What costumes do morris dancers wear?
Each side has a different costume. It will usually include a white shirt, white trousers or black breeches, and bell-pads (ruggles) worn on the shin. A baldric (or baldricks) may be worn across the chest, or perhaps there will be rosettes on the shirt; a waistcoat or tabard may be worn.
What do morris dancers represent?
Morris dancing is a celebration, a display of dance and music performed at seasonal festivals and holidays to banish the dark of winter, celebrate the warmth and fertility of summer, and bring in autumn’s golden harvest.
Why do morris dancers wear bells?
In the seventeenth century there had been suggestions of a connection with Moorish dancing and it was adopted as a convenient theory. It fitted in, for example, because some dancers blacked up their faces and attached bells to their legs, which was believed to be something to do with North Africa.
Do morris dancers use a maypole?
Why do we have a Maypole and Morris Dancers? The maypole is thought to go back to when pagans would cut down young trees and stick them in the ground and dance around them as a rival performance to neighbouring villages. This dancing is thought to have evolved into Morris dancing – and the young tree, the maypole.
What is Fluffy morris dancing?
Girls’ morris dancing—sometimes called ‘carnival’ or ‘fluffy’ morris—is a highly competitive team formation dance, performed in the Northwest of England and parts of North Wales. Its main participants are primary- and secondary-school-aged girls and young women .
Is the maypole Pagan?
Historians believe the first maypole dance originated as part of Germanic pagan fertility rituals. Originally, the dancers danced around a living tree. While dancers usually perform this dance in the spring on May 1 or May Day, those in Sweden perform it during their midsummer celebrations.
When do Morris dance in the South Midlands?
Traditionally morris dancing took place during set periods in the calendar: in the South Midlands, this was during early summer around Whitsuntide. Performances of North West morris took place during the Annual Rushbearing (in summer), and for longsword and rapper sword dances, the traditional time was during the Christmas and New Year period.
Where can you find accounts of morris dancing?
Accounts of morris dancing can be found throughout England, making it a nationwide phenomenon. is John Forrest’s scholarly description of the early morris, providing images of our early dances, but we also like to say that our origins are ‘lost in the mists of time’.
What kind of clothes do people wear on the Morris Ring?
Additionally there are solo or paired dances or Jigs. The use of handkerchiefs dates from Shakespearean times, and the first recorded use of sticks dates from the mid-sixteenth century. Each side has a different costume. It will usually include a white shirt, white trousers or black breeches, and bell-pads (ruggles) worn on the shin.
When did the Cambridge Morris Men start dancing?
In 1924, members of the Cambridge Morris Men (as the Travelling Morrice) toured some of the villages where Sharp had collected morris dances. They danced in these villages and met many old dancers, who taught them more dances, tunes and steps.