meet the morris dancers

Please say hello to Nick and Maureen.

They're both active members of the Baldock Midnight Morris dancers who are going to be coming along to our fete this summer.

Maureen has been Morris dancing since 1996, which means she knows a thing or two about dancing a merry jig.

We had a chat with her to find out a bit more about stick bashing, black books and dancing in bells.

You're the foreman of the group, so what exactly does the foreman do?

A group of Morris dancers is known as a side. Each side has a Bagman (who looks after the admin, finance and organising side of things), a Foreman (who teaches the dancing) and a Squire who draws up the dances and decides who dances what when we go to events. I've been teaching the dances for our side for the last 18 months.

How many dances are there?

Hundreds. We dance mainly Cotswolds dances, which means the dances come from little villages across the Cotswold region. All traditional Morris dances are listed in The Handbook of Morris Dancing, commonly known as 'The Black Book'. Some sides will only dance traditional dances but we like to think of Morris dancing as an evolving tradition. It's great fun to do new stuff and tweak dances to make them your own.

What's your favourite dance?

A Ragland dance called Blue Eyed Stranger.

What are all your badges for?

They represent all the different sides you've danced with. Each side has their own badge and when you dance with each other, you swap or sell each other badges. We went along to an event in Rochester at the start of May where there were 67 different sides. That's a lot of badges.

Do you have your own band?

We've a chap who plays the melodeon. It's sort of like an accordian but smaller and with buttons instead of piano keys. We sometimes have a drummer and fiddle player and then everyone who isn't dancing usually has a jangle on the tambourine.

Can anyone Morris dance?

Definitely. Anyone over 14 can get involved with our group.  It's brilliant exercise, a lovely way to meet people and lots of the perfomances take place outside pubs, which is always a bonus after lots of thirsty dancing.

The Baldock Midnight Morris dancers will be dancing their hankies off at our fete on Saturday 2nd August. If you fancy finding having a go yourself, why not have a look at the excellent links section on their website to find out where your local group is.

Comments

[KT]

Yeah! Morris Dancing = good one!

[Sarah]

HURRAH! Fame at last!! I can probably retire happily now, seeing as I've managed to appear in one of my favourite newletters!
Sarah