Balfolk Auckland

29/08/2026

An energetic night of dance on Monday. Started with a couple of rondeaux - the Rond Paludier and ‘Town and Country’.

Then took the Bo***ée Boussole and jazzed it up a bit with some new turns in the first half from the routine we developed last week. See attached clip.

More solid work on the Valse choreography was the next item on the agenda and then closed out the evening with a fun Polka Promenade, a satisfying return to the full version after having danced a simpler version over the last few months.

Looking forward to next Monday.

23/08/2026

A very pleasant night's dancing on Monday. Started with the "Town and Country" rondeau and followed it up with the Cercle Circassian as an extended warmup.

The evening was then divided into two exercises. Firstly, we worked on a bo***ée medley. Given that we were only 10, we ran two dances side by side, six people doing the Bo***ée Rue Bancale and the other four working on a new routine (see attached clip - excuse my thumb).

Then we returned to the Valse choreography that we've been working on for a while now and continued to develop it, before closing out the evening with a relaxed Valse Magique.

As always, great fun. Looking forward to tomorrow night...

15/08/2026

A good rollicking evening of dance on Monday. Warmed up with the Rond de Saint Vincent, then straight into the Chapelloise (see clip).

Did some work on the choreographed Valse that we started on the week before, then revisited the promenading Bo***ée à 2 temps, before taking on a new Bo***ée à 3 temps – no name for it, but a similar six dancer grouping to the Bo***ée Boussole.

Finished with a very vigorous Kost Er Choet.

08/08/2026

Another great night of dancing Monday. Started with the Rond de Saint Vincent, then made our way through the Cercle Circassien, Minuet and a new piece of Valse choreography. Spent some time learning a new Bo***ée à deux temps - see attached clips of it being danced in a bal in Belgium and also of us dancing it.

See you next week...

01/08/2026

Great night of dancing on Monday. Some newcomers and some folk back from summer holidays.

Started with a Breton dance similar to the Laride and then spent the bulk of the evening working on new valse choreography, with a romp through the Valse Magique to finish. Also managed to squeeze in the Newcastle Circle (see clip) and the Galopede. Looking forward to next Monday!!!

16/07/2026

Morena Auckland Balfolks,

A lovely class on Monday evening.

Great to have Samm back with us after a long break. Samm was an original dancer with us back in 2019.

Also nice to welcome Susan and Nick, who did brilliantly launched into dances that we are mostly familiar with.

Our opening Ridée å six temps though, was a new dance for us. Though it is very similar to Laride, it has only a 6-count phrase, and in its reduced counts is a bit more crisp,

This group of amateur dancers has a great swing going: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYgfRoic4ak

After that we danced Polka Surplas. This is a dance that Kate and I learned at Gennetines a couple of years ago. Kate is in France now and will be at Gennetines again in a couple of weeks. We are looking forward to learning new dances that she will bring back and finding out from her what direction the Balfolk world is heading.

Polka Surplas is a dance created by the Flemish folk dance researcher Renaat van Craenenbroeck and is danced here by his daughter Katrien and her dance partner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwzM-Korhuw

For our new-comers I am including at video of Circle Circassian so they can start to get familiar with some of the dances.

Here’s a nice outdoor Circle Circassian from Palermo. It’s bit chaotic, but interestingly they do use the triple-step promenade that we used on Monday evening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOw4xiLNR1A

We then danced Bourree du Velay which is best demonstrated by this group performing at Gennetines. The version we are dancing can be seen at 6:59: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YA2BQyZ8-U&t=642s

We finished with Valse Magique, not available on YouTube, but here is a clip of us dancing it some time ago.

Looking forward to seeing you next Monday evening.

Kind regards

Michael

01/07/2026

Hi there Auckland Balfolks,

It was great to see you all on Monday evening. Nice to have Mara and Claire back from their travels and to welcome Sophie to her first Balfolk gathering.

We started with Rond Paludier – a dance from the southern part of the Breton region of France – so I thought I would include a link to this nice performance with the vocal ‘call and response’ of the traditional Paludier with varying number of repetitions of Part A and Part B.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihkC32_Qtlc

We also introduced a new structure for dancing the Bo***ée à deux temps. We are familiar for sure with the arrangement of four dancers in a line with Passengers on the inside facing each other and Pilots behind them facing the centre, which we use when dancing Bo***ée boussole, but this new figuration has some nice ways of having the two dancers on each side circling around each other.

We also continued our exploration of the Hambo and I have attached links to two YOUTUBE videos.
The first is from a competition of traditionally danced Hambo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQuzdLd6iwM

This is a favourite video for a couple of reasons.
I love the two ladies dancing together that we first see at the very beginning of the video. They are so calm and still and accomplish the phrase with such grace.
Also the couple that are two behind them (the man wears the white cap) are Camilla Idh and Magnus Mårtensson, from whom Kate and I learned to dance the Hambo.

Here is another video of two guys (with gorgeous sweaters) dancing Hambo in a more contemporary manner with some improvisation and change of roles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTMSmlmO5ew

We will continue our exploration of Hambo so that we can all enjoy the delights of this lovely dance.

Till next Monday
Cheers Michael

Hambo kehitettiin Ruotsissa 1800-luvulla kansalliseksi seuratanssik...

30/05/2026

Super clip of the bourree boussole

28/05/2026

Morena Auckland Balfolks,

We had a fun Balfolk session on Monday and everyone was keen to keep dancing next Monday.

It was good to revisit the Valse Fair-ground figure with the Valse Magique refrain, and with the simplified version it fitted very nicely with the music, particularly with the 3/1 figure at the end of the sequence it had a nice suspension before the sequence was repeated with the new partner. We will start videoing these sequences so that we can have a record of all the figures you can use in your free vase.

It was great to make another foray into the Polska. I mentioned that there is a repertoire of extraordinarily beautiful Polska music so here are a couple of links to very fine polska tunes.

Here’s the wonderful trio Vasen playing Bisonpolska https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ8wo0VzBCQ

And here is The Curious Bards with Polonaise # 9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP0Rmv9TxIM

We also revisited Bo***ée du Velay. This was working well, but it seems to me to be a bit claustrophobic, so we could give it a bit more space so that all four dances have room to stretch their legs and enjoy the spiralling momentum that you can see in this video clip

Bo***ée du Velay @ 6:50

Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YA2BQyZ8-U&t=496s

A reminder that YES there will be Balfolk next Monday evening

Kind regards

Michael

Gran Bal d'Europe 2007- Les bo***ées à 3 temps du Velay

09/05/2026

A pleasant laid-back evening of dance Monday led by Dan to the music of Tralala Lovers for most of the dances.

We started with the Rond Paludier, followed by the Valse Magique. Then did some free dancing with the Scottish, followed by the Congo de Captieux (see clip).

Then another round of free Scottish dancing, a lively romp through the Galopede, and a traversal of the more measured Hanter Dro.

Closed out the evening with the Gavotte de l'Aven.

See you the coming Monday!