Morris Dance

Morris dance is a ritual dance form, thought to bring fertility to those who watch, certain to bring beer and bad knees to those who dance.

I dance with and co-run Squash Beetle Morris. Currently we do Border Morris and Cotswold dances in the Bledington and Lexington in the Bluegrass traditions. The latter is a work in progress dreamed of for years and begun in the Fall of 2003.

This is me in Squash Beetle kit in 1997.

The History of Morris Dance

Recently uncovered manuscripts reveal the true origin of morris dancing. Actually, it was originally Maori dancing. More than a millenium ago it spread throughout the Pacific (the heads on Easter Island are really hobbies). At some point Chinese merchants were lost in the Pacific. They learned to dance in the Hawaiian islands and continued on to South America where they taught the morris to the Incas. Of course it quickly spread throughout the Americas, arriving in the northeast just in time for Lief Ericson to learn to Morris. One of his crew grew tired of eating corn and returned to Scandinavia, where other Vikings learned the dance and carried it to Great Britain when they settled there. Really.