Visits with Gran-By-The-Sea: A Memoir

When I was a very little girl growing up in England I loved to dance; no forum or musical style inhibited me. My grandmother, Gran-by-the-sea, as I named her, would cry with laughter as I pulsated around her living room to the beat of a Spanish flamenco or waltzed sedately to an opus of Mozart. I would visit Gran each summer where she lived in the pretty seaside town of Sidmouth, the childhood home of Queen Victoria. The reason for this much-anticipated visit was the annual International Folk Festival. Although I was young in years, I still remember the delight of this grand occasion.

Behind a tall stone wall lay an expanse of lush grass. The stage was set for the nations of the world to come together to display diverse talent, tradition, and costume. The finely trimmed lawns became littered with deck chairs, picnic baskets, scampering children, and anxious parents. I would scramble up the bleachers searching for the best possible view, beckoning Gran - who was a little more intimidated than I by the steep wood and metal structure - to hurry. It was from this lofty seat that I experienced first-hand the passion of dance and the profound intensity of music.

I watched Spanish dancers in brightly colored skirts, castanets snapping in their palms and feet stamping, rotating in rhythmic, hip-swaying circles. I saw Indian women painting unseen images in the air with their long, delicate fingers, their bodies undulating beneath translucent silks. I felt their fervor as African men and women stomped and gyrated. The unremitting pounding of drums sent vibration through earth, soul, and sky. Bells jingled as English Morris Men jumped tip-toe over crossed sticks and waved white kerchiefs above their heads as if in surrender. Their kilted neighbors, with nimble legs and ram-rod straight torsos, frantically toe-tapped exhilarating melodies. Fascinated, I witnessed Cossacks with arms folded who appeared to defy gravity; legs kicking and white blouses rippling. This and more I beheld, engrossed and excited by the kaleidoscope of people, costumes, color, rhythm, and sound.

To this day the sound of pounding drum, a bewitching horn, or the sight of a body alive with music brings tears to my eyes and an extra beat to my heart. The excitement that I experienced all those years ago on a grassy knoll in England has fostered in me a love and appreciation for music and dance that will forever fill me with joy and reverence.