The English Folk Dance and Song Society is proud to present the annual Mary Neal Lecture to celebrate the work of Mary Neal CBE (1860-1944) and the continuing inspiration of her legacy for the participatory arts today.

Join us for the inaugural lecture, Hope's Song, given by Neal's great great niece, Lucy Neal OBE on Friday Feb 5th 2010 at 7.30pm at the Cecil Sharp House, London NW1. Entrance is free.

Lucy, co-founder of the London International Festival of Theatre, draws on Mary Neal's work as a social reformer and suffragette to explore how traditions of song and dance are re-invented, and how we create our culture through participating in it.

An instigating spirit behind the English Folk Song and Dance Revival, Mary Neal's pioneering work with the Somerstown sewing girls and children of the Espérance Club is widely recognised as a precedent of radical participatory arts practice. For the young people involved social and cultural change went hand in hand. What do we learn from the past about the transformative power of the creative experience? Mary Neal's spirituality and connection to the natural world provide inspiration for looking at the value of collaboration and the future role of the participatory arts in an ecological age. Lucy will be joined by Laurel Swift, morris dancer and folk musician.

Last year, the original spirit of collaboration that brought Mary Neal and Cecil Sharp together was given renewed significance on the Mary Neal Day. In a historic reconciliation of their stories, Neal's papers were placed in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Taking the lead from the Espérance Club experiment, makers, bakers, artists, children, folk musicians, singers and dancers came together to create a celebratory encounter between contemporary arts and English folk practitioners to look at tradition with fresh eyes.