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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
Not being very high on copyright, even within Wikipedia, are the pictures and their copyright notice canon? --Anders Törlind
Also On 2 Jan 2006, User:82.44.68.11 added the following paragraph:
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. See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability.2C_not_truth-- ColinFine 22:35, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
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 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)
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)
I removed this:
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)
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)
Added link to Duns Tew information Septegram 20:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I've removed this:
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
What's a source for verification of the statement
(Also, "appear to dance North West dances" is perhaps not the most felicitous choice of phrasing!) -- Rsholmes 02:21, 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
In the absence of strong documentary evidence I would say 'Morrison' means 'son of (somebody called) Morris.
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
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)
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 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)
Someone who owns a video can upload it there, following instructions. – Kaihsu 18:24, 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'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:
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]
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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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)
@ 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:
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)
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 tomention, 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)
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
The contents of the Joint Morris Organisation page were merged into Morris dance on 21 February 2021. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
Not being very high on copyright, even within Wikipedia, are the pictures and their copyright notice canon? --Anders Törlind
Also On 2 Jan 2006, User:82.44.68.11 added the following paragraph:
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. See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability.2C_not_truth-- ColinFine 22:35, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
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 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)
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)
I removed this:
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)
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)
Added link to Duns Tew information Septegram 20:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I've removed this:
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
What's a source for verification of the statement
(Also, "appear to dance North West dances" is perhaps not the most felicitous choice of phrasing!) -- Rsholmes 02:21, 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
In the absence of strong documentary evidence I would say 'Morrison' means 'son of (somebody called) Morris.
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
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)
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 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)
Someone who owns a video can upload it there, following instructions. – Kaihsu 18:24, 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'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:
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]
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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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)
@ 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:
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)
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 tomention, 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)
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