Bal Miniscule at Sidmouth 2021

 Some Bal Miniscule happened at Sidmouth Folk Week. Some detail is included in this short report about dancing in general at the festival.

Bal Miniscule in 2021

As the vaccine roll-out continues, it's likely that the infection rate will fall, an increasing number of people will have significant immunity to COVID-19 and legal restrictions will relax. Despite this, quite a lot of people will remain anxious for some time and will avoid the "mingling" that is so much a part of sessions and dancing.

However, unlike larger, more formal dance events, we don't have the financial commitment of venue/band hire and the associated worries of minimum numbers or cancellation being devastating.

Meeting outdoors is often possible too - during Summer 2020 there were a few Clandestine Mazurka events which have a lot of similarity with Bal Miniscule.

So, sessions and Bal Miniscule may well "lead" the world back into "normal" music and dance! It's still some months away - unless we go for serious PPE as in this somewhat tongue in cheek video from Poland...

Bal Miniscule at Towersey Festival

Our first Bal Miniscule to be on the official programme of a major festival!

Attack of the Lindy Hoppers

We've always thought that the Bal Miniscule concept could work for many dance forms besides Balfolk and by chance some Lindy Hoppers "crashed" a session at the Oxford Folk Fringe...

Port Mahon Temporary Closure

The Port Mahon in Oxford is closing "Tuesday 23rd April for around 5 weeks" to be refurbished. This will impact some Bal Miniscule events. Some sessions will be at VICTORIA ARMS, Mill Lane, Old Marston, Oxfordshire, OX3 OPZ.

Check out our events page

Bal Miniscule in Prestbury, Cheltenham

The Plough in Prestbury near Cheltenham hosts a session every Thursday from around 9pm-11pm and despite it's small size and uneven stone floor, there's occasional dancing. Tonight, two people managed to squeeze in a Scottische!

What can you dance at a Galician session?

By chance, there was some overlap in musicians and locations in Oxford between French, Scandi and Galician sessions. We had a vague idea that Galicia was part of Spain but that was our limit. So we've been along a couple of times to see what could be done.

For a start, they have their own dance, the Muiñeira, but we also found tunes we could waltz to, jigs for Chapelloise and an odd Bourree. We even managed to Jive.