Morris Dancing: the Basics
As well as national costume, national dishes and a national sport, a nation should have a dance. Argentina has its tango, Poland the polka and England has the Morris. Like much else in our culture, it isn’t of unmixed English origin, but derived from Moorish styles of dance back in the 15th century. It filtered throughout western Europe, but it was in England, especially at the Tudor court, that it really took hold.
Morris dancing owes its contemporary survival in great part to the researches of Cecil Sharp, who witnessed one of the last extant Morris sides in Oxfordshire on Boxing Day, 1899.
Although it is a year-round pursuit in many areas, the Morris is traditionally associated with May Day, when flower-bedecked dancers turn out in their full regalia to herald the coming of summer.
