Chippenham Folk Festival 2022

Friday 27 May 2022, the start of the 2022 Chippenham Folk Festival, this year it’s only two days, Saturday and Sunday, usually it goes over onto the Monday bank holiday. This year is different because of the queen’s jubilee that has moved the bank holiday to the following weekend. 
Chippenham is one of the highlights of the folk dance calendar with multiple venues running dances and workshops at the same time, music events, singing and other events.

We are here to perform English Folk Dances with the Galliard group of dancers, this year we’re wearing our 1650s costume also known as ‘Country Costumes’.

The group that we are dancing with is Galliard Folk Dancers, based in Lancashire we perform dances that were written between 1650 and the present day. At Chippenham we’re ‘busking’, in this context it means dancing at fixed places around the town with other groups, often Morris dancers. Our day for busking is Saturday, when we have three busking slots, each of 45 minutes, plus the grand parade. 

At each busking spot we took turns to dance one dance, alternating with Morris dancers from different traditions.