Morris Federation
Day of Dance - 2011
THE MORRIS FEDERATION DAY OF DANCE
| On
Saturday 24th September we set off from East Garston to travel in
the Lambourn School minibus to Evesham. It was our first outing
to a Morris Federation Day of Dance and we were feeling very excited. |
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| When
we arrived in the village of Bretforton we were met with the sight
of hundreds of costumed people heading for The Fleece Inn, the central
venue for the day. It was a beautiful old pub with a large garden
and an unfortunate smell (we never did find out where it came
from, but think it had something to do with being in the country).
The day was hosted by Pebworth Morris and Belle d’ Vain. |
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was the first time we had been in the company of so many different
Morris sides and it was fascinating to see the range of colourful
outfits and musical instruments. These ranged from the usual melodeons
to fiddles, drums, concertinas, bagpipes and penny whistles. Our first stop was at The Fleece Inn at Bretforton. We then moved on to Evesham where we danced in the High Street and finally to Chipping Campden where our venue was outside some very pretty Almshouses. |
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| There
were about twenty teams in all and we were divided into four groups
to tour the area and dance in different locations. We were grouped with the following Morris Sides |
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Chinewrde
– a North West Clog female Morris side from Kenilworth who wore
dark red pinafore dresses. |
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Full
Moon – a mixed Cotswold Morris side from South Wales who wore blue
and yellow outfits and lots of badges. |
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Leek Morris – a new side (even newer than us!) who started off as
a U3A group. We liked their stripy socks! |
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| Rock
Hopper – a mixed Cotswold Morris side from Buckinghamshire, mainly
made up of dancers from different sides. They wore white with a penguin motif on their front. |
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We found it interesting to watch the other Morris dancers and performed
all our dances at least once. It was our first public performance
of Lads a Buncham, which involves some singing, and didn’t go too
badly. We finished off by Penny teaching volunteers from the other
groups our finale dance, ‘Shepherds Away’. |
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| All in all it was quite an experience, which we hope to repeat in the future. Special thanks go to Robert’s wife, Micky for driving the minibus and taking a lot of the photos. |
Text : Jackie Breadmore : Robert and Micky Allfrey
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