Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers feature in a music video with the group Stealing Sheep.
There is an interview about the concept behind the video with Dougal Wilson, the director, at
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/october/behind-the-scenes-on-dougal-wilsons-new-video-for-stealing-sheep/
The video was filmed over two days at an idyllic English village location. Cerys Matthews said of the video on BBC Radio 6 “.. makes Morris dancing super cool”.
If you want to be part of the next venture then the Morris practice season is starting soon…
Mr Hemmings practice every Monday in the British Legion on Spring Road at 8pm. First practice is Monday 19th October.
Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers practice in Trinity Church Hall on alternate Thursdays. First practice is Thursday November 5th at 8pm (Meet beforehand and afterwards in the Brewery Tap).
Anyone can turn up to practice… and you can email the respective bagman to warn them you are coming first.
Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers: bagman.atmd@gmail.com.
Mr Hemmings Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers: bagman@mrhemmings.org.uk
There are also opportunities for musicians who can play accordion, fiddle, pipe, or tabor.
Backstreeter – when you say “anyone can turn up…..” don’t you mean “any man”? – or have things changed?
Anyone can be a musician, but currently, dancers must be men. Women would be welcome to come to practices and if enough show some interest then we could form a woman’s side, which just happened to dance the same dances at the same events.
ATMD is a member of the Morris Ring, which has a male only dancer policy, but Mr Hemmings is free to change if some of the more traditional members can be persuaded. We did vote on it a couple of years ago, but several prominent members threatened to leave.
One of the arguments those opposed to women dancers make is that there is not a big queue of women asking to join. So anyone interested, please make your interest known!
I love Morris but coming from a background in which folk-dancing is a) cool and b) very much alive and kicking I’d say there’s room both for preserving tradition and letting it develop and flourish in new ways. In my mum’s home town (Vilafranca del Penedes) there’s fierce competition to get into one of the 24 dance groups which take part in the town festival in August. Since I was a child this has grown and grown.
Some groups are now mixed – like the shepherds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-NaBrDxdrk. Others, like the panderetes (female tambourines) came about because the traditional men’s side was fizzling out in the 1960s (now there are two groups). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX82Wmx9BpQ Some dances have been “recovered” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnAiaeieO5w and some were always there, limping along but have now been given a new lease of life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF6VvsiiJZw (Note that it’s barely noticeable that one of the dancers is a woman) Every year there’s both fierce debate about authenticity but also enthusiasm for improvements.
I wonder if this video represents the only time women have danced with and in the colours of the Abingdon traditional Morris Dancers?
It is worth pointing out that by no means all morris sides are members of the Morris Ring. If ATMD wished to admit women, it would be perfectly able to do so by withdrawing from the Ring.
What an excellent little video. The village it’s filmed in looks like Turville just up the road from Fingest and the windmill you see is the one that was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Sorry to but in here but we’ve just been to the craft fair, or rathe to the entrance. £4,50 each to get in ! I don’t think so !!
Quite right, I’d have winced at that too.
This clearly sets a precedent for female Morris dancers. If the Stealing sheep members are allowed to dance in the colours of the Abingdon traditional Morris dancers, why not any other women?
They did not dance in ATMD colours!!! If you watch the video again you will see that they are dancing in pale blue and pink.
I think that is just bad laundry.