Editor: Ann Mason
Published: Summer 1995

Download: Newsletter Summer 1995 (1Mb)

Contents

• PRESIDENT’S PROLOGUE
• EDITORIAL
• PUBLICITY
• GENERAL
• TECHNICAL
• NOTICEBOARD
• DIARY
• EVENTS
• LIONEL BACON
• WHAT IS GOOD MORRIS?
• MORRIS OFF

Editorial

The Summer Newsletter with its blue cover always makes me think of the seaside, this could be because I start thinking about it around the end of April as I am preparing to go to Hastings for the weekend.

The Governments’ meanness in only giving us one bank holiday to celebrate May and VE Day did me a favour in that I was able to dance out with New Esperance on Ist May when we took our Milkmaid’s Garland around Islington, and enjoyed dancing in our new kit – no more smocks, and I was able to go to Hastings Jack in the Green which was as enjoyable as ever.

Sitting at the castle on the Monday watching all the teams dance it occurred to me that the teams that gained the audiences attention over the two hours of dancing were those with music that you pick your ears up at. The music had guts and verve, the musicians knew how to get the most out of their instruments and played for the dancers. Sally picks up on this in her article about good morris, she asks such basic questions as: can the musicians play? do the musicians play for the dancers and the dancers dance to the music? Such basics are often missed and often musicians are timid, tinkering away on their instruments instead of giving it all they’ve got. This can be difficult to quantify and as a non-musician you may ask what right have I to these opinions? But as a dancer and the daughter of a musician who always produced the most magical sounds, making your feet itch with the desire to dance I feel I do have some experience The Morris Federation here. Boring music makes boring dancing, instruments are to be played, not tickled. So, musicians and dancers get out your pens, sit at your keyboards and let us know you opinion. Perhaps we should be running a workshop entitled *The bored instrument’.

The injuries survey will be enclosed with the next newsletter so don’t forget to make a note of any injuries sustained during the dancing season and the treatment you received for them. For those of us with bad posture I recommend the alexander technique sessions at Sidmouth.

The enclosures this quarter include the County list of all three organisations members and the mid-year insurance option for those of you planning to dance abroad.

You will be pleased to know that the Secretary and myself feel that our lives are returning to something resembling an even keel. Baby has settled into our lives (Beth): Mother is settled in residential care (Ann): the decorators have gone (Both of us). We might be able to say soon that “normal service is resumed”. However all the Committee members are incredibly busy, often only speaking to each others answerphones as we never appear to be at home. But you know what they say – if you want something done, give it to a busy person…

Beth has some interesting statistics about the different types of morris danced by MF members over the last ten years.