| September 10, 2008 12:00 pm | to | September 19, 2008 12:00 pm |
Archive for July, 2008
| September 6, 2008 9:00 am | to | September 7, 2008 9:00 am |
Due to the terrible weather over the past weeks, we are sorry to say that the Kirkby Lonsdale September Fair & Country Market has had to be cancelled this year
After 27 years of the Victorian theme and having seen so many other towns copy the formula with, it has to be said, their paler imitations Kirkby Lonsdale has decided, once again, to lead from the front and breathe some fresh air into the end of season event.
After all even the Victorians got bored and moved on!
The promise of the new Fair is all the fun of the old Fair without all the dressing up!
Read all about this years Fair and Market
Sat 6th & Sun 7th Sep 2008
| July 29, 2008 | ||
| 10:30 am | to | 12:30 pm |
Travelling Morrice will be dancing outside The Churchmouse Cheese Shop at 10.30 am on Tuesday 29th July 2008. This is one of 38 places we will be dancing at during our week’s tour of Lancashire. The side last visited Lancashire in 1976 and some of the men on that one will be on this tour. Our oldest man is 82 and we are camping out at the Bridge House Farm in Wray for the week.
About Ourselves
The Travelling Morrice (TM) literally means ‘Travelling Group of Morris Dancers’, also it avoids confusion with the artist William Morris or the motor company.
The first tour of the Travelling Morrice was in June 1924 and there have generally been one or two tours per year since then. This is the 136th. The TM last visited the area in 1976. Some of those 1976 men are on this tour and we are dancing at some of the same spots.
Many of the morris dances performed today were rescued by members of early Travelling Morrice tours from the old dancers, morris dancing having then virtually died out in the villages.
Members of the Travelling Morrice come from all over the country to join the tours.
About Morris Dancing
The origins of morris dancing are now lost to us but the dances were probably celebrating the return of Spring. Recent research has found references to morris dancing back as far as 1458.
Until the mid 19th century, almost every village in the English Cotswolds had its own team, dancing at Whitsuntide its own version of the morris dances. In other parts similar dances survived such as in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, as well as Longsword and Rapper sword dances.
Late Victorian social change brought about the abandonment of Morris Dancing in most of the country but the revival dates from Boxing Day 1899 when Cecil Sharp first saw the Headington Quarry side near Oxford. Up until his death in 1924 he obtained many dances and tunes from the surviving dancers and then passed his knowledge on. The Travelling Morrice and others then continued his work to preserve English dances for future generations.