About Newcastle Notation

Over the years many people have developed their own methods of writing down clog and step dances which they wanted to remember and dance.  The great majority of these “systems” were personal to the notator and remain unpublished within the confines of their notebooks and papers.  The Instep website has become a source for much of this material as it has been collected together and digitised.

Early Published Notations

In the late nineteenth century the first booklets describing clog steps began to appear in the USA.  These used relatively simple notation systems which, 150 years on have often become difficult to interpret.  Several are now digitised and are avaialable here in some cases with possible interpretations of the steps.

In the UK the first attempt at publishing stpe notations did not occur until 1959, when collector Julian Pilling wrote an account of the material he had recovered from Mrs Veronica Ryan of Accrington The same author was responsible for two furth articles containing notations in 1967 and 1968. Other articles followed but these were all small scale attempts at step notation and included no definitions of the words used in the descriptions.  What became the standard booklet describing steps, written by Geoff Hughes although clear and concise again contained no definitions.  The first attempt at wholesale step notations was not published until 1979, when the Fletts published their major work on step and clog dancing in Lakeland.  The sysyem used was an adaption of that they had employed to describe Scottosh daneces which combined accuracy with solid internal consistancy.

In other countries, notably Canada,  trained notators were using Labanotation but we have traced no early attempts to use that system for notating clog steps in the UK.

You can explore digital copies of much of the material referred to here via the bibliography pages.

When the Instep Research Team was set up in late 1980 it was quickly realised that an accurate, consistent and comprehensive way of writing and published step material was needed.  Newcastle notation was first considered by the then members of the Instep Research Team (now Instep), Cath Hays, Julie Jarman, Alice and Chris Metherell, Alice Smith and Ed Wilson, in early 1981.  The need for a standard notation system arose from both discussions within the team and from wider discussions at the Traditional Dance Conference, Alsager, in March of that year.

The first edition was published in 1981 (Hays et al., Newcastle Notation, Newcastle: Newcastle Series (1981)), followed by a second revised edition in 1995 (Craigs, I., and Metherell, C., Newcastle Notation, Newcastle: Newcastle Series (1995)).  An electronic edition, prepared by Chris Metherell, contains minor editorial changes from that published in 1995 but omits the introductory material and bibliography.

Since 1981, hundreds of steps have been notated and published using the Newcastle Notation system and are available via this website.  More follow every year.

You can access the digital version of Newcastle Notation here. Note that the introductory material and bibliography are not included.

You can download a complete .pdf of the Newcastle Notation booklet here.

Newcastle Series Cover

All the Newcastle Notation booklets are now available in digital format. New sets of steps are published every year.