Institutions and Ideology in the Dissemination of Morris Dances in the Northwest of England

Abstract

In northwest England, during the early nineteenth century, morris dancing was performed annually by young adult men in the context of a procession which called attention to the health, wealth, number, and strength of a community's menfolk. After the First World War, morris dancing could still be seen as a form of public display in the region, but it had also become the province of children of both sexes. This age and gender revision coincided with an apparent spread of morris dances within the area.

Making Traditions: Girls’ Carnival Morris Dancing and Material Practice

“…Such celebrations were frequently modelled after the very successful May Day celebrations in Knutsford and were catalysed by, among other factors, socioeconomic changes affecting the "North West" morris sides' in Cheshire, Lancashire, and Cumbria from at least the 1890s onwards. Dance scholar Theresa Buckland suggests that girls' morris dancing demonstrates convincing claims to an historical depth, geographical continuity, and social role comparable to most morris groups in the UK (Buckland and Howison 1980;Buckland 1991). Similarly, morris dancing historian, Roy Dommett, described the practice as "heir to the richest of the English dance traditions" after attending a girls' morris competition at a carnival in Colne in 1968Colne in (1986.…”

“…Mike Heaney suggests that associations with an urban context and female participants, as well as the presumed modernity of the form, have led some "purists" to "deny its place in descriptions oftraditional ceremonial dance" (ibid.). It is well documented that performances associated with industrialized centres were largely neglected by the early folk collectors (see Buckland 1991), not least because rapidly modernized, post-agrarian contexts were deemed inauthentic. Georgina Boyes has also argued that the contribution of women (and children) in the first folk revival is unfairly represented in scholarship: they are "at worst trivialised or ignored" (1993:xii).…”