'5000 Morris Dancers'

Subject: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 03:27 AM

SOME ENGLISH DANCES

English Country Dance, Clog Dance (Lancashire/Cheshire, Durham/Northumberland), Step Dance, Morris Dance (Cotsworld, Molly, Border, N.W. Clog Morris), Yorkshire Longsword, N.E. Rapper, Maypole Dancing, Helston Furry Dance (Cornwall), Great Wishford Grovely-Day Dance (Wiltshire), Whalton Baal-Fire (Circle) Dancing (Northumberland), 'Obby 'Osses (Cornwall and Somerset)

INSTRUMENTS OF (OR CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH) ENGLAND

Northumbrian Bagpipes (bellows blown), Leicestershire Bagpipes (mouth blown); English Concertina, Anglo Concertina, Duet Concertina (and important developments to – if not inventions of – other key-boards, such as piano and organ, have also occurred in England); Dital Harp/Harp-Lute, English Cittern; English Flageolet, Penny Whistle, Recorder/English Flute, Pipe and Tabor (old Morris accompaniment), Bells, Brass, and (a recent one) the Stylophone

Footnote: during the Athens Olympics ceremonies, the Greeks, pleasingly, presented their bouzoukis: I wonder how-many of the above instruments - and dances - will be shown at the London Olympics..? (From here.)

SOME GOOD NEWS ON THIS...

Given a "match that" from BBC Beijing Olympics presenters, Seb Coe just answered "5000 Morris dancers".

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ian Burdon
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 03:35 AM

Stylophone?


and, er, why just England? ;-)

Ian

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 03:43 AM

I hope and pray, Ian, that both the Scots and the Welsh vote for independence before then; and London is the capital of England.
And, after a long thread on "England's National Musical Instrument?", I added the stylophone to the above list, as well as bells - which Wiki. has as our national instrument.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ian Burdon
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 05:20 AM

"I hope and pray, Ian, that both the Scots and the Welsh vote for independence before then"

Fair enough - but I don't.

"and London is the capital of England."

Currently the capital of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Ian

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 07:42 AM

"the Greeks, pleasingly, presented their bouzoukis"

I do hope they were roundly slapped on their bouzikis for baring them in public!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Alan Day
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 08:51 AM

I think Mr Coe was trying to make a joke with his statement,I will be amazed if he actually meant it,but also pleased.
Al

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 09:59 AM

The 2 Beeb presenters actually chuckled the first time he said it, so he repeated it; I think Seb is at least a bit more informed about our own good culture than the majority of modern English, thank God, Al.
But, sadly, at the handover I just watched, it was American culture performed around a bus, a hedge, and umbrellas. And, equally sadly, the Manchester Commonwealth games was virtually wall-to-wall American pop. Those who do know must become more militant.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 12:04 PM

Those who do know must become more militant

Not seeing much evidence of any sort of knowledge here, WAV - just more relentlessly ignorant trolling backed up by an equal measure of mindless bigotry. Any militancy in this context I would personally oppose with a whole hearted indignation, as would any other right thinking human being, Morris Dancers included. Morris Dancing, like much else of our so-called Folk Culture, is perpetuated by a particular minority of revivalists without whom it would have died the death long ago. Even those who do it would baulk at your England for the English claptrap, and see it for what it is, i.e. a wholesome & generous slab of good-hearted nostalgia that in no way represents Our Own Good Culture any more than does the other redundancies & anachronisms in your offensive exclusive & woefully inaccurate catalogues of Englishness. Enjoy it by all means, but fir God's sake keep it in perspective.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Alan Day
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 12:25 PM

Sounds like the words of a publican putting in a Juke Box and taking the piano up the tip.
Al

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 12:46 PM

The first to adapt a piano from a harpsichord was, as you may know, Al, an Italian - but important developments were made in England and, yes, singing around one is another one of our fine ENGLISH traditions.
I only watched bits of the Olympics 2008 concert in London, this afternoon - but it seemed to be mainly English singing verses in an American pop or rock style, as well as a Welsh lady singing in Italian. And, if you don't want to listen to me, IB, check up on RVW who, paraphrasing, said our only truly English music is our folk songs and dance music.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Fidjit
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 01:36 PM

Here we go round the "Bickering Bush"

Chas

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 01:58 PM

A joke - likely enough. But if the embarrassing display put on as the British contribution to today's closing ceremony, both in Beijing and in Trafalgar Square, is any indication of what is planned, they'd be far far better to call in the Morris Dancers.

But the suggestion that "the only truly English music" is that from the native English tradition misses out the truth that there are all kinds of other folk traditions alive in this bunch of countries as well, and they could represent this country ever bit as much, alongside the natuive stuff.

I'm sure there are Chinese people who think that the only real Chinese culture is Han Chinese, but, as the better bits of Beijing celebration showed, it's far far more diverse than that, and all the better for it.

And the same should apply for London in 2012. Just please not the kind of crap they put on today, which was like an effort by a well meaning youth club organiser to put on a trendy show.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 02:03 PM

It may have been a joke, but I think its basically a sound idea. a fairly rocky sound like the albion band doing a morris tune - I think it could be really good.

Mind you they'd have to be pretty fit to keep up the dancing through one of these interminable ceremonies - in fact that's the weak point. It couldn't be done. Could it?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Ian Burdon
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 02:25 PM

"And, if you don't want to listen to me, IB, check up on RVW who, paraphrasing, said our only truly English music is our folk songs and dance music."

Assuming that I'm the IB referred to in this, I'm struggling to see the point of directing it to me (and as per Fidjit I'm not going to get involved in bickering). My mischevous question above was simply about 2012 being about Englishness as opposed to Britishness.

As for RVW, even were he correct, the same could be said for Ireland, Wales and Scotland. I don't think that he was correct though, at least not as an absolute statement.

In the case of dance, there is reference to Morris dance in Scotland in 1501 (though whether it is the same as any of the forms now surviving in England I'm not at all certain except that bells were certainly involved) and it is clear from the records that there was considerable interchange both within Britain and with our later mediaeval trading partners in Europe in folk traditions and dances for example those associated with the Lord of Misrule and Robin Hood festivities or guild sword dances or assorted Green Man traditions.

Others here, Jack Campin for one, are better qualified than me to talk about the spread and sharing of tunes across nations and traditions: it is what musicians do and what happens when traders and sailors have a few jars and have a song or two. Yes of course there are songs from particular localities (whether in English, Gaelic, Norn, or other languages or dialects) but there are also songs which are well distributed as variants within a common tradition both in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.

Clearly the traditions in the UK have their distinctive aspects and, as traditions have attenuated across Europe, the musical and dancing traditions of the remaining cultural archipelagoes have evolved in their own ways. In Scotland many traditions were killed off by the Kirk in Scotland post-reformation and in the UK generally they lost their importance with the shift to an urban, industrialised society and had the coup de grace administered by WW1 and WW2.

But they do survive, sometimes as genuine survivals and sometimes from revivals, and we should be celebrating these as part of the glue which binds us together in these islands and not as a tacit means of suggesting division between us.

To coin a phrase, Roll over Vaughan Williams :-)

Ian

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 03:49 PM

And, if you don't want to listen to me, IB, check up on RVW

It's not a matter of not listening to you, WAV, just that you keep banging on, relentlessly, mercilessly, on things you have absolutely no understanding of. Your idea of what constitutes Our Own Good English Culture is so narrow as to be emaciated; not culture at all, rather your own deeply subjective & highly selective fantasy based on a complete (and deliberate?) misunderstanding of the complex realities of the situation.

RVW was a reactionary fantasist too, his words woefully out of step even by the standards of his time, let alone the England of some 50 years after his death (almost to the day). This is the England in which we live, a complex multi-ethnic & multi-cultural England in which morris dancing & folk singing are minority hobbies with a good deal less cultural currency to actual English folk as (say) line-dancing & karaoke.

Folk music is an aspect of the traditional culture of our islands; part of our heritage if you like, our link with the past, and a continuity of something that some of us cherish, for reasons which are generally more personal as they are cultural. One thing it is not is a means to a nationalistic end, nor yet to the vile & repugnant political & philosophical agendas that would appear to be your primary concerns.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 03:58 PM

In 2012 Britain should demonstrate to the rest of the world how multicultural we are by taking the most colourful performances of all our ethnic minorities and putting on spectacular displays of them, Chinese dragons, West Indian carnival etc. As for representing England we should choose our more spectacular dances like the Rapper and perhaps Molly Dancing. If the piping was good enough for Beijing then we can also use that to much better effect. Even solid representations of the many different pipes of the British Isles.

As for morris,as an old codger and ex morris dancer/musician, I say NO to teams of old codgers dibbing or waving the hankies, but yes to youngsters doing spectacular solo jigs and some energetic stick bashing.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 04:25 PM

I'm sure there are people who go in for line dancing in China too, but mercifully they saw better than to include it.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 04:49 PM

There you go! I thought most of it resembled line dancing!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Alan Day
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 05:59 PM

WLD, I think you are right,firstly there is no way we could find 5000 Morris Dancers and to train them all to dance it correctly ,in time and a pleasure to watch would be impossible.As has been suggested a single team of Morris,possibly doing a difficult stick dance, a single Rapper side,A display of North West Morris,A molly side,an energetic Cotswold side dancing as "Old Spot style", A Garland Dance team, Switching to 5000 children dancing an English Country Dance that included a Maypole Dance would be my suggested format.All featuring top musicians.
I put that and my hat in the ring for discussion.
Al

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 06:01 PM

Wav seems to have a lot of preference for "mouth blown" instruments......which is not too surprising at all.

Spaw

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 06:45 PM

Am not going to get involved with the feud, but, I have to agree with McGrath that the UK contribution to todays closing ceremony was an unmitigated travesty.
Whole Lotta Love with an ageing Jimmy Page on an exploding bus? (Could have least have used a Routemaster)....Umbrellas?....Bus Stop queues???..What sort of stereotype are we trying to show for Gods sake?

All it needed was a few pearly kings and queens, someone eating jellied eels, and Dick Van Dyke singing Chim Chim Cheree, to have really represented the UK. Oh and a bunch of Chavs having a typical saturday night out.

OK the Chinese had at least 10 times the budget, (not to mention 1 Billion willing, or not volunteers), but at least they know how to stage a show. (probably mainly at gunpoint)

If that disaster I witnessed today is anything like what we can expect in 4 years time, I'm leaving the country.

As for 5000 Morris dancers.....What?
Oh the horror, the horror!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 09:34 PM

"I put that and my hat in the ring for discussion"

Which is probably better than putting your ring in the hat for ...

"All around my ..."

:-P

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:54 AM

There you go again. The usual pile of hostility to anything English, particularly English traditions.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:15 AM

Having spent yesterday afternoon not watching trash from Beijig on the telly but shifting a printer and long-neched bass (not simultaneously) across London on the bus, I can confirm caegorically that there is no such thing as a "bus queue". Current British tradition is to lurk somewhere near the stop, preferably blocking the pavement, then rush to be first on with weapon of choice being an industrial-sized buggy.

"Catching A Bus" as the new Olympic sport? Visiting spectators in 2012 will certainly be able to practice it.

As for a London opening ceremony, the very thought of 5,000 ageing, creaking Morris dancers fills me with dread. What would be good (not representative, but GOOD), is single and double jigs from dancers of Morris Offspring standard and Rapper from, perhaps, Black Swan. A combination of the Offsprings, Kingsmen and the Demon Barber Roadshow should do it. Who can forget the spectacular Flame! at the last Sidmouth that mattered? That and a couple of well-executed rant- and hop-step social dances from ceilidh dancers who really know what they're doing.

This scenario is not at all typical of current British social activity (such as it is) nor even of the tiny, niche "f*lk scene" (whatever that is). Deity of choice forfend that these be put on public display. But it would be . . . good.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:26 AM

Once upon a time, out of Middlesbrough, there came a trio whose music remains the very epitome of Englishness, albeit an Englishness informed by the universality of Jazz, Blues and the sort of Folk Music as such we might only hear in our dreams. In 2003 they did a couple of concerts to promote a new album (their first in thirty years!) in their old home in The Lion Inn on Blakey Ridge, North Yorkshire, and, sadly, since that time two members of that trio have passed on.

Whether not the name Back Door means anything to anyone here I know not; likewise that of Ron Aspery, Tony Hicks or Colin Hodgkinson, though chances are a few of you are aware of the legendary bass playing of the latter; but the music of this unique trio remains as English as anything WAV might dream of in his nationalistic culturally challenged idyll.      

Here's a YouTube clip from that 2003 concert high on the North Yorkshire Moors. Next time I'm passing, I'll pop in and drink a pint or two in thanks and gratitude that such music existed at all; English music to be truly proud of.

Back Door - Askin' the Way

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:27 AM

Alan Parker, the film director had a theory. As soon as you see a film with a London red bus in the opening credits - you know its going to be a bummer.

Theres a certain tradition of total English crap, which I must say I have a quiet affection for. Just imagine - we could have Cliff on the bus singing all those songs he does when its pissing down at Wimbeldon.

Personaly speaking I think (on reflection) theres only one kind of music would fit ino a scenario like that - namely a medley of Eurovision Song Contest favourites - Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson doing Sing Little Birdie, the consummate brilliance of Sandy Shaw's Puppet on a String, The Brotherhood of man singing Save Your Kisses for Me (and doing the little dance!) and the bit where that other group rip the girls' skirts off.

That in so many ways would cut to the chase and say - THIS WAS OUR FINEST HOUR!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:37 AM

See what I mean?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:45 AM

Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson did a killer Johnny One Note on Morecambe & Wise once; doesn't appear to be on YouTube, alas...

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Alan Day
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:08 AM

I would expect of all the traditional dances suggested one will be used,the "Maypole Dancing". The ribbons will be illuminated electronically and will be performed in darkness.
What I would like to see however is a history of UK dancing and Music from Morris through to Rock. It is probably the only chance that we will see Morris Dancing at our Olympics.
Al

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:33 AM

My IB abreviation was for Sean, not Ian.
Rock, jazz, blues and pop are American genres that should be performed by American citizens, in places such as Atlanta.
The Chinese did go-pop in both the opening and closing ceremony - but the majority of what we witnessed was indeed, pleasingly, Chinese culture, and the instrument we saw the most of was the erhu fiddle; I hope the Commonwealth soon dissolves but, in the meantime, I'm sure the ceremonies planned for Glasgow 2014 will, similarly, be very Scottish - unlike Manchester, as noted above.
As well as the instruments and dances I posted above, organisers should also build on what the current president of the IOC noted - many of the Olympic sports and their rules were developed in this part of the world.
Furthermore, there should be some traditional English wit, but Boris Johnson must be kept well away from it's formulation - the behaviour of most middle-aged folk leaving a pub would be far more sober and dignified than his Olympics-handover performance.
And, finally, we must love the DIFFERENCES in culture between nations.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 05:09 AM

Rock, jazz, blues and pop are American genres that should be performed by American citizens, in places such as Atlanta

Wrong, WAV. Rock, jazz, blues & pop are universal musical phenomenon initially derived from the African & European cultural melting pot that is North America and historically, culturally & ethnically unbounded thereafter. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of observable & quantifiable FACT which you'd only be too aware of were you not so bound up with your suspect & woefully ill-informed right-wing racist agendas.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 05:22 AM

One thing they got right with the bus scene was the way everyone was climbing over each other to get on it.. and then some idiot decides they want to leave the bus by the front door rather than the proper exit!!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 05:22 AM

PS -

and important developments to – if not inventions of – other key-boards, such as piano and organ, have also occurred in England

The first to adapt a piano from a harpsichord was, as you may know, Al, an Italian - but important developments were made in England

Significant concessions to WAVs culturally challenged world view; however, applying those same concessions to music, in particular the so-called American Genres of Rock, Jazz, Blues & Pop, could we ever conceive of anything as uniquely English as the important developments made by Jethro Tull, Soft Machine, The Fall, Joy Division, Oasis, The Animals, Yes, Gentle Giant, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Henry Cow, Elton Dean, ABC, The Human League, Eliza Carthy, Groundhogs, Caravan, This Heat, Roxy Music, David Bowie, etc. etc. God! The beauteous richness of English Music!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 06:29 AM

I hope 2012 won't rely on stereotyped (or stereotypical?) imagery. If the intention. There is a wonderful opportunity to show folk dance and song in a context of how it fits in with London's diverse cultures.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Gavin Paterson
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 06:50 AM

If anything unites the 'other three' countries in the UK it is love of Morris Dancing. Nothing makes us laugh so much. Sorry, but there is some truth in my flipancy.

On a more serious note, there is no such thing as British/UK culture. Scottish, Welsh and (N) Irish are all well and thriving. English culture is putting a good fight, thanks to Billy Bragg and others.

But what is British culture?

And I agree with the earlier post that we will be well on the way to independence by 2012 - at least here in Scotland.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 06:55 AM

<>Team GB - which is to say Great Britain, of which I am a citizen & of which London is the capital... So the idea would be to reflect the cultural diversity of Great Britain as a whole, stereotypical imagery included, giving only an impression of something rather than the thing itself.

How does Folk Dance & Song fit into such a context I wonder? How would it fare if it was put to a nationwide referendum? How can it be anything other than stereotypical imagery? Perhaps things will be a little clearer four years hence, but in the wider scheme of things such garishly clichéd spectaculars can only be appreciated in terms of pure irony.

A few years ago we chanced upon the Highland Games at Killin, replete with caber tossing & any amount of manly heave-ho, together with piobaireachd, highland dancing, unaccompanied singing, and the customary downpour blowing in off Lock Tay. Stereotypical images all, but none the less real for that. And a lot of the competitors were American, Canadian & Australian Scots, heartily proud of their cultural roots.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:11 AM

'could we ever conceive of anything as uniquely English as the important developments made by Jethro Tull, Soft Machine, The Fall, Joy Division, Oasis, The Animals, Yes, Gentle Giant, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Henry Cow, Elton Dean, ABC, The Human League, Eliza Carthy, Groundhogs, Caravan, This Heat, Roxy Music, David Bowie, etc. etc. God! The beauteous richness of English Music!'

And Buck's Fizz - where they ripped the girls' skirts off. Surely a British (nay an English!) first. No one else has done that.....

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:23 AM

"the way everyone was climbing over each other to get on it.. and then some idiot decides they want to leave the bus by the front door rather than the proper exit!!"

... and then everybody deciding they couldn't be bothered going to work, and just walking away...

:-P

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Marje
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:32 AM

Jorrox: I don't suppose that the Chinese agree that there is one "Chinese culture" that represents that vast country with all its ethnic variety. That didn't prevent them from displaying some aspects of their collective culture that appear to the rest of the world to be distinctively and entertainingly Chinese.

We'd be a sad little nation if we let our individual differences blind us to how much we have in common in the UK. We have many shared aspects of our culture that distinguish us from, say, China or the US or Russia.

You may choose to laugh at morris dance, just as some English people laugh at Highland pipes and men in kilts, and others laugh at the Irish dances that are danced only with the lower half of the body. In doing this, you're showing one aspect of your own Britishness - self-deprecation and poking fun at neighbouring regions and their culture are one very distinctive part of being British.

I'd love to see a display of regional traditional dances chosen to represent British culture. It would include the various sorts of morris dance (like all the dances, this would energetically performed by fit and well trained dancers), rapper, Irish dance, maypole dancing with children, Scottish Highland dance with bagpipes, English clog, the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, etc.

And we could have a great procession showing as many of these dances as can be adapted to a processional dance-form. It could also include other features of traditional processions including, say, St George with his dragon, Lady Godiva, a Viking longship with blazing torches, an Obby Oss ... oh, I'm sure you could all add to the list. Make fun of our culture if you wish, but don't say it doesn't exist or that it isn;t worth displaying to the world.

What will really disappoint me is if we try to define ourselves by the antics of tired old rock stars and other "celebrities".

Marje

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: pavane
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:34 AM

If we get back for a moment to the 5000 Morris Dancers

How many musicians would be needed? (Noting that in keeping woth tradition, we should not allow amplification).
Allowing one per side would mean approx 1000 (Exact figure not calculable, realising that not all dances are for 6 men (Sorry, Federation, PERSONS), some for 4 or 8, and also a few for other numbers)

I would like to get my name down first, in case a list is started.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: pavane
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:34 AM

with, not woth!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: melodeonboy
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:54 AM

"Rock, jazz, blues & pop are universal musical phenomenon initially derived from the African & European cultural melting pot that is North America and historically, culturally & ethnically unbounded thereafter."

American pop/rock music (and I believe that's the only one that's exported in great quantity by America these days) is indeed universal. So are McDonald's, training shoes and baseball caps. They're all universal not because of any melting pot theories, nor because of any superiority or intrinsic universality, but because the USA has, for many years, been very good at flooding the rest of the world with its products, particularly in "cultural" areas, e.g. music, clothes, films and eating habits.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:08 AM

'How many musicians would be needed? (Noting that in keeping woth tradition, we should not allow amplification).
Allowing one per side would mean approx 1000 (Exact figure not calculable, realising that not all dances are for 6 men (Sorry, Federation, PERSONS), some for 4 or 8, and also a few for other numbers)

I would like to get my name down first, in case a list is started.'

As Captain Mainwaring said, I think we're getting into the realms of fantasy here........

That's like.... 200 bodhrans!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:29 AM

I think the Chinese erhu fiddles were hooked-up and amplified, but not so all those costume-bells, whose volume seemed loud enough to me.
Melodeonboy may not agree with me on everything, but answered Insane Beard's criticism quite well for me.
A gigantic greenman entering to the sounds of "English Country Gardens", played by a collier brass-band...
'Obby 'Osses doing likewise to drums, concertinas/melodeons and the mass-singing of "Summer is a comin' in"...

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:45 AM

Seasonal discrepancy here.

A Green Man and an 'Oss might be sort of contextual if the Olympics were at the beginning of May but they happen three months later, or so I've heard. And the only recording of ECG everyone knows is by Jimmie Rodgers, an American popstar.

Petards and hoisting spring to mind.

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:46 AM

"That's like.... 200 bodhrans!"

Well, if they can have 2008 drummers... that will be 2012 b.... AGGGH!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:56 AM

The ECG tune that I play, on my tenor English-flute, and sing, Diane, comes from Bert Cleaver's "Fieldtown Dances and Jigs of The Morris Ring."

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: julian morbihan
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 09:12 AM

Sorry to spoil the idea but 2012 is the LONDON Olympics not England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland - so Lancashire clog and NW Morris are out so are Molly, Border, Rapper, Longsword and anything else I can currently think of.

So basically I think it's down to Hammersmith Morris to sort it all out....

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 09:41 AM

Where's the sailing going to be held at, JM?

Subject: RE: '5000 Morris Dancers'
From: pavane
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 09:46 AM

Tune is Country Gardens, (American ) song is English Country Garden, I believe. (Whoever heard of those birds in England? as bad as 'blubirds over the which cliffs of Dover').

If it is LONDON, then we need a few songs in Cockney Rhyming Slang...I do have one as sung by Diz Disley c1973.

Re Hammersmith MM
I may still qualify, as I have actually played as a guest musician for HMM, in their 1985 tour of Trier...(Photos available on request)