existed since the later medieval period. It is often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music. Folk music traditionally was preserved and passed on orally within communities, but print and subsequently audio recordings have since become the primary means of transmission. The term is used to refer both to English traditional music and music composed or delivered in a traditional style.
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, contra dance, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle and plucked string instruments, most often the banjo, guitar, and mandolin. Together, they form an ensemble called the string band, which along with the simple banjo–fiddle duet have historically been the most common configurations to play old-time music. The genre is considered a precursor to modern country music.
Cecil James Sharp was an English collector of folk songs, folk dances and instrumental music, as well as a lecturer, teacher, composer and musician. He was a key figure in the folk-song revival in England during the Edwardian period. According to Roud's Folk Song in England, Sharp was the country's "single most important figure in the study of folk song and music".
Ashley Stephen Hutchings, MBE, sometimes known in early years as "Tyger" Hutchings, is an English bassist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founding member of three noteworthy English folk-rock bands: Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band. Hutchings has overseen numerous other projects, including records and live theatre, and has collaborated on film and television projects.
The New England Folk Festival is an annual weekend festival of traditional dance and music. It takes place in the Boston, Massachusetts region each spring. It is conducted by the New England Folk Festival Association. Both the festival and the association are colloquially known by the abbreviation NEFFA. NEFFA is a participatory festival; attendees are encouraged to participate in dancing, singing, musical jam sessions, and other activities. It is run by volunteers and all the performers are volunteers as well.
The Young Tradition was an English folk group of the 1960s, formed by Peter Bellamy, Royston Wood and Heather Wood. They recorded three albums of mainly traditional British folk music, sung in arrangements for their three unaccompanied voices.
The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML) is the library and archive of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), located in the society's London headquarters, Cecil Sharp House. It is a multi-media library comprising books, periodicals, audio-visual materials, photographic images and sound recordings, as well as manuscripts, field notes, transcriptions etc. of a number of collectors of folk music and dance traditions in the British Isles. According to A Dictionary of English Folklore, "... by a gradual process of professionalization the VWML has become the most important concentration of material on traditional song, dance, and music in the country."
The English Folk Dance and Song Society is an organisation that promotes English folk music and folk dance. EFDSS was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated in 1935 and became a registered charity in 1963.
CDSS may refer to:
Bob Dalsemer is a square and contra dance writer and caller. He has called dances for more than 50 years and in more than 33 states, plus internationally in Canada, the Czech Republic, Britain, Belgium, Denmark and Russia. He began writing dances in the mid-1970s. He wrote the book West Virginia Square Dances and Folk Dance Fun for Schools and Families. He has also compiled the cassette/book compilations Smoke On the Water: Square Dance Classics and When The Work's All Done: A Square Dance Party For Beginners and Old Hands.
Maud Karpeles OBE, was a British collector of folksongs and dance teacher.
Pinewoods Camp is a traditional dance and music camp located on 31 acres (13 ha) of woodland between Long Pond and Round Pond in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It is the oldest continuously run folk dance camp in the U.S., and is arguably the most popular and well-known camp of its type.
The Vernacular Music Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, is a center for in-depth and comparative research, study, teaching and advocacy on behalf of the world's vernacular musics and dance. The Center was founded at Texas Tech in the Fall of 2000 under Executive Director Dr Christopher J Smith. The VMC states that it "engages with folk music, traditional music and dance from around the world: vernacular idioms that are learned, taught, shared, and passed-on by ear and in the memory." The term "vernacular" is employed in its title in order to allude to "vernacular languages"—those languages used for commonplace communication—and in order to avoid potentially limiting terms such as "folk," "traditional," or "non-Western."
Douglas Neil Kennedy (1893–1988) was a folk musician, dancer and a key figure in the 20th century English folk dance revival.
May Gadd was an internationally known expert on American and English country dance. Gadd was born in Chichester, England in 1890. She became a physical education instructor but after seeing a dance in a London theatre, attended Cecil Sharp's summer camp in 1915.