North West morris dancing at Odyssey

[watervole]

Now that I've hopefully got you briefly interested in North West morris, I should mention that I'm doing a morris workshop on Friday and Monday mornings.  (the other mornings are frostfox  doing belly dancing and another fan doing Lindy Hop)

No experience required.  Total beginners (which will probably be everyone except me) very welcome.

Traditionally, it was mostly danced by men.  Today, both men and women dance, though single sex sides are almost the norm.

Musicians welcome (we've already got a skilled accordion player in the form of SF writer Tony Ballantyne)  I'll bring along a bodhran for anyone who wants to bang a drum.

I'm borrowing a set of sticks from my local morris side, so there's enough for lots of dancers.

Comments

[darth-tigger.livejournal.com]

Oh bum. I've always wanted to try morris dancing, but unless I set off driving at stupid o'clock on Friday morning I won't be there until at least lunchtime, and I'll have to leave on Sunday night because of work.

Can't persuade you to swap mornings can I? ;-)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Programme has already gone to print. the morris session was a late swap for a belly dance session that we had to cancel, hence the odd timeslots.

I'd be more than glad to repeat it at another convention if asked. (I've got a number of different traditional dance styles I'd like to try teaching)

[sammason.livejournal.com]

If you're in England there will be a side near you. You could contact them and ask if they welcome beginners, maybe at certain times of year when they're doing fewer dance-outs and more repertoire development. So, perhaps, in winter.

[darth-tigger.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea. I shall have a look around when life calms down a bit!

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'll second what Sammason says. Wait until August and then find a local morris side. There will be one. (If there isn't one, I'll help you start one!). Practice usually starts in early September.

I was going to refer you to the morris federation web site, but their 'sidefinder' feature isn't working properly today - I've told the webmaster, so hopefully they'll fix it soon.

[darth-tigger.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks, I'll keep a look out for that.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It's working now - they were very quick off the mark when I mentioned it to the webmaster.

Look here http://www.morrisdancing.org/finder/sfcgi.html

[cu-sith.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds like fun! I won't be around Friday morning, but I'll definitely try for the Monday.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'll see you there!

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing about Morris. Your rush-bearing post was very interesting as that's a tradition I hadn't heard of. My own Morris days are over but I had a lot of fun dancing Cotswold with the Oxford-based women's side, Rogue Morris, sadly now defunct. Rogue grew from the men's side, Bampton, so we danced in Bampton style. I left Rogue when I founded Miss Demeanour's, the UK's best gay Morris side. That was great fun too although I'm not sure that our dancing was all that good - not all of us had previous dance experience - and there were never quite enough of us to be a viable side. Still, good times were had. I learned a few snippets of North West when we had Miss Demeanour's.

As you can see you've sent me on a trip down Memory Lane! I hope your workshop will be a great success.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I only found out about rush-bearing a few years ago, but I've been researching it particularly this last year and I recently got an excellent book on the subject which I'm still reading.

I'd love a chance to dance Cotswold. I did a bit at university, but haven't had the chance since.

It's great to know that other people share my love of morris.

Have you had the urge to start another side? I'm contemplating trying to start a youth side, but haven't yet decided the best way to go about it.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was a bloody stupid question asking if you wanted to start another side. Bit difficult in a wheelchair. (it's easy to forget things like that online)

[sammason.livejournal.com]

What a sweet thing to say. Thank you. As it happens, you didn't hurt my feelings. You just highlighted the weirdness of how much and how fast my life has changed. But this silly disease can never take from me the fact I *was* a Morris dancer, as well as a hillwalker.

I personally think that Cotwold Morris does lend itself naturally to being danced by men. Some of the women's sides make it a bit too frilly and lyrical for my taste. The Stroud Women, for instance, are brilliant at what they do but I never got such of a thrill watching them as I did from the Hammersmith Men. In fact I have a recurring fantasy of owning a wardrobe full of bodies, to wear for different purposes, and one of those bodies would be a 6' male one so that I could dance with the Hammersmith Men.

I hope you do start a youth side.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. I've never seen a good women's Cotswold side that thrilled me as much as a good men's Cotswold side. Men tend to be able to leap higher and put a different kind of movement into the dance.

It evolved being danced by men (with the possible addition of Maid Marion, which I'm still learning about, but she almost certainly wasn't there in the last hundred years before the revival) - the nature of the dance reflects that.

North West tends to be kinder to women - I haven't got to the carnival morris section of my research, but I suspect this may be a factor.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

I've little experience of dancing North West but yes, it does lend itself to female dancers. I love the marching and the sharp movements.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

That's it. North West should be very crisp and precise.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Oops! I was talking absolute crap here. Rogue was in fact a Border side. Some of us were married to some of the Bampton Men, and our stepping style was Bamptonesque, but we were a Border side.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

If I understand it correctly, Border is mostly a recreated tradition with very few original dances remaining. have I got that right? (I know that's true for Molly, only three original dances known - you might like to look back at my earlier postings on Molly dancing)

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Belated response to this. I haven't looked up anything about Morris history - you evidently know quite a bit on that topic, but I just danced because I liked dancing. So you're probably right about Border being a recreated tradition. Perhaps that's why it's so popular with sides who want to make their own material, often drawing on modern themes such as Goth clothing. No doubt you're familiar with the S&M side in California who sew bells onto their skin before each performance. I haven't met them, or seen them dance, but I'd put money on it that their style is Border.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I was dancing for many years before I became interested in the history. I'm not quite sure what sparked the interest - it may have been a play about Mary Neal that I saw at Sidmouth Festival one year. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Neal - if I was more awake, I'd expand that Wikipedia entry. Maybe I will some day.

She was a contempory of Cecil Sharpe. He was the first person to collect morris dances, but she was the person who actually started teaching people to dance them.

Many sides of all traditions develop their own dances. There's lots of new North West dances. I suspect Cotswold sides tend to be the most conservative.

I'm not sure if the S+M side are real or just a myth.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

They are, or perhaps were, the White Rats. (http://www.whiteratsmorris.org/questions.html#1) I never met them but 12 years or so ago I was part of an email-based forum about Morris and one of their dancers was quite vocal there.

You're probably right about Cotswold sides being often conservative, from my impressions, but now you mention it I wonder why it would be so.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Thanks - that's an interesting web site. Hasn't been updated for a couple of years, so I hope they're still dancing.

I think I'll do a fresh post at some time about whether Cotswold sides are more conservative and possible reasons why. That will need some thinking, and possibly some research. I have ideas, but they'll need developing.