ABSTRACT
‘Douglas Kennedy and Folk Dance in English Schools’ by Chloe Middleton-Metcalfe examines the influence of Douglas Kennedy (1893–1988), the director of the English Folk Dance Society from 1925 to 1961 (after 1932 the English Folk Dance and Song Society). This chapter focuses on social folk dance in England, known more widely as country dance, barn dance, or ceilidh. It explores the interplay between Kennedy’s folk dance theories, particularly his emphasis on vitality and naturalness, and wider contemporary dance discourses. During his directorship, Kennedy altered the trajectory of the English Folk Dance Society, feeling that its future lay with the normalisation of folk dance as an adult hetero-normative recreation, rather than a hobby for a ‘few pale-faced intellectuals’. This chapter charts the fall of folk dance from its formerly pre-eminent position as the dance genre of choice for school lessons in physical education through examining official government guidance for teachers published in 1933, 1952/1953, and 1972. This chapter considers Kennedy’s relationship to the official provision of folk dance in English schools, and proposes that by focusing upon the popularity of folk dance in the adult sphere, Kennedy hastened the decline of folk dance provision in the juvenile one.
