Balfolk

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Balfolk" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Balfolk (from French: Bal Folk, meaning a folk ball) is a dance event for folk dance and folk music in a number of European countries, mainly in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Poland. It is also known as folk bal.

Dancing to folk music has been gaining popularity since the 1970s. The traditional dances come primarily from the French tradition, with additions from all parts of Europe.

There are numerous organizations that organize such dance events monthly and at many folk festivals there are both concerts and dances.^[1]

In France some villages have their own annual folk festival.

In Flanders, Boombal is the biggest organization of bal folk. Because of their role in the popularization of balfolk in Ghent, Boombal's city of origin, the term Boombal is more known than the term balfolk among the general population. Under regular balfolk dancers the term balfolk is widely accepted and used. There are plenty of other organisations beside Boombal in Belgium organising balls including in Ghent.

Although there are similarities, the dances of bal folk are not the same as dances danced by traditional folk dance groups.

1. Traditional folk dances have more extensive choreographies and may be danced with traditional clothing. The preservation and/or presentation of a tradition is important here. Music is sometimes played live, sometimes pre-recorded. The audience may sit down and watch the dancers perform their formal choreographies or they may be presented as cultural displays at festivals and village fetes. These are essentially historical re-enactments, and typically what most of the public think of as "Folk dancing" in countries like France, where the public might only be exposed to folk dancing at the village fete.
2. BalFolk dances are quite different. They are audience participation events, based on simple traditional dances, gathered from all over Europe, that have easy basic steps, so that everyone can easily get involved. Refined movements are not the main concern, participation and fun are the main aim, and improvisation is more common. Music is played by live bands that either play "traditional" tunes, collected from players over the years, or they may play new compositions for BalFolk dancing. The audience is on the dance floor, dancing to the live music.

1. Initiation / Dance Workshop: A Balfolk may include one or more workshops for Beginners or intermediates shortly before the real Bal commences. Often the workshops are also accompanied by live music.
2. Bal: One or more Folk musicians or Folk music groups play for dancing. Unlike some other dancing events, it is unusual to dance with a permanent dance partner. One of the characteristics of Balfolk is that the participants range from the very young to the very old.
3. Jam: after certain bals, dancers who brought an instrument sit in the middle of the dance floor and play tunes for the dancers.

The types of dance which are commonly included during such a session:

• Schottische
• Bourrée
• Waltz
• Polka
• Branle
• Contra dance
• Mazurka (also known as Belgian or Flemish Mazurka as there is a difference from the original Mazurka)
• Polska
• Chapelloise, also known as a Gigue (a different dance from the Irish Jig)
• The "Circassian circle", a mixer dance
• Breton dances like the "Ridée", "Laridé", "Andro", "Hanter Dro" and "Kost ar c'hoat"
• Ronds (many also from Brittany, but also from other parts of France, e.g. Occitania and Poitou)

• Yves Guilcher, La danse traditionelle en France: d´une ancienne civilisation paysanne à loisir revivaliste, Librairie de la Danse, FAMDT, 1998 Courlay
• Karsten Evers and Ulrike Frydrych: Französische Volkstänze, Volume 1 to 3, Hildesheim and Eiterfeld, 1982, 1983 and 1987. Dance descriptions (in German), sheet music and audios. Download

• Pentreffest, traditional European music and dance in Wales (based in Cardiff)
• On Bouge London, London's long-running European French & Breton dance club
• Soas French Folk Dance Society, London
• Musictrad (in French) (France)
• List of UK events (UK)
• List of events in Europe
• BalFolk (Netherlands)
• Frisse Folk (Belgium)
• Folkroddels (Belgium)
• Folkfreun.de (Germany)
• BalLibre (BalFolk CreativeCommons interactive playList)
• Balfolk Music Database
• Balfolkworkshop.com

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (March 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,627 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Bal folk]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Bal folk}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.