Morris On?

Apologies to The Ink Corporation for stealing the picture, but I think it's awesome.

For my first post on the reported and unreported, I thought it was incredible this week that something I never thought would be, became 'Newsworthy'. What may have started as a throw-away 'And finally' item on the major news channels appears to have also been taken up in various broadsheet newspapers, from various angles, and sparked off a huge surge in comment from all corners.

I'm not entirely sure why they felt the need, but the Morris Ring, an organisation representing morris sides in the UK, released what can only be seen as a press release (again, why? Why now?) outlining their concern that the Morris traditions are in decline due to a lack of new and young blood and could soon become extinct. Upon hearing this the entire morris and wider folk world were up in arms - if morris is on the decline then we must all be deceived by the growing, vibrant tradition that appears to be alive and well all over the country.

I am not a dancer myself but come from a family that has been very much involved in the Cotswold, and later, Border traditions as well as dabbling in a bit of Step Clog and Rapper, for as long as I can remember. What will be interesting to note here is that it is my mum, not my dad or grandad or any other male relative that was the one going out to practices every week and festivals all year round (often to my dismay as a young child, it must be said!). The key point here is that the Morris Ring's strapline is as follows: "The Morris Ring is the National Association of Men's Morris & Sword Dance Clubs". To skirt around what I gather is a controversial history, the Morris Ring as an organisation (although may I add that due to comments from friends this is not the view of many members of many sides, particularly those considered to be more modern and forward-thinking) has opposed female dancers throughout the last few decades, and especially in mixed sides. From discussion the general opinion seems to be that women should be left to do 'their own' traditions (e.g. North West, Step Clog, and Garland) and not take up 'men's' traditions (Sword, Cotswold, etc). Progress has been made, as the Morris Ring have a significant level of influence at certain festivals, it has been hard for female sides to break into them and Pecsaetan women's Cotswold team were the first all female team to dance at one of these festivals, to a great reception. Furthermore, The Jig Crew were the first mixed side to appear at another of these festivals recently, hopefully leading the way for the future.

Problematically, the main problem the morris 'world' has had with these reports is that they are simply not true, and a surge of backlash has started all over the new and traditional media. Journalists were of mixed opinion, from the reasonably balanced to the whimsical, to the downright infuriatingly ignorant. A Facebook group (where you can view lots of photos of dashing young things in full kit) of people piping up as proud dancers has grown to over 500 members since Monday, so one has to wonder, if the Ring perceives there to be a problem and the majority of people actually taking part in the tradition disagree, why would they do it?

One opinion I heard is that due to the aforementioned unwillingness to accept change in the tradition as 'the real thing', they simply do not consider the more modern adaptations that perhaps younger dancers are more involved in, like Morris Offspring for example, as Morris at all. This is their perogative, but it is an issue that also exists in the wider folk community - where does the tradition cease to be tradition?

On the other hand, it could just be a very sneaky publicity stunt that seems to have served Morris very well - today my local BBC news programme, Look North, had an OB feature where the male anchorman went and joined in with a mixed cotswold and border side. Simon Care of various prolific bands and also Moulton Morris commented rather courageously against the complete ignorance incarnate that is Magnus Linklater (of the above Times article) on Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show this Tuesday 7/1 (43 minutes in, available for one week). There have been plenty of other press interactions and I hope any rumours have been proved to be false.

There's not a lot else to say except - don't believe the hype - much as I was shocked that this even came to the fore in what was hardly a slow news week, I was even more shocked at the support of certain sections of the media, here's a great article I was pleasantly surprised to come across in The Grundian.

To finish off, here's some nice pictures of young people dancing. For argument's sake.