Morris dance is a ritual folk dance performed in rural England, originally by groups of men. There are also a variety of related customs such as mumming, and some popular entertainments derived from them.
There are three main traditions; Cotswold Morris (performed with sticks and hankies), North West Morris (processional, wearing clogs), and Border Morris (from the Welsh borders - done in black-face with a vigorous clashing of sticks). The name Morris is sometimes also loosely applied to sword dances in which a group of men weave their swords into intricate patterns.
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Similar customs are widespread throughout
Europe and extend to the Middle East, India, and parts of Central and
South America, although there is no clearly identifiable link.
Notable examples are the Perchten dancer-masqueraders of Austria, the ritual dances such as the moriscas (or moriscos), santiagos, and matachinas of the Mediterranean and Latin America, and the calusari of Romania. |
Some claim that the wide distribution of such dances suggests an ancient Indo-European origin. A common feature of many of them is that of a group of dancing men, attendant on a demi-god or other heroic figure who celebrates his revival after death.
In the variety of Morris Dancing popular in the Cotswold region of England, the dancers wear a uniform (often white) decorated with coloured ribbons, and dance with bells fastened to the legs. A feeling that the dances bring luck persists wherever they are traditionally performed. In many English Morris dances the demi-god is often a fool, animal-man or man-woman. The dancers dominate and the other characters are relegated to the subsidiary role of comic, or omitted.
The name Morris is also associated with the horn dance held each year at Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, Eng. This dance-procession includes six animal-men bearing deer antlers, three white and three black sets; a man-woman, or Maid Marian, and a fool, both carrying phallic symbols; a hobby horse; and a youth with a bow who shoots at the leading "stags".
A comparable surviving animal custom is the May Day procession of a man-horse, notably at Padstow, Cornwall. There, the central figure, "Oss Oss", is a witch doctor disguised as a horse and wearing a medicine mask. The dancers are attendants who sing the May Day song, beat drums, and in turn act the horse or dance in attendance. This attracts a large crowd but is seen by the inhabitants as a strictly local tradition. The name Morris is also associated with groups of mummers who act, rather than dance, the death-and-survival rite at the turn of the year.
Since the fifteenth century the Morris seems to have been common in England. It occurred in village festivities and popular entertainment, and is frequently recorded after the invention of the court masque by Henry VIII, possibly implying that it was a rural imitation of courtly dancing. The word Morris possibly derived from "morisco", meaning "Moorish".
Cecil Sharp, whose collecting of Morris dances preserved many from extinction, suggested that it might have arisen from the dancers' blacking their faces as part of the necessary ritual disguise. This theory is one of many, but there will never be any proof.
As well as team dances, there are solo Morris dances called jigs, and a few
jigs for two or three dancers.