2019-07 Yorkshire Folk Dance Weekend, Drax
A weekend of English folk dance held at the Drax Sports and Social Club, adjacent to the Drax power station.
An annual event for folk dancers, a whole weekend of dancing with well-known callers. At this type of event you can expect to dance more challenging dances, these will range from traditional dances composed hundreds of years ago to more complex dances written by contemporary composers. Dancing is to live music, so it’s a really enjoyable event.
Many of the participants camp on the sports field behind the sports and social club so that they are within easy reach of the hall inside the club.
For us it’s 114 miles, which we drive in about two and a half hours. We are up early, as there is a lot to do sorting out our clothes, then Hymer so that we can get on the road. It’s nearly 2pm when we leave home, arrive late afternoon friday then have an evening meal before going into the hall. Tonight there are two callers, one specialising in contra and square dances and the other in more traditional English dances. The contras are fast and furious, the caller keeps them going for a long time, too many repetitions for my taste because there are people there who like to twirl and swing very vigourously. I prefer dances that need more skill and timing, we get that with the other caller.
About 50 people present, it’s not a big hall so it feels very hot and rather crowded. We leave about half past ten and head back to the Hymer. There is very heavy rain during the night.
Saturday begins with workshops where you can expect to do much harder dances. We decide to miss the first one because it’s going to be contras and squares. That’s not American Square Dance squares – that is something totally different with a multitude of carefully designed calls that have to be executed according to definitions. It’s danced at a fairly slow speed and really is not vigorous. We go to the second workshop, the contras go on for too long, it’s exhausting, we are getting tired. I don’t want to do a fairly simple dance 20 times, give me something more challenging that I have to be precise with, or a skilled American Square Dance caller who challenges the dancers by asking them to do something different. We leave the evening dance at the break and get some sleep.
Sunday we move to the nearby Drax village hall, more dancing until late afternoon when we all pack up and go home, exhausted. We did a lot of dancing this weekend, overall an enjoyable weekend.
On the way home we call off at a supermarket in Bamber Bridge and fill up with 76 litres diesel, almost £100 worth, then continue north on the M6 to home.
Photos from the 2019 Yorkshire Folk Dance Weekend at Drax
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Drax power station
Having been to Drax I was interested in finding out more about the power station. Drax used to be one of the UK’s biggest coal fired power stations. It has been converted to burn wood pellets which are referred to as biomass. The wood pellets come from the US, Canada, Europe and Brazil. In 2016 Drax burned 13 million tonnes of wood, it also burns gas and coal. Over 50% of the wood comes from the US. In 2016 Drax received over 1/2 billion pounds in subsidies coming from environmental levies on electricity bills. (Source theecologist.org)