Well, for me, girls’ morris represents an important space for self-organisation and creativity. Zirconia Morris Troupe began in March 2001 and have been successful in our 9 years. '&utmxhash='+escape(h.substr(1)):'')+'" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">')})(); Our troupe trains dancers of all ages with girls as young as three through to young women of twenty-six. Glad to come across this and see you doing well: it’s well written so a reader who doesn’t automatically relate to it (me!) Revolution Morris Dance Troupe, Southport. We are a Morris Dancing troupe based in Wythenshawe, Manchester and are always looking for new or old dancers to come and join us between the ages of 4yrs - 30+ yrs. Our troupe principal Bev, and her assistants, Pauline and Lorraine, are all ex-morris dancers and with over 70 years experience between them, they provide excellent training and coaching for girls of all abilities and ages. Your Privacy, Dr Lucy Wright is an artist and ethnomusicologist, currently employed as Research Associate on the AHRC-funded. Are you in this Paulettes Morris Dancing Troupe picture from 1971? Then we would all end up on some field, where we would perform in turn our Morris Dancing routines. Let us know if you find any groups performing in Liverpool or Wirral in future though, as would love to go along. As the geographer, Tim Edensor notes, ‘the carnival remains an occasion at which normally concealed social tensions are celebrated’ (Edensor, 2002: 84). Leigh West Park compete with other troupes in the North West under the main body of the North West Dancing Asscociation (N.W.D.A.) (www.sheffield.ac.uk/music/staff/academic/lucy-wright). and Bentley, Bernard. Further dedicated study is required to chart the history of girls’ morris, but my time in the community makes it plain that the performance played an important role in the lives of many girls and women. 1 talking about this. As time goes on I take new photographs of my own, attend troupe practices and events, and even occasionally join in. At the end of the season, a championship event crowns each organisation’s Troupe of the Year. It is un-institutionalised—it rarely receives external funding or support—but its participants speak of a a strong sense of community, simultaneously as members of individual troupes and as part of what is colloquially known as the wider ‘carnival world’. utmx_section("Legacy Footer"). (1993)The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology and the English Folk Revival, Manchester University Press. Perhaps girls’ morris can provide a site through which to re-evaluate the boundaries of morris dancing; one that also enables us to give new meaning to a range of contemporary cultural products—even those not currently or readily recognised as ‘folk’. Leigh West Park is also a little friendly community with a great social side for both the girls and their parents. Danced primarily by girls and young women, it is characterised by heavily embellished costumes, pom-poms (‘shakers’) and precise, synchronous footwork—the ‘pas de basque’—choreographed to recorded pop music. Sharp, Cecil. function utmx_section(){}function utmx(){} A troupe of girls’ morris dancers compete at English Town and Country Carnival Organisation (ETACCO) championships © 2013 L Wright. Others are the first in their families to dance. Perhaps even more importantly, it represents a vibrant, living tradition, which has sidestepped recurrent cycles of extinction and revival common to many dominant narratives of folk performance. Interesting. var _gaq = _gaq || []; However, Mike Heaney described it as coherent with any ‘defensible definition’ of folk dancing (Heaney, 2006: 39), while Roy Dommett considered girls’ morris ‘heir to the richest of the English dance traditions’ (1986: 5). The dance requires at least two people, but any number can join in. d.write('