Wendy Crouch - English Country Dances - DRAFT VERSION
Wendy at English Week at Pinewoods in 2001
Wendy's dances:
We hope you enjoy them!
All dances are copyright Wendy Crouch and Graham Knight.
Wendy Knight (nee Crouch) 1949-2005
Wendy's most popular dances, Winter Solstice and The Sussex Martlets, are well known to dancers around the world.
She started going to folk dances and music events as relaxation in her first teaching job in the Cambridge area (UK) and formed the King's Penny display team which eventually appeared at the Albert Hall. She collaborated with Cyril Papworth on Polka Round, a collection of traditional dances from Cambridgeshire, including the revival of the Comberton Broom Dance.
She taught clog dancing to pupils at Linton School (Cambridgeshire) to such a high standard that they too performed at the Albert Hall. While full time teaching, she attended EFDSS "folk dance in school" courses and also studied for a Further Mathematics degree and a Masters in Education at the University of East Anglia!
As a head teacher in Warwickshire, Wendy also started two adult display teams, Ragged Staff and Ursa Major, to perform folk, garland and stave dancing. When John & Elvyn Blomfield formed the Cotswold Country Dance Club, they collaborated with music and dances now found in Flights of Fancy and Further Flights of Fancy, and recorded by Wild Thyme.
On the EFDSS National Council, Wendy was principally interested in encouraging dancers to gain more enjoyment from better knowledge and understanding of dance. She put together a series of modular courses, piloted at Chippenham Folk Festival in 1993, which eventually evolved into GUSTO (Grand Union Structured Training Organisation) and offered "Standards without Standardisation" with opportunities to learn to dance, call or play for Social, Traditional English, Playford and American Dance, Clog and Running Set. Participants learned at their own pace, following their own interests.
Wendy also collaborated with the (Dolmetsch) Historical Dance Society putting Playford dances into historical context, setting up their training programme, and producing a resource pack for schools "Understanding Victorian Society through Dance".
Wendy retrained as a chiropodist, but went back into education as a schools inspector (OFSTED). She collaborated with EFDSS to publish "Traditional dancing in the National Curriculum" which is still one of their best sellers twenty years on!
Wendy's dance and mathematical skills gave her an interest in choreography, and she won the Sussex Folk Harvest Dance Competition four times! She was a phenomenal organiser, making team costumes, knitting and making a hurdy-gurdy! Her legacy is the Southam Gathering in Warwickshire (UK), which she started in 1995 and is still attended by many experienced dancers. Her sets of children's clogs are still in use at Halsway Manor and festivals, and her interest in choreography lives on in your dance programmes!
Wendy published two books, Flights of Fancy and Further Flights of Fancy. All the dances from those books are here.
Apart from the dances in her two books, Wendy wrote a number of other dances; many were written for the Sussex Folk Harvest. Over time we will add others to this page of unpublished dances.
Thanks to Colin Hume for the menu code.
