It’s not strictly relevant, but it is interesting – here’s a colour film of London from 1927.
https://vimeo.com/7638752
Unicorns
Unicorns are a topic close to our hearts, and news this week surfaced of an exhibition in New York featuring 16th century tapestry, “The Hunt of the Unicorn”. From the article in The Economist:
The most moving work on view is “The Unicorn in Captivity”, a tapestry from the Rockefeller series. A unicorn rests inside a wooden enclosure. Thousands of flowers cover the ground. A gold chain links his collar to the trunk of a pomegranate tree (a symbol of fertility). Red juice drips onto the unicorn’s pure white coat. The wild creature has surrendered himself to love. This is a sensual and tender image. The remaining tapestries, in a room nearby, tell a different story—about aggression, betrayal and death.
Though our Unicorn is the last left alive, people will recognise the ancestral behavioural themes: love, aggression, and resting. Not so much on the pomegranates latterly, but a link’s a link.
Another article in The Times reminds us, for those who maybe can’t make it over to New York, that replica tapestries created by weavers for West Dean are to be found in Stirling Castle.
Further interesting Unicorn information can be found on the BBC’s Listen Again website from the “In Our Time” programme with Melvyn Bragg.
Gloucestershire Tour Information
Please find attached the details and arrangements for this year’s Gloucestershire Tour, with many thanks to Robin for all his chasing around. In response to feedback, this year’s accommodation arrangements are different and similar to the Cotswolds. Indoor camping will be in the Scout Hut in Minchinhampton which is 5-10 minutes’ walk from The Crown. There is a kitchen where we will make some breakfast and we have the luxury of indoor toilets! The Scout Hut address is: Minchinhampton Scout Hut, Doctor Brown’s Road, Minchinhampton, Glos. GL6 9DD. I hope that’s more amenable to everyone.
We’re a little tight on numbers this year so I’ve cut one pub from the Saturday tour which means, I’m afraid, that there might be some more time sitting in the pub drinking beer/singing/playing etc. Our apologies for that.
If anyone else fancies adding themselves to the list for the weekend, please don’t hesitate to shout!
Click below to download tour programme:
[wpdm_file id=2]
Diamond Jubilee for us too!
2013 sees the 60th anniversary of the first performance of the Westminster Morris Men – we first danced out in public on the Queen’s Coronation Day, and we thought that if Her Majesty is allowed to celebrate her impressive milestone then perhaps we should also.
Our budget didn’t stretch to a floating carnival on the Thames – however we recently held our annual Day of Dance, celebrating 60 years of dancing in London. We were very happy to be joined by guest teams from around England, who danced with us in Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, and all around Westminster in the sunshine for the enjoyment of locals and visitors alike.
This year we have a busy & varied programme – featuring tours of the “historical buildings” of old favourite London areas such as Belgravia, Baker Street and Clerkenwell, and introducing a few trips out to places we haven’t explored so much, like Clapham and Richmond. Further afield, we’ve visited our friends in Thaxted, danced at the Oxford Folk Weekend. Later in the year we’ll be in Gloucestershire & Chichester and in July we’re off on our annual pilgrimage to The Cotswolds.
In the autumn, to mark the 60th year of the team we’re holding a dinner for friends, our families, and members past & present.
If anybody has any photos, stories, or memories of Westminster that you’d like to share with us, please get in touch!
Great video from the 2013 Day of Dance!
That’s another marvellous Day of Dance in the bag – and we thought we should share this great video made by an audient of the show, featuring the lunchtime massed performance in Trafalgar Square.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAB6THh6RUc
Many thanks to krasnapolski2000 !
Mayor of London: A Bagman’s Tale
On the eve of the 2013 Westminster Day of Dance, our indefatigable bagman Lewis Elliot was interviewed for the London City Hall blog:
http://www.london.gov.uk/city-hall/city-hall-blog/2013/05/a-bagmans-tale-of-morris-dancing-in-london
Our event was also featured in their calendar:
http://www.london.gov.uk/get-involved/events/westminster-morris-men
2013 Day of Dance Programme
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Westminster 60th Anniversary Day of Dance 18 May 2013 |
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TOUR 1 |
TOUR 2 |
TOUR 3 |
TOUR 4 |
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Monkseaton |
Westminster 1 |
Greensleeves |
Chester |
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Ripon City |
Winchester |
Westminster 2 |
East Suffolk |
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HQMD |
Ravensbourne |
Thaxted |
Jockey |
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10:15-11:00: Westminster Cathedral |
10:15-11:00 Victoria Embankment Steps |
10:15-11:00: Tate Britain |
10:15-11:00: St Margaret’s Church |
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11:15-12:00: St James’ Park Bandstand |
11:15-12:00: St Margaret’s Church |
11:15-12:00 Westminster Arms |
11:15-12:00 Victoria Embankment Steps |
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12:15 – 13:00: TrafalgarSquareMassedDance |
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*L*U*N*C*H*B*R*E*A* K* |
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TOUR 1 |
TOUR 2 |
TOUR 3 |
TOUR 4 |
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Jockey |
Thaxted |
Chester |
Monkseaton |
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Ripon City |
Winchester |
HQMD |
Greensleeves |
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Ravensbourne |
East Suffolk |
Westminster 2 |
Westminster 1 |
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14:15-15:00: Westminster Arms |
14:15-15:00: StJames’ Park Bandstand |
14:15-15:00: Duke Of York Steps |
14:15-15:00: Trafalgar Square |
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15:15-16:00: Trafalgar Square |
15:15-16:00: Adelaide Street |
15:15-16:00: China Town |
15:15-16:00: Duke Of York Steps |
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*T*E*A*B*R*E*A*K* |
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17:00 – 18:00: TrafalgarSquareMassedDance |
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Team Dancing Spreadsheet
Keeping track of who’s going to be dancing at what is managed by a shared Google Spreadsheet.
You can access it by using the following link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap36Z4EAJF-8cHBtRHhOMDR5MzlvRFo0eEJqSGRwSnc&usp=sharing
Westminster Morris on YouTube
If you’d like to see us dance, why not have a look at some of the videos from our Youtube Channel.
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What’s Morris Dancing?
Morris Dancing is a traditional English dance, with different varieties across the country. Westminster Morris perform dances from the Cotswolds region, which crosses Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, and a few other areas. Once performed by the men in the villages, the dances were specific to a particular town. As such, the dance traditions are named for the village they come from, for example Longborough, Adderbury, Brackley, Bampton, Headington Quarry, Sherborne, and soforth. Each tradition has distinctive movements and figures, although the overall structure and shape of dances are very similar.
Cotswold morris is not the only style of dancing referred to as morris dancing – the term is broadly applied also to the North West Clog style dances, the longsword and “rapper” sword dances from the North East, and the rambunctious dances from the Welsh Borders.
Origin
The exact origin of morris dancing remains shrouded in mystery – the earliest records found date from the rule of Henry VI in the 15th century, however it is believed that the dance predates these written accounts. Some believe it to be a harvest dance, others claim it is a fertility rite. Some say morris dancing is simply a custom or folk dance.
Revival & popularisation
Very much a localised tradition, morris dancing was seldom heard of or seen outside of the village where it was performed. During the late 1800s with the coming of industrialisation the dances were thought to be disappearing, so in keeping with the mood of cultural preservation at the time, “collectors” went out into the villages to note down the dances and songs so that they might endure. Most enthusiastic of these was Cecil Sharp, who had his first encounter with morris dancing during the Christmas of 1899 in the village of Headington Quarry, near Oxford.
In 1907 Sharp published a book of the dances he had collected, and in 1911 a society was formed to celebrate and protect this part of cultural heritage – in present day this is known as the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
Some morris dancing sides that exist today have traceable lineage back to the Traditional village teams of the 1800s.
Folk revival
In the 1950s and 1960s the UK saw a great takeoff of interest in its folk customs, and many new teams were formed – bolstering the numbers after the loss of many dancers during the two wars.
Present day
At the turn of the millenium there were over 800 morris dancing clubs in the UK, and as people travel so too does the custom: there are also sides in Europe, Australia, the USA, New Zealand, and more besides.
In the UK there are 3 supervising bodies representing morris dancing – Westminster Morris are members of The Morris Ring, which is the federation of mens’ morris dancing clubs (no longer exclusively male!). The Morris Federation and the Open Morris represent womens’ teams and mixed teams, and the three organisations work together to promote and preserve the dance form.
Further information
This page is by no means exhaustive: there are many more in-depth resources on the web. Some useful starting points are: