York Festival of Traditional Dance

Each year around the second weekend of September, York runs a Festival of Traditional Dance on Saturday and Sunday. The festival starts with a procession from the Guildhall, crosses St. Helen's Square and then proceeds down Davygate into Parliament street, finishing in the shady area between Marks and Spencer and Barclays Bank. The photograph above shows Ebor Morris performing the "Winster Processional". Below, is the last note of the processional as Ebor Morris arrive in Parliament Street. From here the 9 groups attending this year split up to perform in St. Sampsons Square, Kings Square and Parliament Street.

Teams attending the event are Acorn, Beverly, Black Pig, Brackley, Ebor, English Miscellany, Inclognito, Jet Set, Minster Strays. Styles of dancing included Cotswold, Long Sword, Border, Northwest Clog and Clog Stepping.

Note for my good friend Chun See in Singapore, I have included another photograph with some of the rare greenery within the city walls. I hope to have some more photos of locations within the walls with trees and greenery over the next few days.

I couldn't resist including this one of a visitor filming the procession.

Are there any trees in York?

Following my good friend Chun See asking about greenery in the city in the comments of the article on St. Michael le Belfrey I went out yesterday to find some of the greenery I knew existed in York. This is St. Sampsons Square with nice shady trees around the edge of the square. Restaurants use the square on fine days to seat customers outside. Today the square will also be used for the York Traditional Dance Festival with a finale this afternoon performing for the Mayor of York. The square was not always so pleasant. During the 1960s and 1970s it was marked out as a car park. The trees were planted in the late 1970s.

This black and white photo of Five Quarter Rapper dancers from Durham taken in 1975 during the Folk Festival shows the square from almost the same viewpoint, you can see the Minster central tower in the centre of both photographs. In those days the square was not very picturesque and dancing under the direct hot sun could lead to a serious thirst (it still does today but takes a few dances more to work up that thirst!)