The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #94257   Message #2173446
Posted By: GUEST,Gadaffi
18-Oct-07 - 04:19 AM
Thread Name: origins of broom dancing
Subject: RE: origins of broom dancing
I have many references (and notations) to this over the south of England and East Anglia.

Obviously, this is/was an indoor dance - usually performed in pubs or anywhere there might be an audience. Harvest homes seem to recur as a theme in history. Most of the sequences seem to be the same whichever part of the country you tend to be in: step up the broom and back on either side, possibly across the broom alternating feet, pick broom up and pass beneath legs. Other versions include the Bampton Fool's Jig version, balancing the stem on your hand. Then there's Cyril Papworth's hobby horse figure.

The Mepal Molly Men performe two set dances using figures from broom dances remembered in Little Downham. The dane can also be seem on the streets in Bampton on Spring Bank Holiday Monday.