FOLK COMPANIONS

Who are we ?

The Folk Companions were founded in 1972 by Alan Davies and Peter Sumner from amongst the members of two school folk dance clubs - Thornbury Grammar School and Patchway High School. Thornbury Grammar School is now Marlwood School in Alveston on the outskirts of Thornbury. The connection with these schools has altered over the years, but we still have two of the founder members (one from each school) dancing with us - as do their children !. Our logo (shown left) portrays the "Nonesuch" flower which only grows in the Bristol area ⁽¹⁾, and "Nonesuch" is also the name of one of the dances from our early repetoire - and one which is still present. We are affiliated to the English Folk-Dance and Song Society.

We have been dancing for thiry four years now (* is it really that long *), we have started to think a bit about our history, you can find a summary of what we have been up to over thirty plus years on our History Page. You can see some photographs from our 30^th anniversary celebrations by clicking here.

In 2006 Marlwood School is celebrating the 400^th anniversary of the foundation of Thornbury Grammar School. We are taking a part in this – and celebrating our 34^th birthday.

For more details see here.

We are always welcoming to new members – whether you’ve been dancing for a long time, or you’ve never done anything like this before and would just like to have a go. You can join the group to dance, to play a musical instrument in our band or to do both. We have members from all age ranges, junior school children to Senior Citizens– you don’t even have to live in the Alveston/Thornbury area - some members come from much further afield.

What sort of dancing do we do

We currently learn, perform and enjoy (most importantly !) a variety of English dance traditions: including Cotswold and North West Morris, Long Sword, Rapper Sword, Garland, Country and Playford Dancing. We have also recently run a workshop on Stave dances jointly with Turnberrie Castle.

In the past we have been involved in re-establishing and running two traditional Mummer's Plays (those at Alveston and Keynsham); as well as "writing" our own - after all folk is both a tradition and an evolutionary journey !. As you might expect from the history of the group – we also have quite an international outlook on dance, and have organised workshops on German and Swedish traditional dances – together with trying our hand at Manx dancing; although for some reason we didn't continue with that.

Our costume was designed to be colourful, simple and to highlight the distinctive patterns made in traditional English folk dances. The women and girls wear red skirts with white blouses; the men and boys wear black knee-breeches, white shirts and socks with a dark blue tabard worn on top. Additions to the costume for particular styles of dancing are clogs - for Garland and Clog Dances - and straw-hats (bedecked with flowers and ribbons) and bell-pads (squares of leather, covered with ribbons and small bells which are then attached to the calves of the leg) - for Cotswold Morris. You can see our costume in our Photographs Gallery.

Where to find us

You can find us dancing at school fetes, church/charity fund raising events all around the area (and sometimes in the summer overseas, for example this year we danced at the Landesgartenschau near Stuttgart) … we will organise dances for you, providing musicians, callers and some dancers to lead the dancing where required and/or show some dances from the different types of traditional dancing that we enjoy.

You can find information on where we will be dancing on the Folk in Thornbury "What's On" page.

How to contact us

We meet most Friday evenings during the school-term at Marlwood School, Vattingstone Lane, Alveston – just outside of Thornbury at 7.30 p.m. If you just want to turn up – you will be very welcome.

If you would like to contact us to find out more or book us to dance for your event, please send an email to < Folk Companions email> or telephone Peter Sumner on 01454 414365.[Folk in Thornbury HOME PAGE] .

⁽¹⁾ "The Nonesuch or Lychnis, known as the Flower of Bristol, which gave rise to a popular scarlet dye manufactured in the 16^th Centry under the name of "Bristowe Red" is depicted on many carved lintels and doorways at the Mansion House [the official residence of the city's Lord Mayor]" Bristol Magpies Newsletter no 137 (June 2002). See http://www.bristol-city.gov.uk/museums for further details on Bristol's Museums and the Magpies.