ABSTRACT
Within the UK and replicated internationally, there are extensive and vibrant networks of amateur dance training practices pursued in leisure time. They exist alongside, and at times interweave with, a broad range of dance and performance training schools/conservatoires with their standardized curricula and established methodologies. One example of such amateur networks, and in microcosm the subject of this chapter, is that of traditional and folk dance. Taking examples of two traditional dances in the UK, the rapper sword dance and clog dancing, originating in North East England coal-mining towns and villages and Lancashire cotton mill towns respectively, the aim of this chapter is to consider how complex experiences of time are infused into every aspect of the trainings. From the hard shoes worn in both dances that ensure their percussive tapping out of time, through the teaching methodology that slows timing to reveal pauses between beats, to the dance performances of under five minutes where time appears to expand to include absurdly complex steps, time is played with, exposed and layered.
