BackAntony Heywood's Database



Antony HeywoodAntony Heywood is a caller, choreographer and organiser.  He's English but has lived in the Netherlands for more than half his life, where he has been heavily involved with the Dutch Folk Dance Society NVS.  Antony started folk dancing while still a schoolboy in the early 1950s during the Square Dance craze.  When he went up to Cambridge he joined the University country dance club, The Round, of which he was Chairman 1958/59, and the Cambridge Morris Men, of which he was Squire 1961/62.  While in Cambridge he took part in the EFDSS Albert Hall festivals for the Cambridgeshire District of the Society.  You can read more in Nicolas Broadbridge's citation for Antony's EFDSS Gold Badge at round.soc.srcf.net/files/Antony-Heywood-citation.pdf.

For many years Antony has been building a database of English and American dances.  This lists the instructions of over 20,000 dances (though it is not intended that you can understand the dance from the list) together with information about the source, author, formation and recordings.  For instance you can search for all dances containing Double figure of 8 followed by Straight hey for 3, or all dances containing Diagonal R & L through and Balance the ring.  The database has been reorganised and is now available at barndances.org.uk/Antony

Click to play videoClick the image on the right to see Antony dancing the Morris jig “Old Mother Oxford” in 2015 to celebrate 50 years as a member of Greensleeves Morris Men, accompanied by Vic Godrich.

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On Monday, July 12, 2021, Roz Barrett from Somerset wrote:
Honoured to be Antony Heywood's daughter! Many thanks for looking after him & his database, Colin Hume!
On Monday, July 12, 2021, Colin Hume from Letchworth wrote:
Roz -

I'm afraid I didn't even know he had a daughter.  I've met his son Jonathan in the Netherlands (and even played in a band with him at party night on the NVS Christmas Course) but you are news to me.