SELPAR International Folk Dance Group

Romanian Folk Dance Workshop
Tue 29th April 2003, 7.30pm
St. Andrews Methodist Church, Stirchley

'SELPAR' International Folk Dance Group was founded in Birmingham in 1973 by Sybil Chapman, a PE and dance teacher and specialist in Hungarian national dance. For many years members met regularly at Selly Park School, from which the group's name derives. In 1992 the group moved to Queensbridge School in Moseley, where it continued to meet until last year. In the autumn of 1995 Maggie Kaye took over as leader of the group, when Sybil was unable to continue dancing, although she still supports it 'from the wings'. In April 2002 the group moved once more to a new venue at St. Andrew's Methodist Church in Stirchley, where it is flourishing, meeting for most of the year on Tuesday evenings to enjoy dances from many countries.

The repertoire of the group covers a wide range of dances from all over Europe and beyond, but in recent years there has been rather more emphasis on the Balkan countries and Israel. The group has given demonstrations in many different venues and taken part regularly in the West Midlands Movement & Dance Association biennial festivals, for years held at the Central Hall, and, since its closure, in Wolverhampton, Solihull and now regularly at the Royal Spa Centre in Leamington. In the last few years they have performed dances from Romania, Israel, Russia and western Europe at these midlands festivals. They have also sent dancers to join other members of the Society for International Folk Dancing in the CCPR's Movement and Dance Festivals at the Albert Hall, the last one being the Millennium Festival, where a Bulgarian sequence was performed. Locally Selpar members have danced at Aston Hall, at Bournville and Kings Heath Festivals, as well as providing entertainment for various local groups.

In 1999 Selpar were pleased to be invited to Dacia's harvest celebration to perform dances from various parts of Romania and also encourage members to join in with some simple horas. They are delighted to be able to contribute to the 2003 Daciafest and welcome all to join them for an 'Open evening of Romanian Dancing' at their usual meeting place in Stirchley on Tuesday 29th April.

The current leader of the group, Maggie Kaye, is a modern language teacher by profession, who has taught German and French at the College of Food, Creative Studies and Tourism in the centre of Birmingham for many years. She has been involved in folk music and dancing since childhood, but only really became involved in International Folk Dancing about 12 years ago, when after attending international dance workshops at Sidmouth Festival she joined the 'Selpar' dance group. She developed a particular liking for dances from Russia, Israel and the Balkans, Romanian music and dance soon becoming a special favourite. She has attended many courses in this country to learn dances from Romania and hopes before too long to visit the country and learn more at first hand. With this in view, she attended Romanian language classes for a while at the Brasshouse Centre, the teacher being Daniella Boca, which is how she came to be involved with the Dacia organisation from its start.