ORION COSTUMES Men's Morris Dancer Fancy Dress Costume

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It will be worthwhile travelling to see many of Englands traditional customs. The origins of many are long forgotten, but they all add to the rich tapestry of our cultural heritage. With the Morris Musicians

The majority of contemporary morris sides have been formed in the last 80 years or so. Each club will have a Squire who is responsible for the performance and the sides leadership, a Foreman or Captain who teaches the dances, and a Bagman who acts as its secretary. Clubs are autonomous so they can make their own decisions as to when, where and what to dance. Originally, the music would have been provided by a concertina or a melodeon accompanied by a tambourine. Today it is likely to be a Morris Big Band, a collection of melodeons, concertinas, fiddles, brass and percussion instruments. The foreman teaches and trains the dancers, and is responsible for the style and standard of the side's dancing. The foreman is often "active" with the "passive" dancers.

Other forms include Molly dance from Cambridgeshire. Molly dance, which is associated with Plough Monday, is a parodic form danced in work boots and with at least one Molly man dressed as a woman. The largest Molly Dance event is the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, established in 1980, held at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire in January. By 1840, the fiddle had superseded the pipe and tabor as the main instrument. The fiddle has a greater pitch-range and can be played in more keys than the pipe and tabor, but many dancers found it difficult to dance to without a separate rhythmic accompaniment. There are also dances from Derbyshire and the Forest of Dean, and 'molly' dances from East Anglia which are perceived as belonging to the same family. Because of the history of the revival of folk dancing as it developed under the aegis of Cecil Sharp, English sword dances (longsword and 'rapper', or short-sword) dances are often performed in the same contexts as morris dances. It is probable the term morris developed from the French word morisque (meaning a dance, the dance), which became morisch in Flemish, and then the English moryssh, moris and finally morris. Flanders in the fifteenth century was an innovative cultural centre, and strongly influenced European culture in general. The earliest confirmation of a performance of morris dancing in England dates from London on 19 May 1448, when Moryssh daunsers were paid 7s (35p) for their services. a b c d Blake, Lois. Ffair Caerffili and other Dances from Nantgarw. Cymdeithas Ddawns Werin Cymru.

England has numerous traditional and curious customs. The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers from Bacup (Lancashire), the Abbots Bromley Horn Dancers (Staffordshire) and the Minehead (Somerset) and Padstow (Cornwall) Obby Osses are unique and are only correct when performing in their own locality. In England, an ale is a private party where a number of Morris sides get together and perform dances for their own enjoyment rather than for an audience. Food is usually supplied, and sometimes this is a formal meal known as a feast or ale-feast. Occasionally, an evening ale is combined with a day or weekend of dance, where all the invited sides tour the area and perform in public. In North America the term is widely used to describe a full weekend of dancing involving public performances and sometimes workshops. In the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, the term "ale" referred to a church- or dale-sponsored event where ale or beer was sold to raise funds. Morris dancers were often employed at such events. Part of the costume but not listed separately is a white ribbon woven with purple and gold thread. It bears no obvious relation to the rest of the costume. It is too short to tie around the waist and bears no marks indicating that it may have been fastened to anything else (e.g. the treasury box). Its purpose is unclear. Provenance of the costume Durham and Northumberland have their own versions of the sword dance, the Rapper dance. In these dances, the sword is a flat strip of flexible or spring steel about 60cm long, with a rotating handle at one end and a fixed handle at the other. A sword can be bent into a complete circle and some figures require this degree of flexibility! The dance usually begins with a master of ceremonies attracting a crowd by strutting around the square and announcing the event. He may take the opportunity to name the dance troupe for the onlookers, or to dedicate the dance to a local sports team or a local landmark, or to congratulate a member of the Royal Family on the birth of a child.While the earliest records of "Morys" invariably mention it in a court setting, and it appears a little later in the Lord Mayors' Processions in London, by the mid 17th century it had assumed the nature of a folk dance performed in the parishes. [ citation needed] Three prominent groups organise and support Morris in England: Morris Ring, [2] Morris Federation [3] and Open Morris; [4] all three organisations have members from other countries as well.

M. Dougal MacFinlay & M. Sion Andreas o Wynedd, To Tame a Pretty Conceit, volume 4 of the Letter of Dance (1996).Girls' carnival morris dancing is highly competitive and characterised by precise, synchronous routines with pom-poms (or 'shakers') executed to pop music. It is performed almost exclusively by girls and women in Lancashire, Cheshire and parts of North Wales. [53] Performances typically take place in sports halls and community centres and participants more closely align with British carnival performances such as jazz kazoo marching bands, entertainer troupes and majorettes, than with the morris performances of the folk revival. [54] It is unfortunate that the entry combines the trousers and the bell pads as they are separate items Michael Heaney, '"With Scarfes and Garters as You Please": an Exploratory Essay in the Economics of the Morris', Folk Music Journal 6.4 (1993), 491-505; Cambridge, Archive of Clare College, Cecil J. Sharp MSS, ACC1987/25, Folk Dance Notes, vol. 2, ff.41-45. Value equivalents from http://www.measuringworth.com] Ales While some consider this a form of dancing in its own right, others do class this as a form of morris. Although sword is in the name, there are no swords involved in this type of dance, instead there are just long steel implements with a wooden handle at each end specifically designed for the dance. Usually, the dancers use these props in pairs, each holding one end. In total, there are normally around eight dancers in this dance. Mummers plays