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!