{"id":30554,"date":"2023-09-20T23:39:18","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T21:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=30554"},"modified":"2023-09-20T23:39:17","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T21:39:17","slug":"the-morris-renaissance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/2023\/09\/20\/the-morris-renaissance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Morris renaissance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Artist and dancer Alex Merry is co-founder of Boss Morris, an all-female \u2018prog\u2019 side based in Stroud which designs its own stylish costumes <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

PEOPLE<\/h5>\n\n

The Morris renaissance<\/h2>\n\n

It\u2019s as English as scones and cream, but Morris dancing was at risk of becoming marginalised. Now, as the folk tradition experiences a rural revival among the young, radical and stylish, photographer Rachel Adams <\/strong>meets those bringing Morris out of the past<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

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Boss Morris \u2018summon in the summer\u2019 with Jackie, their take on a traditional Jack in the Green, on Rodborough Common in Gloucestershire, May Day this year <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

I<\/span><\/strong><\/span>t\u2019s 4.30am and I\u2019m circling a hairpin bend, looking for somewhere to park. I\u2019m in deepest Gloucestershire, awake much earlier than usual in search of an event I hope is worthwhile. As I pull into a pitchblack car park, so does another car. Two men get out. I can\u2019t see them, but I hear bells jingling, quiet voices and a dog barking in a nearby campervan. I realise the film I\u2019ve brought will be useless if the sun doesn\u2019t cut through the heavy mist in time for the event I\u2019ve driven from London to photograph. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve come to watch a new iteration of an old tradition \u2013 Morris dancers welcoming in the summer at dawn on 1 May. As more people arrive, including conservationists eager to point out the ground-nesting skylarks and yellow cowslips, it\u2019s clear the turn-out will be far larger than expected. By daybreak, 400 people have made their way through the half-light to watch two local sides, Boss Morris and Miserden Morris, dance their way across Rodborough Common near Stroud.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always loved the idea of Morris, seeing the dancers as keepers of some ancient rite\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Although Morris has been part of May Day festivities for centuries, it\u2019s the first time these sides (the name for a Morris group) have invited their social media followers to join them in celebrating the English countryside\u2019s magical transformation from wintry grey to vibrant green. <\/p>\n\n

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Border Morris dancers take a break from performing in Oxford <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

A PHOTOGRAPHER\u2019S EYE <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

As a photographer, I\u2019m endlessly fascinated by people \u2013 what we do, why we do it, and in particular how creativity thrives when cultures are pushed to the margins and collide. I\u2019ve always loved the idea of Morris dancing, seeing the dancers as keepers of some ancient rite, indifferent to modern fads and fashion, and relishing, just as much as I do, the changing seasons and any excuse to spend the long summer evenings outdoors. When I moved to Dorset in 2014, I enjoyed finding that mixture of ancient and modern, rural and urban in the myriad folk festivals in towns and villages, with pubs and streets that buzz with trad music sessions, cider louts, \u2018rural disco\u2019, and of course, dozens of Morris sides.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

But while there were plenty of Morris folk to photograph, I didn\u2019t see many that would persuade editors to publish my work or persuade the public away from their preconceptions of Morris dancing, as an eccentric and out-of-date curiosity.<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

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Beasts, such as Miserden Morris\u2019s Boris the Boar, are traditional dancing members of some Morris sides<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
A dancer prepares his make-up at this year\u2019s Rochester Sweeps Festival, a celebration of spring in Kent<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

ROYAL BEGINNINGS <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Historical records show that Morris arrived in England from Europe in the 1400s. An exotic dance for the royal courts, it spread throughout England, before waning in and out of favour as politics, taste and customs changed. <\/p>\n\n

In the 1900s, revivalist Cecil Sharp\u2019s mission to collect rural song and dance brought Morris back into the public consciousness. His ideas promoted folk culture as part of a romanticised vision of rural Englishness \u2013 perpetually in danger of disappearing unless captured and preserved by heroic gatekeepers of tradition. <\/p>\n\n

In the 20th century, those mainly male gatekeepers took hold of Morris altogether, stopping women from taking part until feminism and the folk revival of the 1970s when women staked their claim on the Morris world. (Although the Morris Ring, one of the UK\u2019s three organisational bodies, only allowed women to join in 2018.)<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Now there are 13,600 dancers around the UK, in single-sex, mixed and LGBTQ+ sides \u2013 all amateurs but keeping the genre alive, and some with exciting new takes on the tradition. <\/p>\n\n

You may have seen Boss Morris recently \u2013 perhaps in Tate Liverpool\u2019s \u2018Radical Landscapes\u2019 exhibition, performing with award-winning bands on the Brit Awards, or in the recent Channel 4 series The Change. <\/em>The all-female \u2018prog\u2019 side from Stroud are artists with a shared passion for bringing Morris to more people, and are regularly booked to appear at festivals, events and in music videos. Founding member Rhia Davenport says for Boss, Morris is \u201can artistic outlet. We work on it as an artistic collective. It\u2019s something unto itself \u2013 fluid and organic and ambiguous. Going traditional in our costume wasn\u2019t ever something that we contemplated, or made a conscious step away from necessarily; it was the opportunity to conjure and create that obsessed us right from the start.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Founder Kate Merry with The WAD, Cornwall\u2019s newest \u2018prog Morris\u2019 side<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

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MAYDAY Morris dance at London\u2019s Royal Courts of Justice during an appeal against the ban on wild camping in Dartmoor earlier this year<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

SERVING THE COUNTRYSIDE <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Besides the artists and makers finding inspiration in Morris, there\u2019s a political side to the art form, too. MAYDAY Morris formed late in 2022 as an offshoot of a popular Devonbased Border side (a style of Morris that orginated in the Welsh border counties of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Shropshire), with the intention of dancing at protests up and down the country. Choosing the humble dandelion as a symbol of \u201cresilience, playfulness, health and hope\u201d, MAYDAY\u2019s face paint is inspired by anti-facial-recognition designs, and their jackets by high-vis tabards worn by labourers and stewards.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Co-founder of Boss Morris Lily Cheetham ready for a performance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

MAYDAY member Hawthorn tells me the side\u2019s aim is to \u201c\u2018re-enchant\u2019 people with the beauty and wonder of our land, and with the folk traditions that come from this land, as a route towards honouring each other and our natural world. It\u2019s a beautiful thing to rediscover and reclaim British traditions in service to the regeneration of our land and to those fighting for social and environmental justice,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n

Kate Merry, founder of Cornwall-based side The WAD, is keen to blend traditional Cornish folklore with \u201890s pop culture. Kate explains: \u201cWhile I\u2019m interested in the traditional danceouts and the music involved in the Morris scene, we have visions of taking it somewhere more original \u2013 using more contemporary folklore, costumes and ritual references. I\u2019m part of the MTV generation that grew up watching Janet Jackson, Usher and Destiny\u2019s Child. The youth of today could turn on TikTok and see the most incredible dancers doing insane moves from their bedrooms. Morris dancing, though steeped in tradition, could seem aesthetically quite \u2018slow\u2019 by today\u2019s standards,\u201d she adds.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful thing to reclaim British traditions in service to those fighting for social justice\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\u201cWe aim to make it more vibrant and appealing by referencing more contemporary dances, music and fashions that we feel are just as valid in terms of what constitutes \u2018folk\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

<\/div>
\n

MORE INFO <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>Find out more about the following Morris sides, plus performance dates, on their websites. <\/span>
bossmorris.com<\/a>; jointhewad.com<\/a>; miserdenmorris.com<\/a> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>Go to The Morris Federation\u2019s website to learn more about the history of the dance and its many styles. morrisfed.org.uk<\/a> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n



Rachel Adams is a London-based photographer whose clients include the National Trust, The Times and The Guardian. Some of her Morris images were included in Portrait of Britain Vol 1 (2018).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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