IVFDF 2010 (Friday and Saturday)

What with Roger being, how can I put this, stationary with a vengence, I decided to get the train down to Durham for IVFDF. Passed the house where I grew up on the way down and was really shocked to see that they had decimated the surrounding wood and built a huge house right next to the old bungalow (which wasn't small to start with). It really threw me to see the orchard gone. Ah well.

Got into Durham at around 6pm and managed to find Alington House straight off by basically pointing myself in the direction of the Cathedral and wandering roughly in that direction until I encountered crowds of suspected IVFDF goers. Fortunately I managed to get a ticket for the central sleeping venue, dumped my stuff, randomly met up with some of the usual suspects and headed off for the ceilidh with 422. This was a fair walk from the centre but the weather was nice, if crisp, and it was well worth it. The first ceilidh was great fun with Martin Harvey calling and some truly stonking music (I do like 422) . In the break, Star and Shadow rapper dancers did a spot which was highly entertaining and they look in good from for DERT. For the second half of the evening, 422 were getting us to dance to 80's pop songs which worked surprisingly well. I may not have liked all the songs (I particularly hate ABBA's Dancing Queen. Don't get me wrong, I like ABBA, I liked them before they became popular again but I really, really hate this song and what song do they always play?) but they also played 'Money for Nothing', by Dire Straits which is a great song and worked really well with the dance. There was a brief hiatus in the evening where the was possibly a fire alarm. That is to say there was a high pitched whistling and all the lights went out but no-one could tell if it was an alarm or just serious feedback so we milled uncertainly then decided that, since no-one was yelling at us to get out, we'd stay put in the warm and go and have a drink (and not only was there a real ale bar but it was student union prices so not bad, not bad at all). Anyhow, they seemed to get it sorted and we went back to dancing. Went back to Alington house for the late night dancing but sadly there really wasn't any room for it. We took over the sleeping hall for a short while but there were far too many people even for that space and they didn't get round to the more esoteric dances which is what I go to the late night dancing for. Anyhow, once the musicians went back upstairs to just have a session. I decided just to head to bed and drift off to the music. Sadly, not a huge amount of sleep was got, not because of the music but because I could not get warm which is not usually a problem for me. Odd but so it goes.

Anyhow, dragged myself along to the student union at 9am to go to the workshop on how to cope in a session. Some very interesting and helpful information and it was nice listening to them play but I shall have to redouble my efforts with the clarinet and fiddle cause I want to join in damn it! Rapper was next up and High Spen was teaching. As always, the class was seriously over subscribed which meant that space was tight and you kept havingt to wait until a teacher was free to learn anything else but it was still fun. It's the first time since last year that I've danced in a set that was roughly my height and it really was a nice feeling. Most of our set had also done some rapper beforehand so we managed fairly well and we all knew each other so we spent a fair bit of time giggling. All in all a good fun and interesting workshop but I think they might want to start limiting the numbers (this means I would need to arrive much earlier in order to be certain of getting in!) in future IVFDF's.
I stayed on for the Playing for Morris workshop (again just listening in) which was really good with lots of helpful advice on the difference in playing for different types of folk dance. I paid particular attention to the advice on rapper and border obviously. After this, I went along to the clog workshop. I couldn't be bothered to head back to Alington house to get my clogs so I did the class in my rapper shoes. Good to know I carted my clogs to the North East for no particular reason. Still, at least it was a nice outing for them. The clog itself was fun and all the shuffles must be improving my rapper stepping. I put my name on the e-mail list for the clog workshop weekend so fingers crossed that's on when I'm free.

I caught the end of the display ceilidh, although I didn't really feel up to dancing (apparently being laid up in bed for over a week and then dancing like mad at a folk festival leaves you feeling knackered, who knew!). I enjoyed Exeter's dem to ABBA's 'Does your Mother Know that You're Out' (something of an ABBA theme this year) but then, I usually do.
I dithered between heading for a shower or going to see the Eliza Carthy concert but eventually the need to have shower won out and I had a nice walk through Durham to find the leisure centre. I feel incredibly disloyal saying it but Durham is a far, far prettier place than Newcastle. Anyhow, shower taken (and that was possibly the best £2.10 spent of the weekend!) I headed back out to the outskirts for the Contra ceilidh. Vertical Expression were on good form so the music was fantastic and Adam was calling well but there seemed to be some difficulty with the mic so that there were problems calling the dance at the far end of the hall which wasn't helped when people started to pour in and talk while they were trying to walk through. The lighting was also peculiar with the top end of the hall in darkness and the other end brightly lit so the caller couldn't see the end sets which can't of been helpful (Also people seemed to have lost the ability to form fours from the top of the set, which was bizarre). Adam had to give up on calling a couple of the more complicated dances because the instructions just weren't getting through but other dances were substituted and I really enjoyed it despite the problems. I stayed on for the Whapweasel ceilidh cause I was too knackered to head out for the Northumbrian one which I kind of regret because, although the music was great, it was too loud, there were still the same calling problems (and I know it wasn't the caller cause Gordon Potts is usually great) and I just didn't have the energy to deal with it. Still I enjoyed the music and it was fun watching people on the floor before I headed up to the balcony and had fun playing 'what sort of dancing does this person usually do'.
I headed back to the hall after this and went to bed to the sound of the session again. Sadly another chilly night and not much sleep.