Dance Like a Girl
Are you ready for us?
The Running Auction Where: Bourne, Lincolnshire When: the last Monday in April
The
letting of Whit Bread Meadow began in 1742 when the land was given to the town of Bourne by Matthew Clay, a local farmer. Initially the annual rent from the land was to be used to distribute bread to householders and commoners of the surrounding area, however the distribution of bread ended in the 1960s and now the money raised from the sale is given to a nominated charity. Any tenant of the land had to agree to its care, maintaining fences, spreading two good loads of manures across the land, and ensuring the bush in the middle of the field would not be damaged in any way. Clay also stipulated that the new tenant should be chosen by Running Auction, a unique style of cut off auction used to ensure the auctioneer cannot manipulate the bidding. At the start of the auction two school boys are signalled to begin running the 200yrd stretch of road along Queens Bridge, with the auction ending when the
boys return. The successful bid is made as the race ends, and the bidder becomes tenant for the following year. This is the last regularly held Running Auction in the UK, giving what is a small event some significance. Everyone attending the auction is then invited to a feast in one of the local pubs. A recent addition to the auction is the inclusion of dancing by a local morris side. Bourne Borderers, having done this for a number of years, often perform a mummers play based on the story of St George and the Dragon.
Morris and Chill We would love to meet up with our readers, giving us a chance to get to know you a little better, and thank you for supporting us! We have picked two events, the JMO and Sheringham Potty Festival, which hopefully will allow us to see as many of you as possible.
JMO Day of Dance 19th of May | Peterborough Our plan is to meet up with people in morning in cathedral square, we will post photos of where to find us on Facebook, before dancing begins. We want to be able to see you before we end up tired and sweaty! With us we are bringing our pins and our newly created paper dolls. If you don’t find us in the morning we will be around all day, however we are each dancing with different sides, so finding us together might not be an easy task. It would be great to dance with you and we will be taking part in the mass dances at the end of the day, before retreating for a drink or two somewhere.
Potty Festival 6th to the 8th of July | Sheringham We always look forward to this event, having attended for a number of years now. With a pretty seaside location, some chance of nice weather, and plenty of dancing it seemed like a good event to host a meetup!
First we should mention the world record attempt, aiming to get as many people dancing the same dance at the same time as possible. No surprise to find out that we will be taking part and it would be a good chance to find us before the dancing begins. Our main plan for meeting up is to base ourselves in the garden of the Lobster over lunch time, expected to be 1—2pm. We will bring along some treats, including our pins, some paper dolls, and other little extras.
Peter Burrow enjoying the Sheringham seafront in 2017
Paper dolls We wanted to make something fun, and a little bit different for you all, so based on these very cute kit illustrations we have created paper dolls.
Hopefully you will enjoy colouring in and dressing up your very own morris person just as much as we do!
So what is it then that makes a good Border Morris dancer? The short answer is, very little; a reasonable sense of rhythm, relatively sound of body (soundness of mind optional), ability to get on with others, and commitment to practice and dance out. Having thought further there are other things I would want to add to a list provisionally labelled, “What makes a great Border dancer?”
1. An acknowledgement of where the tradition comes from. Border is a working class tradition that stems from hardship and hunger. It is not meant to be “cosy” or “polite”. If sides want to prettify the dances and performance, good luck to them, but it can never be great Border. It might be good in its own terms but it misses out a vital element of the whole tradition. . Cecil Sharp and his modern day followers sought and still seek to airbrush Border, chiefly by not bothering to record much of it and trying to give what they did salvage a middle class sheen. A great side and a great Border dancer needs to recognise this.
2. An understanding that the traditional dances we have are better than they needed to have been. Born out of poverty, like American blues music, many of the dances we have are of a much higher quality than they needed to be simply to beg money. Anyone who has danced, let’s say, Brimfield, will know that behind the apparent simplicity lies a tight, beautifully constructed dance that is difficult to get 100% right. Respect is due to those dances which have been salvaged and those who worked them up.
III. A commitment to a “Border Face” and to educating the public. I have never heard a member of the public approach a Border dancer with no facepaint, or a token stripe and ask, “Why do you
do that? What is it all about?” A painted face is a key part of the background of the tradition in that it honours the struggle of a working people on poverty wages and zero hours contracts. To paint one’s face like a clown, a panda, or a member of KISS is to miss the point. Impact and the commitment of the face make it more likely that great Border will occur! I am not saying that merely to paint one’s face is to automatically make one’s performance great: it can’t. Those who make it pretty are not necessarily bad, they have just missed the point, they are not doing Border but something else. Is it any surprise that the very best Border sides paint their faces either black or predominantly black? Part of dancing great Border lies in that commitment, it is also part of a fight against the death of complexity in public debate, but that is a whole different bag of sticks.
1. Contribute! A great dancer is one who has a stake in what they are doing because they have contributed. We need new dances to grow the tradition; so write one. If I can, anyone can. Play a part on social media supporting or defending the traditions, not just Border. Help in the running of your side, encourage others, thank them for what they do. Learn an instrument and join the band. Everyone can contribute in some way or another, everyone has something to give. Contribute to side discussions about the future direction or up coming projects, support the organisation to which your side belongs, Ring, Open or Fed. Support innovations like “Dance Like A Girl”, Acid Morris or at least find out what they are. But most of all dance and play the Morris, dance like you mean it, with your whole body, mind and soul (or “Not-self” if you are a Buddhist) The above views are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of either Beorma or Acid Morris.
Tony Roberts
Advice from Flower Beard HOW WOULD YOU CONVINCE SOMEBODY TO JOIN THE MORRIS? I know I should probably talk about the importance of the tradition or the community the morris has developed, But that isn’t for me. Often I start talking about myself. about all of the interesting things I have done, making sure to mention the important people I have met and how much my contribution to the community is appreciated. If my personal greatness isn’t enough to convince them of the morris I move on to talking about events they might be able to attend, mentioning some of the folk and beer festivals I have attended over the years. With chances to try as many beers as possible, from a wide range of breweries, and as the morris often involves travel these can be from across the country.
I want to write a dance, how should I start this process? You should probably ask your side if they are really desperate for something new. If this is the case then I guess you should start with a tune, if possible one which the band enjoys playing! Having the tune should give you some idea of the step you will use, the shapes you might want for the figures and the sticking pattern. Go back to the traditional dances, read the notation again. those dances have survived for a reason. It might be the case that you develop a traditional dance which might not work so well for your team instead of writing something from the beginning. I am not sure how many morris dances the world really needs.
WHAT IS THE IDEAL NUMBER OF DANCES IN A SET? This would depend on where you are dancing. But for the most part I believe audiences always enjoy longer displays of dancing, more so when they are unable to continue whatever they were doing before you started. I would suggest a 5 or 6 dance set, so that the dancers have to work for their beer and the audience can fully appreciate the dancing being over.
Calories and Dancing How have we done this? We were wondering if our dancing would be enough to balance out the calorie content of our festival drinking. Not because we worry about that sort of thing too much, but just out of curiosity. Irritatingly this is an issue which can only be solved with maths, although this does mean we have found a use for Ellie Bird! We did some research and found this calculation:
Calories Burnt = Duration (mins) X (MET X 3.5 X Weight (kg)] ) / 200 By using the MET rate for general dancing (7.8) with the weight of the average woman (69.8kg) we came up with the calories burnt per minute of morris dancing. From these estimates we worked our how many minutes of dancing would be needed to burn the calories in different drinks. These are simply estimates, because we didn’t really have enough time to work out the exact MET rate for morris dancing or to work out the weight of the average morris dancer. If you want something more accurate, simply put your weight into the calculation or maybe change the duration to the length of a specific dance.
What have we learnt from this? for our beer and cider lovers, you can dance off a pint in about 4 or 5 dances which is probably the average set length. However for myself and Ellie, who are much more likely to enjoy spirits, using a zero calorie mixer means we can burn off what we drink in about 2 dances. Very good news for our festival season! If you don’t usually drink, it might help to know that a glass of wine has about the same calorie value as a slice of cake. Meaning you could burn off that cake in about 3 or 4 dances. Overall, Morris dancing might just be good for you. Maybe. As long as you don’t drink too much.
Ellie & Sally Bird
Time to Ring some Changes On Saturday 10 March 2018, a meeting of representatives of Morris Ring clubs passed a motion, proposed by the Leicester Morris Men, to remove all gender stipulations from the constitution. The vote was decisive, with 87% of all votes cast in favour of reform. For the first time in its 84 year history, the oldest of the national representative bodies for morris clubs opened its membership to accommodate for dancers of any gender-identity. This momentous constitutional amendment recognised changes in wider society and culture, as well as the growing number of former men’s teams that now welcome women into their ranks. The constructive and respectful nature in which discussions took place is testimony to the assiduous work of the Morris Ring officers and its advisory council, in providing a forum for members to debate the implications and relative virtues of the change. In recent years, the male-only organisation saw a net decline in the size of its membership: since 2011, the Morris Ring lost 42 member clubs. Whilst about half of these ceased activity, the remainder transferred to affiliations with a different organisation. Furthermore, there has been a palpable unease amongst some members of Morris Ring clubs that their representative body was something of an anachronism, and potentially a deterrent to newcomers. Whilst men’s morris sides will hopefully continue to attract new recruits, alongside women’s and mixed clubs, a prospective new endeavour will now have a choice of belonging to any one of the three national representative agencies, whatever its demographic make-up. The Morris Ring was inaugurated in October 1934, hosted by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) at their national headquarters, Cecil Sharp House, in Camden, London. It was the product of several months of discussion, emanating primarily from Joseph Needham of the Cambridge Morris Men. As Squire of the town-and-gown club, Needham — in conjunction with his Bagman, Arthur Peck — set about designing the architecture for a means of bringing
men’s morris clubs into contact with one another. It was an endeavour imbued with Needham’s own socialist sympathies, to incorporate men of all socio-economic classes together in a shared enjoyment of the dance. It was considered that opportunities for women to dance the morris were amply met by the activities of the EFDSS, which together with its predecessor the English Folk Dance Society had always been formed of an overwhelmingly female membership. Thus, Needham’s nascent Morris Ring responded to, and further promoted, a growth of men’s morris through semi-autonomous clubs. After more than eighty years of societal change, it is arguable that such a reform was much overdue, and that the Morris Ring should have responded more positively towards the early women’s morris movement of the 1970s. Custodians of the morris tradition ought to be prepared to ensure that the dance is compatible with contemporary attitudes, and keep in step with prevailing cultural mores. Pedlars of a spurious traditionalism ought to beware their prejudices! Most importantly, this change is an opportunity to further strengthen the good work of the Joint Morris Organisations council in promoting the morris in its myriad forms. At the arrival of the 2018 summer season, there are many causes to believe that the morris, in all manifestations, may continue to flourish! Matt Simons Joseph Needham and Arthur Peck discussing plans for the Morris Ring, at Ringstead Mill (nr.Hunstanton), Norfolk, April 1934.
Cambridge MM Archive
For our readers Apparently spring is happening, which means for many the morris season has started! We are certainly looking forward to a little more dancing, and just maybe a little bit of sunshine.
Thank you to Matt Simons, Ellie Bird, and Tony Roberts for your contributions. With our next issue marking a year of this madness we are starting to think about our future might be! It would be great to be able to create some printed editions, and start to really discuss new ideas. Hopefully you like us enough to help us out. We believe the more voices we have the more interesting this will be. If you want be a part of this please get in touch, we take all kinds of contributions. Next issue will be released 29th of July. Thank for your continued support!
With love, Cute as Folk & the dance like a girl team
We have badges! If you ever wanted a lovely enamel pin badge of our logo, they now exist! Where might you get one? Holmfirth— May 11th to 13th
JMO Peterborough— May 19th Potty Festival Sheringham — July 2nd & 3rd More tBc OR our new online shop! Tictail.com/dancinglikeagirl
Fancy a printed copy? We are looking at sensible ways to create printed editions. We hope these to be themed, so we can focus ideas about one topic. Watch this space.
Contact us: Facebook: @dancelikeagirl Email: dancinglikeagirl.caf@gmail.com
Thank you, See you next time.
Cute As Folk