A thousand Morris dancers wow Sheffield

By
Nancy
– May 18, 2011Posted in: Culture, News, Odd stories

Cotswold Morris dancers with hankies outside the Winter Garden

 

A Morris celebration The 2011 Dance Spectacular, held by the National Joint Morris Organisations, brought Sheffield a great dancing performance on May 14.

The 2011 Dance Spectacular, containing seven main Morris traditions, was hosted by the Morris Ring, one of the biggest Morris organisations with a 75-year history. The other two national Morris organisations, the Morris Federation and the Open Morris, also co-organised the activity.

The whole programme consisted of dozens of small shows which were simultaneously performed in several public areas of Sheffield city centre. This included Hallam Square, Winter Gardens, Cathedral, Orchard Square, Barkers Pool, Town Hall, and Millennium Square.

About 63 Morris groups from the three organisations, amounting to 1,000 people, including adults and children, joined the dancing party. Most of participants were amateur dancers who don’t get paid.

Multi-coloured

Beu Wright, one member of Wharfedale Wayzgoose Group from Otley, dressed in Border Morris style, a black and white painted face, and multi-colour rags with a goose on the black tabard front, a red ribbon and the decorated hat.

Cotswold and Border dancers

Most people were volunteers in the performance. According to Beu, she joined the performance only because she liked the Morris dance, “We just dance for fun, and we don’t celebrate a special thing in this performance,” she said.

Elizabeth Wootten, a Londoner and a member of the Boojum Rapper team from The Morris Federation said:

“We came to this event because it’s nice to see other teams, catch up with friends, and have an excuse for a bit of dancing”.

Thousands of people stopped by to watch the performance around the Winter Gardens. Paul Churity was one of them.

“I’m enjoying in it”, he said, adding that watching the dancing had cheered him up after a bad day.

Showcase

The Morris Ring, Open Morris and The Morris Federation organised a combined dance in Trafalgar Square of London, 2003, which was the first time day of dance was held by the three organisations.

“The reason for the programme is to showcase Morris dancing to the public, to make them aware of our great English dance tradition, culture and heritage,” said Peter J Halfpenney, Squire of the Morris Ring.

“Our members had such a good time that we were asked to repeat it, and we have done so now, with Sheffield being the 6th time”, said Chris Hall, Chairman of Open Morris. “The only theme to the day is to do lots of dancing, meet up with old Morris friends and make new ones.”

According to Mr Hall, the dancing venue has moved around the country to allow as many of members to take part in what is only ever a one day event. And Sheffield is a city where most Morris groups can travel to on the day easily.

Sheffield side Boggarts Breakfast

About nine local Morris groups of Sheffield join in the out-dancing programme. Seven of them were members of the Morris federation, like Lizzie Dripping and Shorkshire Chandelier, while the other two, the Handsworth Traditional Sword and Harthill Morris came from the Morris Ring.

Apart from Sheffield, the out-dancing event has been held in five other cities including London, Newcastle, Birmingham, Nottingham and Bury St Edmunds. The programme is schedule to take place in Stratford on Avon next year.

Endangered folk art

Being a traditional folk art, the Morris dance contains about seven main categories which are defined by different dance moves, costumes, music and small props. The most general one is called Cotswold which features white shirts, bright colour ribbons and hankies. The others are North-West Morris with colourful clops, Welsh Border with painted faces and sticks, the free style Molly, Rapper Dancing, Longsword Dancing and Mumming Players.

The Morris dance has been considered an endangered folk art in recent years. On 5th January 2009, several mainstream media BBC News, The Telegraph and Guardian.co.uk spot the scarce tradition after a UK Morris association warmed that the dance will disappear within 20 years.

Five years ago, the Morris dance was added into government’s funded list of culture icons conservation.

In 2003, David Cameron, who is now the prime minister of the country, had written in his Guardian blog an article “Handkerchiefs at dawn” that discussed the impact of government’s limited regulation on the Morris men of Oxfordshire, where he is a Conservative MP.

However, many Morris defenders are quite positive about the issue.

Grace, one member of the Sheffield Morris side Boggarts Breakfast, said: “Most teams are moving with the times and doing innovative and interesting dances which is more likely to cause people to want to join.”

There is a risk to the existence of some Morris sides who due to their high average age find it hard to recruit. According to John Clifford, Publicity Officer of Open Morris, “It is difficult to see many young people joining a side 40 years older than them unless it was a link via their grandparents”.

Mr Halfpenney is also confident about the Morris’ extension. “Keenness to join is cyclical with a huge upsurge in the late 60s and 70s, a downturn in the past 15 years”, he said.

“But a handsome revival is taking place presently with many new joiners of all ages coming to the fold”.

Mr Clifford believes that developing news sides can help to preserve Morris. “Working with schools and youth organisations new sides can be created,” he said.

He is currently running a project to get more young people involved into the traditional Morris in the South West.

 

 

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