Judith Proctor's Journal

 For reasons too lengthy to go into, I'm on a maypole kick this week.

So I'm sharing a good modern maypole dance with you.  It's official name is "Twister" but the kids I teach called it "Snakes"and I prefer that name. If you watch, you'll see where the name comes from.
Wait for the undo, it's very different from the construction - though you can undo it simply by reversing the original moves.

 I'm knackered.  May bank holiday weekend is the top time for morris and maypole bookings, but dancing, playing and calling maypole dancing two days in succession is really exhausting.

Still, the Saturday maypole group were definitely above average. Managed a decent plait (which isn't as easy as it sounds).  Admittedly, I used a simple 'cheat' plait in which the odds and evens move alternately, but if you let everyone move together, then the ones who have internalised the pattern speed up and overtake the slower ones and create a toplogical disaster.

It's only safe to let everyone move if they are ALL experienced dancers and hence move strictly in time with the music, as that synchronises their actions.

If anyone out there has a group of adults (minimum of 8, max 24) who would like to spend half a day to a day learning how to do complex maypole dances as a team, just let me know.  It's something I'd love to teach...

 Just discovered this old movie footage from 1938 of the Peeover Rose Queen.

Look at the male morris team and their pom pom style sticks.  I've never seen ones like that before on a traditional side.  I wonder if modern sides actually avoid that look because we now associate it with carnival morris/majorettes/cheer leaders...

Also, look at the women's side performing at the same time.  Identical style pom pom  sticks.

 The men's Morris side who are featured both years are the Over Peover Morris Dancers. The women's Morris side are thought to be the Magpie Morris Dancers.

There's also a nice little maypole dance 5 1/2 mins in, shows figures that you don't see children dancing nowardays.

 I've just done a couple of maypole sessions with the Dorset Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers.

I had high hopes of this one, and I was proved right.

A group of all adults, and, being weavers, they understood exactly what I meant by 'maintain an even ribbon tension'.

Ah, the joys of a group who all know left from right and clockwise from anti-clockwise.

I never even had to tell anyone to lift their ribbons to let other people pass underneath.

I was able to try dances that I'd never dared do with a group before.  We did a move called 'Quadrille' that I found in an ancient dance book from 1906 - I had no idea what it would look like on the pole and the dancers were as interested as I was to see how it would turn out.  





I was able to do moves from Germany, Brazil, and Mexico as well.  It took a while to get the 'in out plait' correct, but it worked and made another attractive weave pattern.  Did a move that I call 'sun and moon' (I can't speak Portuguese, so I've no idea what it's called in Brazil)

We also did a figure that I have now renamed the 'Dorset Weavers Braid', because they did it so much better than the only other group I ever tried it with.  It looked so good, that they asked to keep on going for another repeat.  It makes a lovely braid that winds gently round the pole - 



If they ask me back next year (as I hope they will), I want to experiment with all  sorts of possible patterns.  With this group, we can experiment with different ways of arranging the ribbon colours and see if we can get particular effects on the pole.  I've got ideas for weaving braids and then plaiting or webbing the braids, and I'm sure there's other things we can come up with.

 Spoke too soon about bad teachers...

I had a group today who got almost everything wrong!

In my defence, I should say that groups with more than three children age under 4 are very tough indeed, and I did have 24 dancers, but it was still a mess.

24 are just too many to handle without a wrangler, and my volunteer wrangler was new to the job, so wasn't yet aware of just how much she was being volunteered for.  (With that many kids, the wrangler needs to do things like checked they haven't wrapped the ribbon round their hand, catch those who are overtaking, and do things like ensuring all the ribbons are in the correct place to start with and making sure kids hold their ribbons high enough that they don't chop people's heads off. In short, she needs to be about six people in one...)

I'd strung the pole for 12, but so many kids wanted to join in that I went up to the max.

But, slapping my own wrist for being so cocky!

Here's one for my collection of unusual maypole dances!

The music is pretty good too.

With a complete change of style and music, I now take you to the Caribbean.

I don't yet know the origins of this Cuban dance, but it involves some moves that are not seen in the classic British dances. Possible some Spanish origins? (Haven't yet found any Spanish dances, but will start looking)



Grenada next - not nearly as good as the Cuban dancers. This one shows strong English influence in the dance moves.



Jamaica - this performance was done by a group of teachers for Jamaica day and is pure English in the moves. (English school teachers probably took the tradition over originally, but it's now regarded as a traditional Jamaican dance)



I've also found one from Nicaragua, but it was just a basic plait.

Dances move and evolve.  Watch this sequence. 

Some of you may remember my post a while back about the German maypole dance - the Bandertanz.

There is a large German community in Brazil, and they are very keen on maintaining their traditions.

Here is the Brazilian bandertanz - absolutely identical in music and figures to the German ones I've found.


But now look at this next one!

I've never seen anything like it before.  This is serious adult professional or competitive maypole dancing.  It has two figures that are totally new to me, and I'd find both difficult to teach.  (I've only worked out how to do one of them so far...)

Google translate says "Traditional Dance Gaucho - Pau Tape - presented during the Festival Gangs in Faxinal-Pr. I thank all the students who dreamed me and stumbled rehearse, rehearse,"

And, Faxinal (Parana) is in the southern region of Brazil!  (Most German Brazilians also come from the southern part of the country)

So, we have a traditional Gaucho (that's south American cowboy) maypole dance, that is very likely derived from a dance brought by German settlers to Brazil, but by moving across ethnic boundaries, the dance has freed up a little and developed new moves.  


No wonder I love folklore research!

Of course, there may have been an independant Portuguese maypole tradition.  Just because I haven't found any yet, doesn't mean there aren't any (I've seen references to Portugal having a maypole tradition, but no actual dances).  However, even if there are, I'd bet that the closeness of the German dancers helps to keep it alive and vibrant.

I know there are come Caribbean maypole dances.  I need to find out more about those some day...

 Lesson for today: do not give toys to dementia patients.

We were dancing at a family day at a local dementia care home.  I often take some shakers and the like with me now.  I gave a couple to two children who were visiting family and a couple to two of the more alert patients.

I couldn't find one of the maracas afterwards.  The lady I'd given it to had no idea where it was.  One of the staff, wiser than I, asked to look in her handbag.  There it was.

I gather it's quite common behaviour.  Patients often pick up things left around (a  visitor told me she never dared put her purse down) and then 'put them in safe places'.  They mean no harm by it, but they forget afterwards that they ever had the item.

Maypole tip for the day.  People in wheelchairs can easily be pushed around for a Barber's Pole.  (and people with walking difficulties can still sit on a chair for younger people to make a spider's web around them).  One old lady had a wonderful smile on her face.

 I'm working on my talk for Redemption on folk traditions and I decided to start on ones that got banned by the Puritans.  So I've started with rushbearing and moving onto maypoles.

I was going to draw on some wonderful Czech examples of traditions are still practices there that have fallen out of use in England and are now only in the history books, but alas, vjezkova's maypole photos no longer have working links to them!

Yes, Vera,  this is a big hint that I need your wonderful maypole photos!

(and if anyone, anywhere has  a decent photo of the Baverian bandertanz, I will be in your debt - I simply cannot find any on line.  It's a waltz dance done with ribbons around a maypole)

 Cleared out some more of my email backlog - I'm making good progress on it at the moment.

Went down the allotment for a couple of hours.  Spread more manure (it's the best time of year to do this job, just before things start into growth).  Started weeding and thinning the New Zealand Spinach - it's a plant that is totally unrelated to spinach, but serves pretty much the same function in meals.

It's great merit is that it grows through the winter, survives frost, and is available to eat at a time when almost no other green leaf crops are ready.  It's also pretty much untroubled by pests and diseases.  At the moment, I'm taking leaves off the larger plants and thinning and composting round the smaller ones.

It's other great merit is that it often self- seeds.  Not enough to be a nuisance, but enough to give you some bonus plants - which are inevitably healthier and bigger than the ones you actually planted!

Followed the allotment by going for a quick swim and then cleared more email.

Have discovered that membership of EFDSS comes with free public liability insurance for people performing or teaching folk arts.  Much cheaper than what I was paying for public liability insurance for my maypole last year, so I've just joined.  I'd been thinking of joining in any case.  I'm tempted by the library of folk history materials, which I may go and visit some day.

We've a house full of recovering morris dancers!

Wimborne on Friday rained a bit.  We managed the procession which was almost dry.  For the dance spot in the Cornmarket afterwards, we managed with a combination of instruments protected by bin bags (you can play a concertina in a bin bag by making holes in the bag for your hands to go through) and helpful umbrellas.

After two dances, we retreated to the ceilidh and danced until midnight and then retired to our tents.

Saturday was bright and sunny.  We weren't dancing on Saturday...  We collected and ambled round the stalls and some of us may have hit some of the music sessions.  In the evening we went to the ceilidh and danced our socks off. 

In the night it rained.  A lot.

Both tents were starting to let water in by the morning.

Abandoning our first dance spot, we chucked dry stuff into the car and struck the tents in the rain.

Nothing daunted, we then went and found a spot to dance in the aforementioned rain.  We had a small but very appreciative audience.

Then we found where the few surviving morris teams were hanging out in a large gazebo at the back of the Bell.  We all took turns dancing there and Anonymous's version of Tinner's Rabbits went down very well (and there were some good performances from other sides. I enjoyed Bourne River's jig to 'Singing in the Rain').

I'd originally been programmed to do maypole dancing with my school group on the Minster Green at 2pm.  With the rain pouring down (and the grass slippery as well) it was highly unlikely that any children would show.  The school phoned round the children to confirm it was off, but just in case any didn't get the message, I found a free spot in the main hall and set up the maypole there (with someone at the Minster to catch anyone who showed there).  Just to ensure the maypole (and the dry, warm, indoor space...) weren't wasted, I invited every morris dancer I passed to come along and join in.

It went surprisingly well.  I ended up with about eighteen morris dancers from a number of sides all joining in the maypole dances.

There's some great things about working with dancers.  With seven year olds ,you struggle for weeks to be able to get them to do a plait -and even then some of them will get it wrong.  With morris  dancers, all you need to say say is: red ribbons face clockwise, green ribbons face anti-clockwise.  Now do a hey passing right shoulders first.  And they're off - perfect plait first time.  (All I need to remember for the future is to tell them to have the ribbon tension slightly slacker so the first few wraps don't catch on the crown).

Even morris dancers make a few mistakes though.  Maypole looks easy, but it is a very unforgiving dance.  Every mistake is 100% obvious when you come to unwind the ribbons.  You can't simply slide back into place when you go wrong (which you can do in almost any other dance without the audience even noticing most of the time).  When I was saying:  "Notice who is on either side of you and who is in front of you and don't overtake" I could see a few smiles at the 'school teacher' routine.  But sure enough, we got a couple of ribbon tangles in 'Crysanthamum' from people passing the dancer in front of them - this tends to happen when the dancer in front moves late.

It was a fun session, helped us get warm and dry out and was colourful with quite a few people watching as well as dancing.

I was told afterwards that one the dancers, an older gentleman, had been unable to do  maypole dancing at school as he'd been very ill as a boy - he'd always regretted not being able to do it - and I'd made him very happy.

It made my day!

Then we all dived back to my place (apart from Rick who had a job interview the next morning), ate stew, played simple card games and collapsed.

In 2013, I'll see it all from a different angle.  I'm on the committee for Wimborne Minster Folk Festival 2013 !

See Vera's journal for how they do it in the Czech Republic.  Here  and here.   Admire the 'maidens' working on making the wreath that hangs from the top.

Today, I'm setting up my maypole for a Poole arts event.  I'll see if I can get some photos, though it isn't nearly as good as the Czech one.

This is the first time I'll have used my new sound system, so I'm crossing my fingers for it all to go smoothly.  I'm also hoping to teach adults this time, so maybe I can do some of the more complicated dances.

I've bought my maypole, I'm getting a music system and I'll shortly be arranging public liability insurance.

My next problem is to find a name for my business.  My aim is to teach maypole dancing and other traditional English dances including morris.

Any bright ideas?

I'm going to be working with Tradamis, which means I'll be able to offer some things in addition to dance, so putting 'dance' in the name may be a bit limiting.

'Waveney' is one possibility.  It's a name Richard and I have used for several businesses over the years and has the benefit of being very generic.  On the other hand, one could also regard that as a negative...

I expect my initial focus to be on maypole dancing, but don' t really know which way things may develop.