BERNARDS SUMMER SCHOOL ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME

01. 08. 2011 | 95 reads

I would like to mention several accompanying events which will be part of Bernard's Summer School 2011, some of them are also accessible to the public.
The Opening night is always held the day prior to the commencement of lessons and the venue is the school gym at Zárubova. It is by no means mandatory, but it rather aims to provide summer school participants with the first opportunity to get acquainted. Participation of guests accommodated elsewhere and Prague residents is of course also welcome. The evening is usually filled with dances and we are usually trying to include dances from different regions. Besides the Irish we usually have Breton and Scottish ones and this year we are also promised some English dances. The evening will begin at 20:00 p.m.

Another BSS event is the Ceilí Evening, which will again take place at Novodvorská Cultural Centre on 17 August from 19:30 and the band Le hAnam will be the guest of the evening. It will be primarily a dance evening – with almost exclusively Irish Dances in this case - ceilí, set dancing, two-hand dances and of course, our present dance instructors will show some of their repertoire. The dances which will be taught here will surely be new and fresh. BSS participants have free admission (on presentation of badges), others have the opportunity to get a ticket at the KC Novodvorská box office before the evening.

The last evening will be the time for the at the BSS Final Show, which will be held at Ponec Theatre on 19 August from 19:30 p.m. The evening will consist of performances by summer school participants, dance groups whose members attend the summer school, tutors and guests. An invitation to this evening was accepted by this year's Irish Dancing World Champions and members of Galway-based Hession School, Claire Greaney and Cathal Keaney. Claire is a multiple world champion she also collected her laurels at other championships around the world. Cathal’s dance career is also steeped in a number of victories in various championships around the world, he lastly won the North American National Irish Dancing Championships 2011 in July this year. BSS 2011 participants have free entry again, other visitors can purchase a ticket for CZK 150.- (these can be booked by email at vaclavbernard@seznam.cz).
A new addition to this year’s summer school programme features seminars on topics that may be interesting for the participants. The first seminar will be held on Monday 15 August in the afternoon, and its title is "Perspectives of Irish step dancing." This seminar will be topically opened in the presence of invited dance instructors who will try to highlight some of the issues which are encountered by those interested in Irish step dancing, the second part will be left for questions and discussion. The seminar will be translated to / from English.
The second seminar entitled "How not to kill a dance group" will take place based on participants’ interest and its theme is dance group leadership, in an effort to ensure a perspective and prevent it from falling apart prematurely. The first part will outline some themes that arise from my experience with leading a group. The second part would again be left to the queries and concerns of those present.
There will again be film screenings of course. Here we try to offer authentic Irish music and dance by means of video programmes published by the Irish RTE television. These are shows from the years 1960 - 1980 from RTE archive. These screenings are really intended for those who are especially close to Irish traditional music and want to extend their perspective in this area a little bit into the past.

Beside all this programme I assume that musicians will organize their "sessions" as usual and the last one could be held on 19 August after the final evening in Smíchov HZK Klub.
This much about the official offer of this year’s BSS. I firmly believe that is not all and that the participants themselves will take care of other worthwhile programme according to their invention.

VB