#ceilidh

David Dancing - Part Eleven

There once was a festival in sunny olde England, in the middle of summer that no-one has ever heard of - unless you're into folk, in which case it seemed like everyone had heard of it been to it, or at least knows someone who goes to it.

Now the festival technically has a lot of stuff going on, especially in the town: workshops, ceilidhs, traders, food stalls, singing, dancing, all that good stuff, and you could buy a ticket for the entire week and camping for a pretty penny, or you could come and camp, vibe out in the town during the day and just buy a ticket for the BIG Evening events that happen every evening at the top of the hill.*

At these evening events you have the best dance bands and the best dance MCs (callers) in scene. It is called the Late Night Extra (LNE) and it is the place to be. If you play or call one of these ceilidhs you have MADE IT as a ceilidh band. You've won the game. These big dance evenings with like over 200 people dancing from 11pm - 1am have an interval where invited dance sides entertain the audience. The festival are really picky about who dances these spots so being given an LNE interval spot as a dance side is also a BIG DEAL.

The venue is huge, the floor is excellent, the dances are fab, it really is some of the best of english ceilidh dancing. Then with three weeks to go, they pull this:

Below their main: BUY THE TICKETS button is this "little" addendum. This has not been released to social media. It has not been communicated to the dance sides, or the ceilidh bands that have been expecting to be told their LNE slots for this year. People who have bought Bulverton only tickets have NOT been offered a refund and dance sides that require hard floors have not been told how they are expected to perform with a lack of dance floor.

What a - and I'm using technical language for this - shit show.

My heritage, my ethnicity, my cultural identity are all very important to me, as a mixed person whose family assimilated into American culture before I was even a concept.

For reference, I am Finnish, Cherokee American, and Scottish on my mother’s side, and Hispanic and Irish on my father’s.