‘Michael Flatley appeared like a rockstar’: how Riverdance gave the jig cool factor
Thirty years ago, Riverdance’s groundbreaking Eurovision interval performance ignited a new generation’s devotion to Irish dancing
May 2023
Kizlar review – a dance of the warriors with hip-swinging swagger
Ceyda Tanc’s all-female troupe put on a display of sass and self-possession as they redesign a traditional Turkish folk dance
April 2023
Folk album of the month
Cinder Well: Cadence review – a mysterious deep dive into the ocean
Good Friday skipping: English Heritage aims to jump-start neglected Easter tradition
January 2023
Gwenno, quarry raves and the punks of Penzance: inside the Cornish music explosion
A buzzy new venue is spearheading a south-western musical renaissance, with hundreds of people dancing in the streets after a booming club night. Our writer hits the floor for the Cornish conga
October 2022
Pass notes
‘It was change or die’: why morris men are now welcoming morris women
Women were once excluded from the official folk dance groups – but now the barriers are down. Will this mean the end of traditional morris performances?
July 2022
Folk album of the month
Jacken Elswyth: Six Static Scenes review – the tension, twang and beauty of banjo
Tunes by well-known banjo players inspire new departures that range from avant garde to shimmeringly pretty
February 2022
Well, slap my shoe! A lederhosen classic and a polka only five men can do
What do you get if you cross a 1,000-year-old Bavarian shoe-slapping dance with an all-male Italian folk routine that was on the brink of extinction? A sweaty, joyous double-bill!
January 2022
Fire, cider and ‘heavy metal morris dancing’: the resurgence of wassailing
A centuries-old outdoor folklore ceremony featuring singing, dancing, costumes and crop-blessings, the wassail is having a pandemic-era revival – with witchy reinventions
June 2021
Global album of the month
Arushi Jain: Under the Lilac Sky review – ragas for beautiful sunsets
Ron Smedley obituary
May 2021
Morris dancers and the origin of blackface
Letter: Nicholas Wall says factors such as the use of banjos, minstrel lyrics in songs and oral histories make the link between minstrelsy and border morris irrefutable
January 2021
From the Guardian archive
English folk music to be preserved – archive, 1953
13 January 1953: The Folk Dance and Song Society are to collaborate on a BBC project to make sound recordings throughout the British Isles for a permanent archive
December 2020
Travel through a lens
‘It symbolises the end of the year and the new one beginning’: folk dance in Romania
Other lives
Gerry Bates obituary
June 2020
Scrum on down: the playing fields of Ireland – in pictures
Hurling and Irish dancing are part of County Wexford’s cultural tradition. Photographer Luis Alberto Rodriguez got physical with the locals
January 2020
My best shot
Romania's new year bear dancers – Alecsandra Raluca Drăgoi's best photograph
‘Boys and men put on heavy bear costumes, often made of real fur, and make their way to a stage – where a Gypsy with a knife cuts them open to let a demon out’
October 2019
Other lives
Les Barclay obituary
Other lives: Expert on radio wave communications whose interest began at 14 at a scout jamboree
August 2019
Our folk society has banned blackface
The origin of morris dancers blacking up is irrelevant – it simply needs to stop
