Morris Dancing – The Peculiar British Tradition

Fascinating People Fascinating Places

Daniel Mainwaring

Documentary, Society & Culture:documentary, History, Society & Culture

5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Morris dancing — a traditional type of British folk dance is synonymous with villages fairs and men dressed in white dancing with wooden sticks. But there are many more elements to “Morris” that the stereotypes we are familiar with. In this episode, I explore its origins, and learn how it has expanded around the globe. Today’s guests: Peter Austin, “Bagman” of The Morris Ring – The founding National Association of Morris and Sword Dance Clubs in Britain. Cat Van’t Hof & Nat James of the Brandragon Morris in Melbourne, Australia. To learn more about these groups see below: https://themorrisring.org/ In 1934 the Cambridge Morris Men invited five other teams to join them in the formation of a national organisation, the result was that five of the revival clubs – Cambridge, Letchworth, Thaxted, East Surrey and Greensleeves – met at Thaxted in Essex on the 11th May that year to inaugurate The Morris Ring. Cambridge Morris Men describe the start of Morris in Cambridge during the winter of 1911/12 in the 1949 booklet 50 Years of Morris Dancing. Oxford were not at Thaxted, however they sent their apologies and were there in spirit, and agreed with the suggested constitution for the Ring. Helmond Morris(link is external) was the first group to start outside of the UK – in 1935. They even danced during the dark years of World War II! Home Founded in 2001, we are Melbourne’s only North West Morris Side. What is Morris Dancing? It is traditional English folk dancing! The North West style is done in formations of 4, 6 or 8 dancers – to live music. We wear heavy clogs which were worn in the factories of England during the time just after the Industrial Revolution. The dancing steps are quite simple, but the dancers create interesting visual patterns which comes from hours of practise. If you would like to try Morris dancing, please contact us and come along to a practise any time! We also welcome new musicians to join us! Our current band has members who play the melodeon, the recorder, the drum and other percussion instruments. Music from Pixabay Photo: Morris dancing at Port Sunlight.jpg Morris dancing at the 2011 Port Sunlight Festival, Wirral, England. Reptonix free Creative Commons licensed photos Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Fascinating people, fascinating places.
0:04.0	G'd a and welcome to the Dan Mainwearing podcast.
0:07.0	This is where we talk to and about the famous and the infamous,
0:12.0	the celebrated and the obscure, the well known and the
0:15.1	undiscovered, interviews, articles and discussions from around the globe.
0:19.6	To start this episode I'm going to ask you to try and picture a scene that may be familiar to you if you've ever been to Britain.
0:28.0	It's a warm, if not hot and sunny day, although a few puffy white clouds hint at a slight chance of rain.
0:37.0	You're sitting on a creaky wooden bench, sipping a fancifully named warm beer outside
0:42.1	a fact-roofed 16th century pub.
0:45.0	At the table next to you, under a tatty green king sunshake, a couple of squabbling,
0:52.0	while their children try to track the troublesome what in an empty glass.
0:57.0	Outside the pub stands an old man, with a handle bar moustache looking uncomfortably hot in his tweed jacket as he smokes his pipe.
1:06.5	A couple of fellas fresh off the cricket build, noisily stroll past, while the Potman
1:11.6	clears the empty crisp packets and ashtrays from another
1:14.4	table nearby. Suddenly there's some chatter across the village green as a group of men
1:20.5	emerge from the vicarage. They're wearing white overalls on top of their street
1:25.2	clothes. They have bells attached to their cuffs, colourful ribbons tied around their
1:30.3	knees and elbows, and flowery wreaths atop their heads.
1:34.3	Holding what looked like small rolling pins they create a formation in the center of the
1:39.9	green. They freeze like statues for a few minutes until their companions, armed with tin
1:46.9	whistles, tambourines and accordions emerge from the wooden beam pub. A few neighbors creep outside, while a large group of onlookers
1:56.2	stumble out of the horse and crown. The music starts, and the Morris dance begins
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Daniel Mainwaring, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Daniel Mainwaring and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.