Thursday July 8: Singing for dancing workshop with Brigitte and Katell Kloareg, followed by e-Eurosession

For our July workshop we celebrate summer warmth with a trip to Britany

We are delighted to welcome Brigitte and Katell Kloareg, marvellous singers and teachers of song on Thursday July 8 (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) – 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 donations page. We ask for a £2 minimum payment, but if you enjoy our sessions and can donate £5 or £10, that helps us to give fair payment to our musicians and dance teachers.

More tips:
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: 

Singing for dancing with Brigitte and Katell Kloareg

Two birds singing to each other
Event image by ArtRose @ Pixabay.com

About the workshop: Singing for dancing with Brigitte and Katell Kloareg

In the workshop Brigitte and Katell will pass on the secrets of some vibrant singing traditions that magically bring together a crowd of exhilarated dancers, and powers them through the night on waves of rhythmic story-singing. Although we can’t come together to dance right now, we offer this workshop so we can prepare whilst we wait.

Brigitte and Katell will teach a mix of dance songs in Breton and French. In the west of Brittany where Breton is spoken, the singing for dancing tradition is called kan-ha diskan and is particular in that the two (or more) singers overlap their sung phrases. The songs usually tell stories, even if the Breton langage is sometimes mistaken for mouth music ! There is also some mouth music – usually in small amounts. French is also part of the western singing tradition. The east of Brittany has a dancing tradition in French (also in Gallo – another minority language). It is called chant à répondre and traditionally, there is no overlapping. The singers just follow one another : the lead singer sings, then the other repeats the phrase.

Brigitte and Katell will teach the kan-ha-diskan ‘call and response’ technique which is a central feature in singing for dancing in the Breton language. They will teach a couple of simple kan-ha-diskan song (an an dro/kas a-barzh & a tamm-kreiz – which is used for a rest dance in the gavotte suite. ) Participants will have the opportunity to shadow the lead singer and ‘catch’ the singing baton without dropping a beat. Brigitte and Katell will demonstrate some gavottes. Gavottes come in simple tunes (ton simpl), double tunes (ton doubl) and treble tunes (ton tripl)… more on that in the workshop…

Join us for a chance to bring your attention to the present micro-moment, and channel the impetus of the chant to power a chain of [imaginary] energised dancers.

Other songs for the workshop include rondes à trois pas, a maritime circle dance, also found in Normandy and in Vendée and on the western islands. These can be in Breton or in French or in both languages (macaronic) as well as an hanter dro and a pachpi which can be sung for dancers just on its own or can be tagged on at the end of the gavotte suite. Quite challenging but can be sung at various levels, easy, hard and harder (in Breton with overlapping voices)

No previous experience is required.  No denying that some French will help – as will some Breton !

If you can identify a local real-life song-partner with whom you can practice the call and response without internet delays that could be helpful, but it’s not essential for enjoying the workshop.

Katell Kloareg and her mother Brigitte have sung together for 25 years around the Celtic countries. They share a large repertoire of Breton, French, English, Welsh, and Irish music… Their combined performances and CDs present a wide range of heartful and powerful vocal techniques.

Tips for enjoying the evening

The rest of the evening should provide similar experiences as previous sessions – marvellous musicians, delicious dancing, and a bit of chatting. Here are tips for maximum enjoyment:

Zoom tips for Everyone:
Please mute your audio when you are not speaking / leading the music, and use the Chat feature for background communication.
To switch views between seeing one individual (Speaker View) and all participants (Gallery View), consult How-Do-I-Change-The-Video-Layout.
Head to the bar for a longer chat alongside the workshop or session; for help see our quick guide, or Zoom’s longer guide to 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; use the chat to help create a a rolling running order of dance tune offers.
It generally sounds better if you turn on the Original Sound feature when playing – please check out the Zoom Help about how to enable this in your settings.
When you’ve been chosen to lead, let the dancers know what dance type you’ll be playing if you can. Then select Original Soundwhen 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