Episode 12. Morris Men: Dancing Englishness

SYNOPSIS

When folk dancing was introduced to Thaxted in 1911, it was probably as a suitable activity for the girls and boys of the town, since the visiting instructor was Blanche Payling, a protégé of Mary Neal’s Espérance Club for working-class girls near King’s Cross, London.  But when on 2 June 1934 in Thaxted Alec Hunter proposed the creation of a Morris Ring made up of six Foundation Clubs and was chosen as its first Squire, Morris dancing had become a male preserve, with practitioners owning allegiance to Cecil Sharp’s interpretation of the dance heritage. The interview follows Matt Simons’ introduction as a teenager to this male tradition, and his understanding of how modern Morris sides interpret the instructions bequeathed by Sharp. Also, his growing interest as a young academic in Morris and Englishness, culminating in his thesis Morris Men: Dancing Englishness which explores the contested nature of authenticity in revival morris.      

GUEST

Dr Matt Simons’ interest in the folk tradition was sparked as a child by attending the Whittlesey Straw Bear Festival near his native Peterborough. His 2019 thesis Morris Men: Dancing Englishness breaks new ground by providing the intellectual biographies of three protagonists of men’s morris dancing in the interwar years: Rolf Gardiner, Joseph Needham and the hitherto under-researched Alec Hunter.    Recent publications include chapters for:

The Routledge Companion to English Folk Performance (2021) and Folklore and Nation in Britain and Ireland (2021).

‘English Gardens and British Festivals: The Morris Dance Revival, 1886 - 1953’, in Peter Harrop and Steve Roud, eds., Routledge Companion to English Folk Performance (Routledge, 2021).

'Embodied Englishness in the Interwar Morris Revival', in Matthew Cheeseman and Carina Hart, eds., Folklore and Nation in Britain and Ireland (Routledge, 2021).

‘’Dance as Friends Together’: (Re)Discovering Alec and Margaret Hunter’, English Dance and Song, vol. 81, no. 1, (2019), pp. 13-15.

“Pilgrimages to Holy Places’: The Travelling Morrice, 1924-1939’, in Michael Heaney, ed., The Histories of the Morris (London: English Folk Dance and Song Society, 2018). 

Matt is an Associate Lecturer at de Montfort University.

Matt’s interview with Simon Machin was recorded at Cecil Sharp House on 8 January 2020.