Join us to sample several flavours of Breton dance across regions and eclectic musical genres.
On Thursday 8 April, we have an intriguing Breton dance workshop with Jean-Cristophe Denis (see below). After the workshop we’ll continue on with our Eurosession to play tunes, enjoy dancing and see some friendly faces, or breakout for a chat.
Workshop and session times:
7:30pm – 9:00 pm (UTC+1 / BST) – Dance workshop
9:00 – 11:00 pm (UTC+1 / BST) – Eurosession
Session access and donations:
To to obtain the Zoom details, please pay/donate via our dedicated donations page at https://eurosession.org.uk/?p=3233. We ask for a minimum payment of £2, but if you enjoy our sessions, we suggest you donate £5 or £10 so we can offer musicians and dance teachers fair payment.
Finding your way around:
You’ll have the option to join and leave Zoom breakout rooms to move between the session, workshop, and the bar. See our quick guide if you get stuck.
If you plan to share a tune:
It may sound better if you turn on the Original Sound feature when playing – please check out the Zoom Help about how to enable this this in your Zoom settings.
About the workshop:
Breton Dance Workshop with Jean Cristophe Denis: exploring areas and cultures
We will remotely travel around Brittany: from joyful dances from the coast to energetic chain dances from the “mountains”. We will move from the French-speaking areas to discover the Breton and Gallo speaking counties. You will dance on traditional “kan ha diskan” singing, but also “contemporary traditional” music, strongly influenced by metal, hip-hop or techno music. This is why Fest-Noz (the Breton equivalent to a ceilidh) is on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. Come and experience the very unique Breton culture!
While we will be dancing from the comfort of our homes, we will try and recreate the feeling of togetherness of these dances. Everybody is welcome, no experience needed, and you can join on your own or with more people.
Jean Christophe (often known as JC) has been dancing Breton dances for over 20 years, including in a Breton dance group (cercle celtique) in France, and has been running dance workshops in Edinburgh and beyond for about 7 years.
Tips for enjoying the evening
The rest of the evening should provide the same experience as the our previous virtual sessions – marvellous musicians, delicious dancing, and a bit of chatting. Here are some tips for maximum enjoyment:
Everyone:
You can switch views in Zoom between one individual and all participants using the Speaker view / Gallery view buttons (for help see How-Do-I-Change-The-Video-Layout.
Please mute your audio when you are not speaking / leading the music, and use the Chat feature for background communication.
Try out the breakout room for a chat alongside the workshop and session. See Self-selecting a Breakout Room
Musicians:
Please play tunes for dancing, prioritising dances from the balfolk scene and other traditional genres from across Europe (preferably avoid English and Irish, because we have plenty of those in other local sessions!).
In the Zoom sessions, only one person (or device) can broadcast at any one time; please use the chat for making dance tune offers to help to create a rolling running order of dances from the offers.
When you’ve been chosen to lead, let the dancers know what dance type you’ll be playing if you can. Then select Original Sound when you’re ready to play, and turn it off again for normal voice transmission.
Dancers:
Get your dance shoes on; if you have a danceable space, book it for the evening, You can attempt to dance the right genre of dance at the right time (albeit half a beat behind!), or dance whatever takes your fancy. More important is to dance as though no-one is watching, or as though you can cheer up everyone else who is watching! It’s also fine to turn your video off if you feel freer dancing in private.
Eurosession is an inclusive and caring space for all.
Invite your co-space-sharing mates / family / teddy-bear along if appropriate 😉
See you soon,
xx Eurosesh