Kentucky Running Set

Kentucky Running Set workshop, led by Nigel and Annabel Sharp.

Dance Styles: Square Dance

Price: £12 full workshop (£6 for morning or afternoon only)

Time: 11am to 4.30pm

Ticket Options: Pay on door

Kentucky Running Set workshop, led by Nigel and Annabel Sharp.
Live music by Morris Oxford.

Lunch interval 1.15-2.15pm. Please bring your own lunch. Tea, coffee and cake/biscuits provided.

Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles encountered Kentucky Running Set (KRS) on a visit to the Appalachians in 1917. Sharp devoted Part 5 of The Country Dance Book to KRS. This exhilarating form of country dancing has figures such as “The Wild Goose Chase”, “California Show Basket”, “Chase the Squirrel” and “Rattlesnake Twist”. KRS does not involve running, nor any fancy foot work. The local term for having a dance was “running a set”. The figures run on from one to the next, so the dance does keep going for longer than a conventional square dance. Having evolved in small rooms, KRS is usually danced in square sets of 4 couples, but it can accommodate other numbers. Nowadays, with judicious choice of figures, it is often danced in big set formation. We will find a format that enables everyone to dance.

No experience necessary. We will teach all the figures and explain all the terms. If you've never done any KRS before, we recommend arriving promptly as we will cover the basic repeated choruses at the start of the workshop.