Talk:Morris dance

Photo copyright?

Not being very high on copyright, even within Wikipedia, are the pictures and their copyright notice canon? --Anders Törlind

Not quite sure what you mean, I thought the copyright statement was clear, it belongs to King John's Morris.

The idea is, if someone uploads a picture to Wikipedia, it's regarded as released under a GNU Free Documentation License. In other words, from a legal point of view, it seems there's no such thing as simply giving Wikipedia permission to use the photograph, since Wikipedia's contents are freely distributable and modifiable (under the constraints of the GNU FDL). Ideally, there should be a notice on the King John's Morris page to the effect that the photographs were freely distributable according to the GNU FDL. --LMS

OK, I'll remove the photographs for the time being and get them loaded into the wikipedia domain in the approved manner. Bob Waller

Lichfield claims

Also On 2 Jan 2006, User:82.44.68.11 added the following paragraph:

The Lichfield "tradition" has little tradition associated with it. In the 1930s and 1940s Morris sides were started at the two major collegiate UK universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The membership of these clubs were some of the brightest of the day (in later years Cambridge could field a side of six Fellows of the Royal Society) who, in common with many such people, had an affinity for intellectual practical jokes. The Lichfield tradition was their invention; as with all the best jokes it gathered so much momentum that the truth could never be openly admitted. Lionel Bacon knew the truth, and was delighted to perpetuate the story.

It seems highly unlikely - I have been around the Morris for twenty years and know plenty of people] whose acquaintance is much longer, and I have never heard a breath of this idea. It seems much more like a post-modernist joke. But I can't rule it out.

I can however rule it inadmissable in Wikipedia on ground of verifiability so I removed it about 3 hours later.

Today, User:129.67.116.93 has added a weaker version of the same claim: 'Research has shown that the Lichfield tradition may also have been devised in the mid 20th century.', but still with no references at all, so I removing this as well.

If somebody out there has evidence for the claim, please reference it. If not, the claim even if true has no place in an encyclopedia. SeeWikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability.2C_not_truth--ColinFine 22:35, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's a reference: R. Judge, "The morris in Lichfield", Folklore, vol. 103, no.2 (1992), 131- 159. Judge calls into question the authenticity of the source materials. Some researchers believe it's more or less proven the Lichfield dances were created by one individual in (if I recall correctly) the 1950s; others still dispute this. I find Judge's article interesting but am not fully convinced one way or the other. In any case the above claim that Lichfield was invented as a joke that Bacon and many others were in on is very different from the case Judge makes, so if there's any truth to it, evidence would have to come from another source. -- Rsholmes 17:35, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization

The capitalization needs to be made consistent in the article. Unfortunately there is disagreement on the subject. Many people like to capitalize the word "morris". I fail to understand why; it's not a proper noun in this case -- though I think it likely it derives from a proper noun ("Morisco"). The OED entry has it uncapitalized, though many of the examples it quotes capitalize it, and I would advocate following the OED. In any case, this article is about the only place I've ever seen "dance/dancing" capitalized ("There are English records mentioning the Morris Dance..."). At the very least I believe "dance/dancing" should be uncapitalized. -- Rsholmes 17:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I certainly won't object if you make it consistent! ColinFine 17:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The common useage around the San Francisco Bay Area is to always capitalize Morris. I don't presume that such local usage is necessarily globally correct, but it is a data point. Georgewilliamherbert 19:49, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Here in Michigan, I always see Morris capitalized. Kestenbaum 19:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I have to amend my comment about the capitalized D: it's seen also on the Morris Ring's web site, e.g. Information about Morris Dancing. However... that page also features strange (to me) capitalizations like "the Court masques"; "Morris Sides". I think they just like capitalizing things. The same seems to be true of Open Morris (e.g. "the other two Morris Organisations"). The Morris Federation does not capitalize morris. (Or dancing, sides, or organizations.) In my experience capitalization of "morris" has little to do with geography; some people do it, some don't, and it bears more relationship to who they communicate with than where they live. Kind of like "its" versus "it's". I feel uncomfortable with capitalization, because I don't think a case can be made that it's a proper noun; and I don't think most people capitalize types (as opposed to names) of dances, e.g. flamenco, disco, swing, etc., so capitalized "Morris" seems to me inconsistent. Nevertheless, it is common -- as is uncapitalized. -- Rsholmes 21:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure it's not a proper noun? It seems to be a clear and distinct thing. It's a subset of dancing, but I think that even the articles Swing are consistently upper case, flamenco is mixing upper and lower, disco is consistently lower other than at the start of a sentence. Is there any info from the Dance article improvement project on preferred caps scheme? Georgewilliamherbert 22:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I had the exact argument over English Country Dance some years ago on Wikipedia. Some people think it's essentially a proper noun, some don't. But we all know that everyone who uses "it's" as a possessive is simply wrong ;-) Greg 04:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the first statement in this section, and note that the predominant usage in this article now is uncapitalized, and the article says, "it is not a proper noun." Since that's also good enough for the OED and Merriam-Webster.com and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary and dictionary.cambridge.org, I figure that's good enough--and about time--to warrant the change, which I've now done. I tried to retain caps where the word is part of a proper noun or title. This is also consistent with the usage in the Swing (dance) article, which treats, e.g., "West Coast Swing" as a proper noun and uses lower case for the generic usage in "Many swing dancers today..." (that article, however, does also have some inconsistencies in caps usage). Rich Janis 11:15, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Hoberdidance

I removed this:

Hoberdidance or Hobbididance was the name of a bad sprite associated with the morris dance. Its name is from Hob, an old name for the Devil.

for two reasons: first, it doesn't belong in the "styles" section, and second, it needs verification -- I've never heard of this sprite, in or not in conjunction with morris dancing. -- Rsholmes 18:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Duns Tew

Some members of the Berkeley (California) Morris, in the late Eighties when my then wife was active, danced in a synthetic composite style named arbitrarily for a village, Duns Tew, that sits between the places from whose traditions the style was derived. I don't know whether this was a Berkeley thing or what. —Tamfang 17:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

"Duns Tew" was a style invented under the direction of Tim Radford, who was then with the Adderbury Morris Men and Kirtlington Morris. I believe there was a "Duns Tew" team in England for a while, and that the style has been danced by Red Herring Morris of Boston, MA among others. I don't see this as a particularly necessary thing to mention in the article, though. Rsholmes 20:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

My understanding was that Tim Radford introduced it in a series of workshops he taught at Sidmouth. His topic was similarities and differences between traditions, and to illustrate this he concocted a tradition with elements of Adderbury, Bucknell and Kirtlington. Duns Tew is roughly in the centre of the triangle formed by these three, and apparently there is a record that there was dancing at Duns Tew, so he applied the name. This must have been about 1987 or 88 I guess. Quite a number of Open Morris sides dabbled in it for a bit, and Tony Forster set up Yaxley Morris to dance solely Duns Tew. ColinFine 23:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Just to further flog a deceased equine. . . I was on Red Herring (when it was Lemon and Capers) and learned Duns Tew as my first morris tradition from Rebecca Jordan. To date, I know of a number of teams (Goat Hill Morris in San Francisco and Squash Beetle in Lexington KY, as well as Red Herring) who dance it in the states. Zero sharp 23:26, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, we're down to flaying the poor late quadruped, but my recollection is that it was created as part of the workshop process. There is a record of dancing at Duns Tew, but no record of what it looked like. Accordingly, Mr. Radford and his workshop participants decided to construct something by drawing from the three named traditions that surround the village.

Of the styles/traditions I've danced (Lemon&Capers-style style Bampton, Duns Tew, and Border), I think I liked it the best, although Border comes a close second.

/morethananyonecaresabout

(off to ponder who zerosharp might be

Septegram 20:36, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Added link to Duns Tew information Septegram 20:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Căluşari etc.

I've removed this:

A possibly related dance is also practised in Barcelona, Spain, where it is performed by girls or women.

The traditional Căluşari dance of Romania resembles morris in many ways [1] and some believe that the Romanian dance is the ultimate origin of the Morris Dance, brought from Dacia to western Europe via the Celts or the Goths[2]. The etymology could also be explained in this way: the root word is the Romanian word "morişcă", which means "little mill", and it refers to the circular movements of the dance. It was then corrupted into Morisque, Morrisk, Moriscas, Morris.

Reasons: (1) There are numerous dances from many places that share some features with some types of morris. In few if any cases are there any known connections with morris. If this subject is to be addressed, it ought to be addressed more completely. Furthermore, it is peripheral to an understanding of morris so does not belong in the first few paragraphs of this article. (2) There is a lot of speculation and little verification here, and in the linked discussion. Who are these "some" who believe Căluşari is ancestral to morris? Is there any historical evidence for it? Is there any basis for the stated etymology? Has Căluşari historically been referred to as "morişcă"? Note by the way the claim that Căluşari and morris have a point of similarity in the use of staves/sticks is spurious, since for the first ~300 years of recorded morris history in England there is no mention of stick dances -- sticks seem to have been adopted somewhere around the turn of the 18th century. -- Rsholmes 17:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Hooray. I've been unhappy about this stuff being in the article since I first read it, but I never felt bold enough to remove it myself. ColinFine 23:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I am surprised that in all these references to the origins of these dances there are no remarks concerning their essentially Arab origins.The fact is that both these dances and music -with the neccessary Arab instruments the drum and tambour etc were brought back from Palestine and other Arab-Moorish places by the Crusaders. All the dances of the entire area of Rumania Turkey Greece Israel and elsewhere are essentially the same while the Arab music survives in Irish Scottish and other wrongly called Celtic musical forms (the Celtic culture having long been superceeded when they arrived in Europe.

I have watched in North Africa identical dances to Morris dances.These use sticks - and I dispute the idea that sticks were not used from the beginning as the dances represent a ritualised form of aggression- the original Bedouin dances begin with a jug of water being placed on the ground and the two sides then approach -it being a ritualistic "fight" over this jug

It is sad that the interesting Arab origins of wrongly called Celtic folk music and English Morris dancing are not clearly presented - though of course the Arab connection is not very fashionable at the present time - unsigned Anon

[Please sign your posts with four tildes ~~~~]

If you have reputable published sources for these claims, please present them, and the matter can be debated. If not, your claims have no place in Wikipedia.

It must be admitted that much of the Morris dance article suffers from lack of sources (and I myself perpetrated some of it before I understood the pillars of Wikipedia - but I haven't got suitable references to add).

But your claim is highly unorthodox, and requires an unusual level of support. --ColinFine 16:05, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably because it is not Arab in origin, at least not exclusively. Think of how European, African and Middle-Eastern cultures blended in Sicily during Dark Ages period of the Middle Ages, each adding their portion to music, dance, et al. It's more than probable that these blended influence made its way to Italy, and the rest is history, as the article relates.50.111.41.216 (talk) 19:08, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Terminology

For the section at the bottom: I've heard the terms "side" and "team" used not quite interchangeably - a "team" is a group of dancers that practices and tours together, and may be any number, while a "side" is a particular number (usually six, at least in Cotswald Morris) that gets up to do a dance. I'll look for any references and if there's no further discussion soon I'll edit this.Phaither 00:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Though now I notice that a similar note is made in the entry below ('set' and 'side') Hmm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phaither (talk • contribs)

While the usage may not be universal, I think it is not at all uncommon for people to use "side" in both senses. I believe "side" is used as a synonym for, and in preference to, "team" more often in England than in the US. Google for "morris side" for numerous examples. By the way, it's "Cotswold". Oh, and I guess "Cotswold morris" needs to be added to that page! -- Rsholmes 01:10, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Morris Festivals - Contemporary forms

I have added a link to my video of Morris at the Sweeps festival 1997. Should there be a section on Festivals of Morris dancing like the Sweeps? Szczels 14:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Pauliteiros de Miranda

Hey there. Do you know that something resembling morris dancing to the point where coincidence is quite implausible occurs in Miranda do Douro in Portugal? It's called Pauliteiros

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=czBkkTuA1dM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.22.78.249 (talk) 00:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

It's uncannily similar:

"Pauliteiros are the practitioners of war dance characteristic of the Land of Miranda , called the dance of the sticks , representative of local historical moments accompanied with the sounds of the harmonica, dulcimer , drum and box and also has the distinction of being danced by eight men ( more recently also danced by women) who wear skirt and embroidered linen shirt, a vest, brown leather boots, socks, wool and hat can be decorated with flowers and finally by two sticks (palos) with which these dancers are a series of different steps and coordinated movements."

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauliteiros_de_Miranda

217.43.154.238 (talk) 14:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

From Ritual to Romance

Someone just added a link to the Project Gutenberg version of this book. I suggest removing this link. This book is extremely outdated, presenting a theory of morris dancing that is now thoroughly discredited; and (unlike e.g. Sharp's Morris Book) is not a significant enough contribution to the morris literature to merit mention. -- Rsholmes 03:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Verifiable?

What's a source for verification of the statement

While all styles are danced today by male, female, and mixed sides, the majority of female sides appear to dance North West dances.

(Also, "appear to dance North West dances" is perhaps not the most felicitous choice of phrasing!) -- Rsholmes 02:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Not at all sure that I agree with that one - just thinking through the local female sides in this neck of the woods; of the ones that I can think of off the top of my head, I'd say that, if anything, there are slightly more Border teams than any other style. --Tailkinker 07:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem of course is that one's neck of the woods may not be -- or may not not be, if you follow me -- representative of the morris world as a whole. I suspect, for instance, the style/sex statistics are quite different for the UK, the eastern US, and the western US, for instance. So a statement like the above needs to be based upon either a global consensus of personal observations, or on surveys of teams worldwide. I don't know that either is available; but perhaps I'm overlooking something. -- Rsholmes 13:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

You're right. I was generalising from local experience - all the female sides I can think of in W Yorks are NW sides. (I did have a look whether I could find anything to back it up, but without success). It was a reaction to the previous change about women performing NW in dresses or skirts: I thought the previous addition was inappropriate, but wanted to find something to replace it with rather than just revert it. I've now removed the offending sentence, and just added a general statement about sex in the introduction.

I'd like to see a section about costume, including the correlations with style and sex (eg Cotswold mainly in either white trousers or dark britches, even for many female Cotswold dancers, whereas most female NW sides in my experience wear skirts or dresses), but I don't know if there are enough references for it. ColinFine 18:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The article has too much of a bias towards Cotswold Morris for my liking. The North West tradition is very different, and has always featured mixed and female sides - at least as far back as the eighteenth century. There is a picture of Eccles Wakes, painted in the 1820s by the style of dress of some of the participants and spectators, that clearly shows both male and female dancers.

In Lancashire, the tradition was taken up by sides associated with mills and nonconformist chapels, usually composed of young girls. These lasted until the Great War, after which many mutated into 'jazz dancers'. (You can see a Bolton troop in one of Humphrey Jennings's pre-war documentaries.) They later evolved into 'pom pom' dancers (still called 'morris dancers' by older people). During the folk revival in the 1960s, many of the old steps to dances such as 'Stubbins Lane Garland' were often passed on by old ladies in their seventies! --193.60.165.65 16:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, please go ahead and redress that balance. The material I've contributed to the article has mostly been on Cotswold, because that's what I know. ColinFine 22:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Fluffy/Carnival morris

Hi, there are some mistakes (in terminology really) over the developments of traditional Northwest Morris into what gets called here "Pom Pom dancing" (erroneously).

These teams are often described as "Fluffy Morris" a term that seems to be accepted by some, but disliked by others. Another common term is "Carnival Morris". They took up the use of pom poms in their kit, but I have never heard or seen an instance of them describing themselves as "Pom Pom Dancers". The term is quite definately "Morris Dancers". A brief trawl around the web would quickly confirm this. It is not confined to a few older people; "Morris" is a term invariably used to describe the tradition.

The term "Pom Pom dancers" would seem to be a term used to describe American style cheerleader dancers at sports events etc. This is probably where Morris Dancers "borrowed" their pom poms from.

Try these web pages:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Performing_Arts/Dance/Morris_Dancing/Carnival/

http://www.morrisdancers.net/troups.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/nemdco/

Be prepared for some websites as colourful (!) as their dance costumes though :-)

Ecadre 01:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

It's been a while, and I'm now back to change the details here. I'm going to change the wording to reflect the fact that these Morris teams still overwhelmingly refer to what they do as Morris Dancing (not pom pom) Ecadre (talk) 21:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Verifiable (more generally)

I'm pleased to see Train guard's addition about North west, but it exacerbates a problem we already have: the article is full of unsupported statements. I started putting {{fact}} tags on the new material, but realised there would be loads of them; then I contemplated putting a {{references}} tag on the whole article, but the problem is not that it doesn't cite any sources, but that it contains so many claims that are not supported: some of them are doubtless verified in some of the works cited, but there aren't particular references; others, I'm sure, are supported in none of the references. I was thinking of this in particular for some remarks in the new North West material (eg the picture of the Eccles Wakes, the uniqueness of the Britannia's, and the 'It is said' about the role of Cornishmen).

This is not just in the new section: I have perpetrated plenty of stuff in this article from my own knowledge; but as it stands this is really not an article of any sort of Wikipedia standard.

Anybody got any suggestions how we can turn it into a good article? Or is it in fact that much of the stuff we want to say in it actually unverifiable? I don't know.

--ColinFine 23:10, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Northwest Morris and clogs

It states in the article that Northwest Morris was always danced in clogs. This is NOT true. See this study for more details:

http://www.crimple.demon.co.uk/clogshoe.htm

Ecadre 02:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Edited this in AJ Letson (talk) 17:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the article to make this point clearer and to change the statement that "The dancers originally wore clogs".

The citation, the article and research I mentioned, however, demonstrates precisely the opposite of the statement in the article. ie. most historical teams did not wear clogs (though many did) and there has been a tendency in revival teams (ie. newer teams) to wear clogs.

I've changed the wording accordingly. Ecadre (talk) 21:05, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Corrections

Changed the name "Royal Britannia Cocoanutters" to the correct name "Britannia Coco-nut Dancers". See http://www.coconutters.co.uk/ Ecadre 02:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Necessity of a Discography?

How accurate can a discography on a type of dance be? We don't have a discography for ballet, rhumba, or disco, so why for morris dancing? Bifgis 04:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Because music specifically for morris dancing is not in great supply. Ballet music is a well-recorded subset of the classical repertoire. Rumba and disco grew out of commercial pop music. Additionally, because specific dances are danced to specific tunes (unlike most modern popular dances like rumba or disco), a rescurce to find recorded versions of particular tunes is valuable. As a traditional genre, source recordings tend to be obscure. That said, the discography here is pretty pitiful... come on folka!--Natcase 05:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the discography is inappropriate. It only gives titles, so is not even especially useful for finding the music. Id imagine that there are Morris sites with more complete, accurate and useful lists. Ive marked this article on my watchlist to look at cleaning it up. I will remove the discography at that time (unless someone removes it before then or can say why it should be kept). Metao 04:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the discography is fairly useless. Perhaps if there were a separate article on morris music (and why not?) some mention of some of the most important recordings would be appropriate, but inevitably these things degenerate into midden heaps of every recording ever made. -- Rsholmes 14:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

For Cotswold there's a useful resource at http://www.themorrisring.org/more/Tunes/index.html and also at http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/morris/music/abclib.html -- Alec.brady 12:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Morrison (surname)

I have been told that the surname Morrison comes from morris dancing - people would go into towns to participate or observe, and some of the girls would come home pregnant. Boys conceived during this time were called "morris sons" - "Morrison". The man who told me this has the surname Morrison, and is also something of a linguist, so I think that he is correct, although I really don't know for sure. If anyone can verify this, I think it would be quite interesting to include somewhere.

It's fascinating how what some writers call etymythology always ignores the perfectly obvious explanation and chooses a far-fetched but romantic one. I don't actually know that the story is a fantasy, but I would lay money that it is - because 'Morris' is a perfectly ordinary name!

In the absence of strong documentary evidence I would say 'Morrison' means 'son of (somebody called) Morris.

Men and Women (again)

I've partly backed out 81.137.115.100's changes about male and female sides, and the arguments over them. Partly, I've removed the statement that the arguments 'still continues somewhat today', because in my experience it doesn't. (Since the statement, like most of the article, is unsourced, it may come down to different people's experience anyway). Secondly, I've removed the statement that 'the overwhelming majority of sides [remain] traditionally all-male'. This also doesn't coincide with my experience, and here I have something to back it up. I did a quick count on a couple of counties on http://morrisdancing.wikia.com/wiki/Morris_teams_in_United_Kingdom, and got

County	Male	Female	Both	I'm not sure
W. Yorks	7	5	6	2
E. Sussex	4	5	3	1

Of course it's possible that these are, by coincidence, unrepresentative, and elsewhere there really is an 'overwhelming majority' of male sides. But I rather doubt it. I picked W Yorkshire because I know most of the sides there, but I picked E Sussex at random (and had to look at their websites to find out the sex of most of the sides there). --ColinFine 19:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

>>>> I have deleted the line stating that before the 1970'morris was just a male thing. More than a bit controversial and not reflecting the true position at the beginning of the 1900’s. I intend to add a little with respect of the teaching work done by Mary Neal and Florrie Warren especially in the counties of the UK and their influence on USA thinking.

I would also like to add some comment (with out being too controversial) on the determined opposition to women dancing that the Ring maintained right into the 1980’s – or do we think it is still to soon for this story to be told???? --John Lewis 12:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)siweljohn 7th April 2007

I certainly heard from enough people about the Ring not 'allowing' or

endorsing' women dancing morris when I first started out in the mid 90s,

but it was just anecdotal. If it were to be included in this article, it

would need to be well sourced (like a statement from the Ring itself if one

can be found). I do think that, if sourced and verified, it is notable and

should be mentioned in the article.

Zero sharp 19:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

With repect of the Ring and woman dancing before the mid 1980's I will do a little research to see if a nutral addition can be appropriatly made with references. --John Lewis 17:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

video?

I inadvertently deleted a video of Morris dance from my camera. Can anybody provide such for Wikipedia? Cheers. – Kaihsu 15:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I've uploaded several to YouTube, if that's of any use. Can be found here (men dancing), here (women dancing) or here (a mixed dance). --Tailkinker 16:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I still have the original footage as well, if YouTube isn't of much use. --Tailkinker 16:02, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like Wikimedia Commons to have videos licensed under a Creative Commons licence or GFDL (or even public domain). Cheers. – Kaihsu 16:09, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

And how is that achieved? --Tailkinker 17:15, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Someone who owns a video can upload it there, following instructions. – Kaihsu 18:24, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Does having uploaded it to YouTube prevent me from uploading it there as well? --Tailkinker 19:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If you do own the copyright for the video, I don't think having uploaded it to YouTube prevents you from uploading the same to Wikimedia Commons. – Kaihsu 09:54, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I have now added a video. – Kaihsu (talk) 13:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Introductory paragraphs

I'm reluctant to steam in and alter anything - I've only just signed up here - but I thought I'd raise these points/observations.

1. As far as I know, the only Morris dance involving tobacco pipes is Bacca Pipes which involves dancing over the pipes rather than "wielding them" as "implements". If that is actually the case (hopefully someone here can confirm or deny it) that sentence will need revising.

2. "There are claimed to be English records mentioning the morris dance dating back to 1448, but these are open to dispute."

The records being referred to here are I assume these:

1. Item to the Moryssh dancers (from the accounts of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (London) 1448.

2. An inventory of Caistor Castle in Norfolk dated 13th of October 1448 describing a tapestry that depicts a "Morysk" dance.

Both of which are mentioned in the postscript to John Cuttings 2005 book History And The Morris Dance. How far open to dispute these references are is itself debatable. The variant spellings of Morris/Moresco/Moorish would, if this is purely a case of uncertainty over the words, render most of the early references to Morris similarly debatable.

Prior to their discovery, the earliest reference was believed to be found in a will from 1458 (describing silver cups decorated with "moreys dauncie"). This still makes the assertion that there are no references to Morris before the "late fifteenth century" unsatisfactory. Perhaps "mid" might replace "late"?

The way that the paragraph on the Moresco dances reads in light of the above seems to suggest that Morris began in Spain in 1492 - some 40 odd years after it had been recorded in England. That might need looking at!

There is also a theory (proposed by Cutting and quite persuasive given the variety of activities covered by the term in Spain, Portugal, and England) that Moresco/Morisco itself was merely a colloquialism imported to England meaning "traditional" and applied to already existing dance forms and activities (such as mumming) rather than a specific dance. Given the uncertainty of the origins of Morris it might be prudent to offer this theory - alongside any other alternative theory - alongside the "Moorish dancing" theory. Emperor Of Lancashire 15:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The same kind of dances appear in Portugal:

• [3]
• [4]
• [5]

In Galicia and Cataluña, in Spain, there are similar dances. ( About the dances having some connection with the moors we need to know what kind of moors. In Portugal there are two kind of moors (mouro), the ones from north Africa and a magic people of pre-roman origin. The magic moors built the ancient burial monuments, the dolmens and standing stones in Portugal (probably from celtic *marwo (dead)) and have castles under the earth. The ladies have long golden hair (some have black hair like the night),transform into snakes, are guardians of lakes treasures and fountains and some live inside stones. The dolmens are called house of the lady moor. Some look like very small ants ( celtic *morwi). They are considered ancient pre-Roman gods or goddesses (celt or iberian). In the UK the Maol Mor Stone Circle,Clach Mhor,Muirheadston,Stanton Moor Cairns, also got nothing to do with the moors from N. Africa. ) There is an international festival [6] [7]

News article on morris dancing

Just saw this news article about morris dancing and thought I would pass it on to folks here. Use it as you see fit. -- Low Sea (talk) 12:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Cheesing

I have removed the following very amusing para on the assumption that it's a joke!
This variation on the classical theme involves the participants chasing barrels of cheese as they run, often a fine brie, due to it's weight and consistency. It was perfected in World War I, when poor villagers would chase rats in cheese, whilst they were participating in Morris dancing. They continued to do it after rationing ended and remained popular right into the late 1980's, where they would instead chase car tires. The traditional regalia was a green 'Hulk' suit, due to the fact that the cheesing goes late into the night and participants must be able to see each other clearly. Although the popularity has declined in recent years, Cheesing remains a well loved and classic variation of Morris dancing that will forever be remembered as unique and enjoyable.
Adrian Pingstone (talk) 17:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

External Links Section

What shall be the criteria for including links to specific sides' sites in the 'External Links' section? Please note, I am not (yet) objecting to the in/ex-clusion of any particular side so far, but absent any guideline [above and beyond 'notability' -- but how shall that apply here?] there seems to be nothing to stop it becoming a directory of all Morris sides in the known Universe. Zero sharp (talk) 14:27, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I quite agree, and was going to raise this very same concern after seeing two more links were added recently. I am in no position---either geographically or in terms of knowledge---to say which sides are notable and which are not, but surely some standard must exist by which to make such a judgment. Otherwise, as Zero sharp has quite correctly stated, the external links section runs the risk of "becoming a directory" of all the sides in existence. This cannot be allowed to occur. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 23:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I previously added a new section for Morris Dancing in Popular Culture, however it has since been deleted. I can't recall the reasoning for why it was deleted, but I cited it being noted in the 2nd and 6th episode in the first Blackadder series, as well as it being a central theme to the Men Without Hats music video, "Safety Dance"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7movKfyTBII
Christopher, Salem, OR (talk) 06:26, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Border section

In the pursuit of balance I would look to amend this section. Shropshire Bedlams were both the innovators and leaders of the border resurgence in the late 1970's and should be recognized as such. I have never heard the term "neo-border" used has anyone else? Unless a forthcoming authoritative reference is produced I will amend. John Lewis (talk) 19:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC) Further to my comment above I have deleated the term neo-border John Lewis (talk) 21:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Baile de bastones

It might be an idea to link to the Spanish Wikipedia article http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baile_de_bastones. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.46.108.163 (talk) 23:50, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

New article on Morris Dancing

I just added a page on Icknield Way Morris Men, it'd be great if the Morris experts here could review it and improve the page :-). Thanks, Iamleeg (talk) 08:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Molly dancing

The largest Molly Dance event is the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, established in 1980, held at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire in January. 1980? I think not. It was revived in Whittlesey in 1980 having died out some time in the early 20th century. --Ef80 (talk) 00:30, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

File:MorrisDance.ogg Nominated for Deletion

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External links modified

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External links modified (February 2018)

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Proposed merge of Joint Morris Organisation into Morris dance

not enough sourcing for the JMO as a standalone article - makes better sense in the context of UK morris dance organisation. Ingratis (talk) 14:10, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Ingratis, support. From a brief Google search, there does appear to be some coverage, so perhaps it'll be ready for its own page someday, but for now it's better to redirect it here and build up this page. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:14, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 10:02, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

See also link to blackface

@Sdkb:, please have a read of the lead to blackface and also the section Blackface#United_Kingdom (and for that matter note that WP:BRD only has one "R" in it). The lead states that: "The term is also used in reference to black makeup which is worn as part of folk traditions and disguising, not all of which [emphasis added] are perceived as or originated as racial stereotypes of black people" which I would suggest makes it clear the subject is not simple. Turning now to the detailed section:

• § 50.21.1 ¶1 – Refers to blacking one's face as a disguise for poaching.
• § 50.21.1 ¶2 – Disguising for rioting.
• § 50.21.2 ¶1 – OK, here is a racial steroetype, a Turkish slaver. In the current climate I doubt that many would object to a slave-taker, slave-trader and slave-master being portrayed in a bad light by the descendants of his victims.
• § 50.21.2 ¶2 – Mentions a spurious controversy.
• § 50.21.2 ¶3 – Disguised dancers and mischief makers.
• § 50.21.2 ¶4 – Coal miners have black faces (hint: coal is dusty and black).
• § 50.21.2 ¶5 – Ancient (at least 1500 years old) pagan festival, with it is to be noted a 19C corruption, now expunged.
• § 50.21.2 ¶6 – If you climb up inside sooty chimneys you end up covered in soot.
• § 50.21.2 ¶7 – Medway Sweeps Festival, see preceding.
• § 50.21.2 ¶8 – OK, here at last is a genuine example of "targeted racialized practice", but it was abandoned three years ago, well before the current protests.
• § 50.21.2 ¶9 – Insensitive political correctness.

So, I make that 3 cases of disguise, 3 cases of blackening due to the nature of labour, 1 case of oppression remembered, 1 case of ancient tradition historical unrelated to race (but with added overtones expunged). That leaves one solitary case of racial stereotyping, since discontinued. To describe this collection as "targeted racialized practice" is frankly laughable. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 06:57, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the lead of blackface, it begins Blackface is a term which is used to describe a form of theatrical make-up which is predominantly used by non-black performers in order to represent a caricature of a black person. It's only after that, in a also used in reference to mention, that we come to the part you quoted. I still just don't think there's enough of a connection between morris and blackface for it to be a useful see also link, and the fact that it's already discussed and wikilinked in the body is a further argument against a see also link. Additionally, I think the discussion of black face paint in this article is probably given WP:UNDUE weight as is—it shows up more because it's a fiery controversy that's been covered in the media, but it's not actually a huge aspect of the morris tradition. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:07, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

You're quite wrong. Stand in the street and watch a large morris/folk festival and a significant minority of the sides are blacked. There was an attempt a few years ago by Medway Council to ban blackface using the same faulty logic you propose, but fortunately facts and tradition won out. Yes, the situation is "fiery" at the moment as you put it, but that is all the more reason to step back and check facts, not rush on deleting anything not conforming to the fashion of the moment. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 07:22, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Good source

The New York Times just ran a feature about morris dancing, which would be a high-quality source if anyone is looking to improve/expand this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/arts/dance/morris-dancing-english-folk-tradition.html

Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:29, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Styles

Currently the section on styles is rather confusing: it begins by telling readers that there are "six predominant styles", and then lists eight (Cotswold Morris, Northwest Morris, Border Morris, Yorkshire longsword, Rapper, Molly, Ploughstots, "a similar plough monday tradition from the east midlands"). But in the main text of the section, it only discusses five styles, lumping rapper and longsword togther into a broader sword dancing tradition, adding mumming, and discussing molly dancing and ploughstots (but not the east midland plough monday traditions) alongside Stave dancing, the Nantgarw dance tradition, and the Abbots Bromley horn dance in a section on "other traditions". So how many, and which, are the predominant styles, and how should they be organised?

My feeling (based on my own exposure to folk dance traditions rather than backed by any reliable source) is that the current predominant styles are Cotswold, Northwest, and Border Morris, Longsword, Rapper, and Molly. I don't know enough about the sword dancing traditions to have a strong view on whether they are usefully grouped together as something like "northern sword dance traditions" or treated separately, but my impression is that they are generally considered separate. The other plough Monday traditions are as far as I know not currently "predominant styles" and could either be treated in a discussion of "other traditions", or mentioned as alternative plough Monday traditions in a discussion of Molly dancing. (And mumming I would not consider a form of Morris so much as a related tradition which is often performed by morris dancers and/or incorporates morris dance; again I do not see that it should get its own subsection as one of the "predominant styles of morris dancing")

Any other thoughts? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:25, 8 May 2024 (UTC)