Talented dancers, experienced or just loving dancing, sought in North Devon to join Exmoor Border Morris

Published on October 6, 2010 in Morris dancing, dancing, learn Morris dancing and traditional dancing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
Exmoor Border Morris in the parade at Swanage Folk Festival

Exmoor Border Morris in the parade at Swanage Folk Festival

Dancers and people who enjoy dancing are invited to join Exmoor Border Morris for an Open Evening 7.45 pm, 20th October at West Down Parish Hall, Near Barnstaple and Ilfracombe which is aimed at finding new members for this popular North Devon performing arts dance troupe.

Talented and sociable adult dancers and musicians, experienced or otherwise, are being sought initially for winter rehearsals which take place weekly. When Spring and Summer arrive, April onwards, Exmoor Border Morris dances and plays at fetes, festivals and other social gatherings during evenings and weekends.

Exmoor Border Morris dancers and musicians love camping!

Exmoor Border Morris dancers and musicians love camping!

If you are keen to dance or play music to a high standard, enjoy travelling and camping throughout the West Country and meeting and socialising with many other kindred spirits at after performance parties and socials, this is your big opportunity. Being a part of Exmoor Border Morris is great fun: it is an adult mixed side (males as well as females); its dancing is energetic  and lively; the music is cheerful; and its ambition is to be the best.

The dance troupe practices at West Down Parish Hall, Near Barnstaple and Ilfracombe so dancers and people who love dancing would find it convenient to travel from the towns of Braunton, Bideford, South Molton, Appledore, Combe Martin, Lynton & Lynmouth, Mortehoe, Brendon, Woolacombe, Instow, Croyde, Georgeham, Northam, Great Torrington, North Molton, Westward Ho! and local villages.

For more information and to book a place at the Open Evening, call Nigel Chivers on 01271 850897 or visit www.exmoorbordermorris.org.uk

Dancing with Herbaceous Border Morris Side at Sidmouth Folk Festival Radway Winter Reunion 2009

Published on February 27, 2009 in Morris dancing, dancing and learn Morris dancing. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .
Herbaceous Border Morris Side, Sidmouth Radway Reunion weekend 2009

Herbaceous Border Morris Side, Sidmouth Radway Reunion weekend 2009

Well, OK, I wasn’t actually dancing! I was just helping to play the folk tunes while the regular members of Herbaceous Border Morris side and people from the public waved dangerous looking stick above their heads and brought them crashing down on the sticks of the other dancers.

However, I wanted to make mention of the great work that Sue White does to manage Herbaceous Border Morris side. She always seems to be full of unbounded enthusiasm as she cajoles musicians to play for Herbaceous Border Morris dance side and members of the public to join in and learn how to Morris dance.

In a previous post about the West Somerset Morris Men, I mentioned that some Morris sides are finding it difficult to attract new members but also how much it is a way of meeting people, getting involved in the community and, in many cases, collecting for charities.

So, if you are at a folk festival and see Sue White, the intrepid organiser of Herbaceous Border and would like to join a Morris side and try a traditional dance form that is lots of fun, good exercise and very much places you at the heart of your community, don’t hang around. Introduce yourself to Sue and start Morris dancing. I’m sure you will get a friendly welcome :-)

(See comment submitted by Sue)

Bye for now

Rob

(Rob Hopcott – online author and folk musician)

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Traditional dancing is a great way to find friends, travel and get exercise – perhaps even find love or marriage

Published on December 10, 2008 in Morris dancing, dancing and traditional dancing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
West Somerset Morris Men at Dunster by Candlelight lifting a lady aloft

West Somerset Morris Men at Dunster by Candlelight 2008 lifting a lady aloft

Eavesdropping on a conversation at Dunster by Candlelight last weekend about the need to get in new members, it occurred to me that joining a dance group is a great way of meeting people and  become part of a very friendly and welcoming community.

So, if you would like to make new friends and have fun socially, why not contact your local traditional dancing group. You will probably be welcomed with open arms.

Traditional dancing enables you to see lots of new places too. When I go to folk festivals all over the country there are almost always groups of traditional dancers who have travelled from other parts of the country too – sometimes even from abroad.

West Somerset Morris Men musicians at Dunster by Candlelight 2008

West Somerset Morris Men musicians at Dunster by Candlelight 2008

Traditional dancing is very good exercise too and a wonderful way to keep fit. If you would  like to shift the extra ounces or lbs you have put on over Christmas, traditional dancing may be a great way to do it while also having fun and making friends.

What a great idea for a New Year’s resolution :-)

Traditional dancing is friendly. Barn dances, which involve dancing in a circle or square, often mean you get an opportunity to dance with everybody else who is on the floor. Morris dancing is available for men and women and, I believe, even for mixed sides. It’s just a matter of finding the dance side that is right for you.

Traditional dancing is very ‘family’. When I go down to Sidmouth Folk Festival and watch the ceilidhs in the car park behind the Anchor Inn, sometimes called the Anchor gardens, it is usually full of families. There is even an organisation called Folk Camps where you can go camping with other families who enjoy traditional dancing and playing traditional music.

So, what’s holding you back. Check out your local traditional dancing groups, telephone them and get involved. You are quite likely to find friendship and may even encounter love and marriage born from a shared interest which many argue is, at the end of the day, the best way to build a relationship.

So, back to my eavesdropping at Dunster by Candlelight. I was standing next to the West Somerset Morris Men and there was a dancer from a different Morris side. They invited him to join in and in a moment he was happily dancing along with the rest of them.

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott – online writer

Dancing is a fantastic form of exercise. I had forgotten but it won’t happen again.

Published on October 14, 2008 in dancing. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

When my wife I announced that we were going to a party and said the name of the group, I was not hugely enthusiastic. In fact, Grumpy Old Man took over big time. The last time I’d heard the group, we were all standing around in a grassy field listening, and, in my case, fidgeting and wishing I was somewhere else. My normal regime of music is classical to listen to and folk music to play on my various instruments. This band met neither of these requirements.

However, I tagged along and promised to try to smile. In fact, I even stopped my wife just outside the hall, where the party was taking place, to practice smiling and to check that my wife could see that I was practicing smiling. (Hey! Little things please grumpy old men’s little minds! I mean, I was there wasn’t I? I’d made an effort.)

I had even resolved, although I hadn’t told my wife, to try my hand at dancing. This may seem a particularly unspectacular idea but, without even a sniff of a party or other occasion to indulge in this ancient form of exercise, for many years, to put it mildly, I was out of practice. My confidence was shot. It was going to take a lot of courage to step out onto the dance floor and wiggle my middle-aged body about.

I was even fairly uncertain whether a middle-aged, rather balding if the truth be known, man should even wiggle his body about at all. Perhaps there’s a law against it. Perhaps I will look completely ridiculous. Surely the various stages of decrepitude that being middle aged brings should also bring freedom from prancing about and making oneself look ridiculous.

However, when I was young, like 30 years ago, I reckoned I had a few twists and turns that marked me out from the rest and I promised myself to throw caution to the winds and give these an outing!

So, after we had made our introductions, and chatted to a few people, to show willing, as soon as the band struck up, I grabbed my surprised wife’s hand and launched us onto the dance floor. I even ignored her protest that it wasn’t a favourite tune for her to dance to. I was determined to dance as instructed. Nothing would stop me. Thinking Man was gone and now replaced by Action Man with his vast array of twiddles, twists and turns. After all, I had spent many hours on the tennis courts, honing my body to superb fitness (O.K. So I exaggerate, sometimes!) My wife wanted to do modern dancing, so we would dance, and I wasn’t going to be the one aching afterwards, since the most active thing she ever does is housework.

We danced all night and all my twiddles and twirls were fully exploited. I even probably invented a few new ones. The wife seemed to be rather concerned about my pogo dancing bit and even had the nerve to inquire when I had ever been a punk rocker. Some people just don’t appreciate true balletic art!

Although I hate to admit it, the dancing was fun and I got huge amounts of exercise so at least it had some practical benefit. The band that I didn’t enjoy listening to was great to dance to and I enjoyed watching the saxophone players, as I jigged about, being a sometime saxophone player myself. So that night was a great success. I enjoyed myself and so did my wife.

Oh, and one more thing. I really ached the next day from all the exercise … and she didn’t!

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott – online author and aspiring ex punk rock dancer