Day 230: First of all, I would like to thank the photographer from Merry Missives of Moscow for providing these images of our Sunday performance at Folklife. The Merry Missives are young dancers who attend a charter school in Moscow ID. They have no musicians of their own, so Sound & Fury's musos played for them. It was a privilege to share the stage with such an enthusiastic group of youngsters. They will carry the tradition of Morris dance into the next generation.
We performed in rotation with the Merry Missives, and opened with our new show piece, "Cobb's Horse." As you all know, I am new to Morris, so it was nice to have other dancers learning steps alongside me. The footwork for Cobb's is fairly simple, i.e., no galleys, no hocklebacks, no great leaps or complicated crossings. I struggled with the terminology at first, but now terms like "process up," "half-gip," "hands around," "foot down" are beginning to make sense. Clashing...well, it's not quite sword-fighting with sticks, but definitely has appeal for this old pirate.
In between dances, I double as a "muso" (musician). I don't have the requisite confidence to play my concertina in front of other members of the side, so I thump the bodhran or shake the tambourine.
Most Morris sides have a "hobby," a term you might equate with "hobby horse." Ours is Finn the Salmon. Finn's job is to accept donations from the audience, as well as occasionally weaving in and out among the performers as they dance. Unfortunately, our Sunday stage was too small for him to interface with us on the dance floor.
Depending on regional tradition, Morris footwork and costumes vary widely. Sound & Fury largely dances in the Adderbury tradition, a high-energy style. Bell pads are worn on the shins, not your standard jingle bell but rather ones made from much heavier brass. The ringing is quite loud! Dances nearly always involve either sticks or hankies, and are appropriately known as "stick dances" or "hanky dances." It might seem odd, but hanky dances are harder to execute since there are more things you can do with hankies and the timing must be perfect.
"Sweet Jenny Jones" is another of the dances I've learned so far with Sound & Fury. It is a stick dance and ends with a hey (dancers weaving between others in their line, returning to their orginal position at the end). In the hey, the top dancer (the one closest to the musicians) always passes right shoulder to right shoulder with the person approaching from below them in the set. Depending on whether you have a three-man line or a four-man line, the dancer at the foot (me) passes right or left respectively, a subtlety which almost always escapes me when my mind is on the footwork. I am happy to say that when I watched a video of our performance of "Jenny," I actually did the hey right for once!
As I mentioned earlier, Adderbury Morris is a particularly high-energy dance. Foreman Dave and Squire Dan catch some REALLY big air when they leap! This move always draws cheers and shouts of "Higher! Higher!" from the crowd.
There is some concern over whether or not Folklife will be able to continue. It started in 1972 as a small "hippie" music fete and has grown to its present state with over 5000 performers and 235,000 attendees in 2017. It's free, and therein lies the rub. It is enormously expensive to engage the entire 1960s World's Fair venue, to say nothing of advertising and other operational costs. This was my first time attending as either a member of the audience or a performer, and I will be back to dance next year if the festival can raise enough donations to continue.
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