Join us on Tuesdays in the West Village for a friendly evening of social dance. Our programs include early dances circa 1651 to contemporary choreographies. English Country Dance (ECD) has been enjoyed by the likes of Jane Austen and Thomas Jefferson, and you are invited to join in the pleasures of this community social dance. English dances and their tunes vary from elegant to energetic and from stately to boisterous, and you will experience all these facets of English Country Dance in an evening as you dance to live music. You can see many examples of ECD at Childgrove on YouTube.

Newcomers are always welcome at CDNY, where all dances are taught. A skills session is offered after the third dance of the evening for English Country dances. If you choose to participate, you will receive more in-depth teaching of terms and dance figures, then rejoin the group.

The steps are simple: generally walking or skipping. You can come by yourself and be assured of dancing throughout the evening, since our tradition is to change partners for each dance. Anyone can invite anyone else to dance, regardless of gender or experience. ECD will satisfy your wish for an artistic outlet, pleasurable exercise, a warm social community, mental stimulation, and transcendent aesthetic experiences. We invite you to join us!

Learning English Country Dance on Your Own

There are a number of resources available online that may make the process of learning English Country Dance easier and faster. These are supplements to in-person instruction and actually dancing with experienced dancers such as you can find at the English Country Dance classes sponsored by Country Dance New York. Several different approaches are represented below, for those who learn in different ways. We should also say that there are a number of different ideas about how one should dance and even how certain figures are done, so it is quite possible that you will run across people who dance somewhat differently.