There is a connection between morris dancing, hobby horses and giants.  In his talk, Stephen Rowley brings his experience as a giant builder, hobby horse maker and morris researcher, to look at this history.  From C15th beginnings to the current day.  Featuring Coppin, lately returned from his experience dancing at the Brit Awards, and material from the current exhibitions of folk costume (Making Mischief: Folk Costume in Britain, at Compton Verney) and Hooden Horse (Animal Guising and the Kentish Hooden Horse, at Maidstone Museum).

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Many teams across the country, and throughout the world, dance ‘The Abram Morris Dance’ often incorrectly referred to as the ‘Abram Circle Dance’. The dance was originally collected by Maud Karpeles and published in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 1932. The dance was last performed ‘traditionally’ in 1901 before being revived by Geoff Hughes in 1984. It is currently danced on the Morris Dancers Ground in Abram on the last Saturday of June each year followed by a tour of the area. 2023 will see the 40th annual performance since the revival, which will be on Saturday 24th June 2023, The talk will cover the known history of the dance, together with the significance of the Morris Dancers’ Ground in local folklore.

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In this illustrated talk, Doc Rowe reflects on fifty-odd years of witnessing and collecting dance performance and tradition - the accent might be on the odd!

From the early 1960s, with an early interest in song and step dancing in his native Devon, a visit to Mayday in Cornwall initiated an unremitting preoccupation with cultural tradition.

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Cecil Sharp rescued morris dancing from potential extinction, as a result of his meeting with William Kimber in Headington in 1899. We now know that it survived in other parts of the country too, but the extent and diversity of the ways in which people might encounter morris dancing in the decade running up to that momentous meeting are much broader than most people realise.

This talk draws on material from Mike’s new book The Ancient English Morris Dance to explore some of these neglected byways.

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