Subject: RE: 'May' in Morris dancing?
From:
Azizi
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:06 PM
I have regret that I never had the pleasure of seeing actual or even videotape of Morris dancers, but I find your discussion interesting.
Last year in one of my scavenger hunts at a used book store, I was pleased to find a 1935 book "The Traditional Dance" {Violet Alford & Rodney Gallop: London; Methuen & Co.} I believe that excerpts from this book may add to the discussion.
"The Traditional Dance" starts out with a discussion on the three "arms" of the authors' journey to witness traditional dances. They write that
"The first arm points to a snowy landscape and said 'Mummers and Sword dances" The second is marked 'Morris' and indicates a lane green with the greenery of May. The third, marked 'Country dances', points to no lane at all, but to a long hall lit with candles and lined with red rout seats. But at the end of {the room? page torn} you can see through an open window a tall Maypole with a rowdy throng about it, farther off people stepping
{? page torn} Hornpipes, Jigs and Reels to the sound of Irish popes, ndbeyond again, on short Scottish turf, men treading Sthrathspeys, Reels, and swaggering solos, swinging their kilts like the skirts of a ballerina. {pps xiv-xv}.
end of quote
"The Traditional Dance" also includes a number of passages on the origin of the term "Morris". I will quote rather extensively from one of these passages:
"When we were speculating on the origin of the Morris dance in the last chapter we saw that Cecil Sharp, having accepted the theory of Moorish orign [i.e. from the Moors], came later to reject it. His principal reason for doing so was that by 1912 he had come to realize that all over Europe the dance does not satnad by itself, but is associated with 'certain strange customswhich are apparently quite independent of the dance itself.'. Drom this he concluded that 'the Morris dance is a development of a pan-European or even more widely extended custom', and that 'faces were not blackened because the dancers represented Moors, but rather the dancers represented Moors because their faces were blackened'.
It never occured to Sharp to connect the Mooris dance with the numerous cermonial combats between 'Christains' and 'Moors', all more or less choreographic in form, which are found throughout southrn Europe, from Dalmatia in the east to Portugal in the west. Perhaps he had no opportunity of hearing of them, but a connection with the Morris is evident from their appelation of Morisca,,Morisma, Moreska, Mouriscada or some similar name.
The Moreska, performed every year in September in the Dalmatian island of Korcula {Curzola}, consists of a play and Sword dance prepresenting a combat between two groups of dancers, a White King {Christain] contendeing with a Black King {Moorish} for the hand of a beautiful slave called Bula. Needless to say, as in all such mock battles, the Christians emerge victorious.
In Spain, the battle of Moors and Christains goes back at least to the twelfth century, one such having been performed in 1137 at the betrothal of Count Ramon Berebguer of Barcelona and Queen Petronila of Aragon. Aragon, as has already been stated, is still to-day [1935] a land of Morisca dances, and a few more striking performances could be found than the Morisma of Ainsa. This takes place in the middle of September every year...."
end of quote.
Well! As I said this is all new to me, but I would love to know more about it. For instance, do some Morris dancers still blacken their faces?
As an aside, there is a group of African Americans who call themselves "Moors" and believe that "Moors" is the proper referent for all African Americans. If I understand their statement of beliefs correctly, members of that group, The "Moorish Science Temple", say that their nationality is "Moors" and their religion is Islam. Traditionally, members of that group adopt Arabic names for themselves if they were not raised in that culture, and give their children Arabic names. Befire divorce and other cultural adaptations, and non-adherance to tradition, members could be recognized by those who were aware of the group by the fact that the suffix "El" or "Bey" or "Ali" was either affixed to their "European" surname {such as Johnson-El} or used alone. Note: this was not the same group that Muhammad Ali or Malcolm X {El Hajj Malik Shabazz} belonged to.
Before I sign off, can anyone recommend any videos on Morris dancing?
Thanks,
Azizi
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