Morris Dance
Morris dance is a ritual dance form, thought to bring fertility to those
who watch, certain to bring beer and bad knees to those who dance.
I dance with and co-run
Squash Beetle Morris. Currently we do Border Morris and
Cotswold dances in the Bledington and Lexington in the Bluegrass
traditions. The latter is a work in progress dreamed of for years and
begun in the Fall of 2003.
This is me in Squash Beetle kit in 1997.
The History of Morris Dance
Recently uncovered manuscripts reveal the true origin of morris
dancing. Actually, it was originally Maori dancing. More than
a millenium ago it spread throughout the Pacific (the heads on Easter
Island are really hobbies). At some point Chinese merchants
were lost in the Pacific. They learned to dance in the Hawaiian
islands and continued on to South America where they taught the morris
to the Incas. Of course it quickly spread throughout the Americas,
arriving in the northeast just in time for Lief Ericson to learn to
Morris. One of his crew grew tired of eating corn and returned to
Scandinavia, where other Vikings learned the dance and carried it to
Great Britain when they settled there. Really.