Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regents Park Road, London NW1 7AY, 25-26 March 2017
Morris dance has been an enduring feature of British culture for more than six centuries. The Histories of the Morris in Britain was a two-day conference held at Cecil Sharp House on the 25th and 26th March 2017, organised by the Historical Dance Society and the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
The full proceedings or individual papers can be download free of charge from The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Edited by Michael Heaney, papers cover the latest in morris dance research and are an invaluable addition to our understanding of this enduring feature of British culture. Topics ranged from the early days of morris dance as found in the Jacobean court, to revival and formation of women’s sides, alongside explorations of context, costume, and competing art forms.
The History of History
John Forrest – How to read The History of Morris Dancing
Anne Daye – Morris and Masque at the Jacobean Court
Jennifer Thorp – Rank Outsider or Outsider of Rank: Mr Isaac’s Dance ‘The Morris’
Jameson Wooders – ‘Time to Ring Some Changes’: Bell Ringing and the Decline of Morris Dancing in the Earlier Eighteenth Century
Michael Heaney – Morris Dancers in the Political and Civil Process
Peter Bearon – Coconut Dances in Lancashire, Mallorca, Provence and on the Nineteenth-Century Stage
The Early Revival
Katie Palmer Heathman – ‘I Ring for the General Dance’: Morris and Englishness in the Work of Conrad Noel
Matt Simons – ‘Pilgrimages to Holy Places’: the Travelling Morrice, 1924-1939
Roy Fenton – ‘Destruction not Inscription’: How a Pioneering Revival Side Developed
Elaine Bradtke – Morris Tunes Collected by James Madison Carpenter
The Later Revival
Sue Allan – Merrie England, May Day and More: Morris Dances in Cumbria in the Early Twentieth Century
Derek Schofield – A Different Sort of Revival: The Life and Times on the Manley Morris Dancers
Sean Goddard and Ed Bassford – Consequences of Bringing North-west Morris to the South-east of England: The Chanetonbury Ring Effect
Robert Dunlop – Morris Dancing at Kirtlington Lamb Ale: Heyday, Decline and Revival
Women in Morris
Sally Wearing – What to Dance? What to Wear? The Repertoire and Costume of Morris Women in the 1970s
Val Parker – The Women’s Morris Federation – from Start to Finish
Lucy Wright – This Girl Can Morris Dance: Girls’ Carnival Morris Dancing and the Politics of Participation
Material Culture
Chloe Metcalfe – Why do Morris Dancers Wear White?
David Petts – Materializing Morris Dancing: Tangible Aspects of an Intangible Heritage