The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #67504   Message #1127907
Posted By: GUEST, Mikefule
02-Mar-04 - 03:10 PM
Thread Name: Morris dancing - what's it about ?
Subject: RE: Morris dancing - whats it about ?
The question was, "What *is* it about?" not "What *was* it about?".

What it is about is whatever we want it to be about.

We are the dancers, the audience, the hangers on. We all see it differently.

I dance Morris because I have danced it for the last 20 years. I'm unlikely to give up now.

We dance it "like this" because we've always danced it "like this", except for when we used to do it a bit differently.

It's a performance, it's a sport, it's an art, it's a mystery. We can think far too deeply about it and disappear up our own backsides... but then, thinking too deeply about things is an expression of our modern culture.

It's easy to forget that future generations will look back and see us as just ordinary people, products of our own time and culture, neither more nor less traditional than the dancers of 1899, or 1797, or 1698, or er.. well you get the idea.