Catherine Margretta Thomas was a Welsh folk dancer and is known for recording the
Welsh dance of the Nantagrw tradition.
Early life
Catherine Margaretta Thomas was born in 1880
in the village of
Nantgarw
Nantgarw is a village in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, near Cardiff.
From an electoral and administrative perspective Nantgarw falls within the ward of Taffs Well, a village some south, but historically fell within the boundari ...
. Her parents were Daniel and Hannah Davies.
As a child she enjoyed watching the local dances
as they were performed in an open space below Twyn
Chapel
A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...
in
Caerphilly and at Nantgarw and Y Groes Wen.
Due to the
hostility of the local churches to
folk dancing, Catherine Margretta Thomas' own mother was not keen on her daughter going to see these dances, but Catherine was able to convince her father to take her along to witness the displays. The rise of
Nonconformism
Nonconformity or nonconformism may refer to:
Culture and society
* Insubordination, the act of willfully disobeying an order of one's superior
*Dissent, a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or entity
** ...
in Wales meant that by the time Catherine Margretta Thomas was in her teens folk dancing had practically been eradicated in Nantgarw.
Welsh National Folk Dance Society
Dancing had died hard if inconsistently
by 1911 when Catherine Margretta Thomas' daughter, Ceinwen Thomas (later Dr. Ceinwen Thomas), was born. But the influence of Nonconformism waned and by the time Ceinwen Thomas was attending
school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes comp ...
she was discussing the tradition of dancing in Nantgarw with her mother.
After Ceinwen Thomas had left college she met Walter Dowding of the Welsh National Folk Dance Society. She told him about her mother's recollections of folk dancing in Nantgarw. He put her in touch with Doris Freeman. Together Catherine Margretta Thomas, Ceinwen Thomas and Doris Freeman worked to notate the dance steps from the traditional dances that Catherine Margretta Thomas could remember.
These notes were then passed on to the Welsh National Folk Dance Society by Ceinwen Thomas.
A complete set of the dance notation for ''Y Gaseg Eira'' was published, alongside the tune ''Ymdeithgan Gwŷr Penllyn'' (March of the Men of Penllyn), in the 1959/60 Welsh Folk Dance Magazine.
Criticism
There has been skepticism expressed over the claims by Dr. Ceinwen Thomas that the dances which her mother recalled were authentic and original Welsh dances reflecting a long and integral Welsh culture of folk dancing. The
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in 2009 that he doubted the history of these dances.
He questioned why only Margretta Thomas had any recollection of these dances being performed. He wrote that his great grandfather had been a
in Nantgarw in the 1880s but had not seen these dances. He linked it to
to create a longstanding tradition in Wales even if one had not existed in reality.