Day of Dance, Saturday 30th March 2019

Tags

Border Morris dancing, Day of Dance 2019, folk dance, folk music, Folk Traditions, Halesworth, Molly dancing, Morris dancing, Mummers, Suffolk

Those of you who have kindly followed my intermittent ramblings for a few years might remember that Richard and I have attended the Day of Dance a couple of times before.  One of the local Molly dance sides (teams) wished to celebrate an important anniversary in 2015 so invited other Morris and Molly dance sides to join them in Halesworth for the day, as a one-off.  This was so successful that the Day of Dance has taken place each year since then and it has grown!  Not only Morris Dancers, Border Morris dancers and Molly Dancers take part but also steam punk sides have joined in, belly dancers, buskers and mummers!  Please follow the links if you are interested in finding out about Mollys and Mummers!

Below is a slideshow of some photos I took on the day.  The Morris side wearing blue and white is Rumburgh Morris, our local team who were featured in Episode 4 of Alice Robert’s series ‘Britain’s Most Historic Towns’.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Here is a very short video I took of one of the sides.  I have no idea of their name or where they came from but I thought they were fun.

Here follows a video I found on Youtube of the procession round the town at the start of the day.  Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog!

 

Morris Dancing in Halesworth

Tags

Halesworth, Halesworth Day of Dance, Molly dancing, Morris dancing, Mummers

Richard and I both enjoy folk music.  We grew up singing folk songs at school and then we met when we were members of a choir that often included folk songs in it’s programmes.  We also love watching folk dance, especially Morris dancing.  I published a post last year about Halesworth’s Day of Dance which you can see here.  This year we turned up to watch but were unable to get a programme so I can’t tell you the names of most of the groups we saw.  Richard made a few short videos of most of the groups and I have included some of these in this post.  The weather was better than last year – it was bright and mild and everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Pedant’s Revolt dancing outside The Angel

The Hobby Horse from Golden Star Morris

Golden Star Morris chatting with the musicians from Chelmsford Ladies Morris in the Market Place

Some of the ladies from the belly dance group who were also taking part in the day of dance.

There was a trio of Mummers – Mad Moll and her husband Old Tom who had a visitation from the Devil.

Poor Old Tom is taken down to hell by the Devil but Mad Moll rescues him by using cunning and guile.

The Ukulele Band from the University of the Third Age who played while everyone was having a break for lunch.

We never discovered the name of this group of women dancers outside The White Hart.

Oxblood Molly teaching the women’s team a new dance

The drummer in this group has a crocodile head.

The last group I have included is another one of the few I know the name of.

Chelmsford Morris Ladies side dancing in the Market Place

I hope you have enjoyed our Day of Dance.

Thanks for visiting!

Day of Dance 28 March 2015

Tags

Day of Dance, Folk dancing, Halesworth, Halesworth Day of Dance, Morris dancing, Suffolk

Poster for the Day of Dance

The weekend before Easter Richard and I took Elinor in to Halesworth so that she could go to the hairdressers.  We had a couple of things to buy and had arranged with Elinor that we would meet her back in the car park.  When we got to Halesworth we discovered that a Day of Dance was taking place in the town.

Oxblood Molly, a Molly dancing team were hosting their first Day of Dance in Halesworth and had invited a number of other dance teams to come along and take part.  Richard and I were delighted, as we love to watch Morris, Molly and Sword Dancing.  Elinor isn’t so keen and we got a couple of messages from her telling us about the difficulty she had in getting into the hairdresser’s salon past a large group of dancers, musicians and also a man wearing a horse’s head ( the Hobby Horse).

This is the Oxblood Molly side (or team) dancing in Halesworth Thoroughfare. All the dances were performed outside the pubs in the town.  The pub here is just out of shot on the right – The White Hart.

Molly Dancing originated in Cambridgeshire and is traditionally danced on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany when the agricultural workers went back to work after Christmas.  A decorated plough was dragged through the streets and the farm workers accompanied it with blackened faces asking for pennies to help the poor plough boys.  They disguised themselves so that their employers wouldn’t recognise them.  During harsh winters the farm-workers were often close to starvation.  The dance team went with the farm-workers; one of the dancers (all male) would be dressed as a woman, hence ‘Molly’.

This is Molly.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Here is a selection of photographs of Oxblood Molly.

Danegeld Morris dancing in the yard of the White Swan pub.

There are six main styles of Morris Dance – Cotswold Morris, North West Morris, Border Morris, Longsword Dancing, Rapper and Molly Dancing.  There is another less well-known style called Ploughstots (or Vessel Cupping, or Plew-ladding!) from the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire.

Danegeld Morris dance in the North West style and wear clogs on their feet.  This style was developed during the 19th and 20th centuries and came from the mill towns that had sprung up during the Industrial Revolution.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This side is called Pedant’s Revolt and they dance in the Border Morris style.  This is also the White Swan pub yard.  Richard filmed a few of the teams on his phone.  He only filmed short excerpts of three dances.  The video below is of Pedant’s Revolt.

Here they are again outside The White Hart.

I like the pheasant’s feathers they wear in their hats

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This is Chelmsford Morris Ladies, another North West Morris group dancing in the White Swan pub yard.  Below is another video.

Kenninghall Morris side – a Border Morris dance team relaxing after having performed outside the Swan.

They traditionally blacken their faces, though some of them had whitened their faces instead!  A couple of the Oxblood Molly side are with them here.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This side is Bows ‘n’ Belles and they are dancing outside the White Hart.  They are another North West Morris team and their video is below.

We weren’t able to see all the groups dancing that day as we had promised to visit my mother that afternoon.  It has made us want to go to more events like this!

Thanks for visiting!