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Wednesday, 14 March 2007 |
With 10 years of French folk
music and dance behind them,
the Samways have become
experts in their field. Greg’s a dab hand at
the hurdy-gurdy, a musical instrument
which goes back to medieval times. He
even studies traditional music at the
Conservatoire in Limoges.
Greg and his wife Cara are originally
from Norwich and now live near
Bussière-Galant in the Haute-Vienne,
where they’ve become engrossed by the
French idea of folk music. They perform
in their local Limousin band, Cadenses
Folk, which specialises in foot-tapping
tunes and dances from Gascony, the
Auvergne and, of course, the Limousin.
To bring it all together the Samways
are organising a Music and Dance
Weekend at the Hôtel Courbefy at the end
of March. “Apart from getting everyone
on to the dance floor, we’ve got several
bands coming from the UK to join
Cadenses Folk,” says Cara. Greg is
chuffed that they have found a dance
teacher. “We’ll be putting participants
through their paces with rarely heard
dances to include sautières, the sept sauts,
bourrées in two and three time, mazurkas,
scottisches, waltzes, polkas and circles.”
All to a lively mixture of hurdy-gurdy,
bagpipes, violins and melodeons with
Greg himself doubling up on soprano
saxophone and drums. The British
contigent will be bringing the Pied-à-
Terre house band from Norwich and a
large number of dancers.
French Folk Music Weekend Hotel Courbefy at
Bussière-Galant 05 55 78 66 62 www.hotelcourbefy.com March 31 to April 1. To take part
contact Greg and Cara Samways on 05 55 78
54 20 or www.joffrenytours.com and click on
French Folk Dancing
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