Mr Hemmings Day of Dance – 2013

Mr Hemmings Day of Dance - 2013
Along Ock Street, and in the town centre, there was dancing by Mr Hemmings’ Traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers and visiting sides.
Mr Hemmings Day of Dance - 2013
Mr Hemmings Day of Dance is a celebration of the birthday of Tom Hemmings who rejuvenated Abingdon Morris in the early 20th century.
Mr Hemmings Day of Dance - 2013
Morris Dancing no longer seems such a quaint old custom.
Mr Hemmings Day of Dance - 2013
There are probably more morris dancers now as there have ever been. By today’s evidence many were young, and many female.
Mr Hemmings Day of Dance - 2013
The Summertown Morris from Oxford only started up a couple of years ago and have an excellent group.
Mr Hemmings Day of Dance - 2013
After all the teams had done a turn or two on the Market Place …
Mr Hemmings Day of Dance - 2013
all the groups came to together and did a mass dance. Then they went back to dance at pubs along Ock Street.

I’ve uploaded the mass dance to … youtube.

14 thoughts on “Mr Hemmings Day of Dance – 2013

  1. Neil Fawcett

    I enjoyed watching a few teams while I was in town. You are right that there seems to be a big growth in younger and female teams.

    Reply
  2. Cassandra

    A fantastic day. Did my shopping (many things I could not get in a supermarket) but available at the independent shops. Watched the dancing and then finished up with a great coffee and cake at Salinas. Who says that Abingdon has little to offer?!!
    Full marks to all of the Morris sides…they were terrific.

    Reply
  3. Abingdon fashion

    @cassandra people like you make running a local business worth while . The town needs support

    Reply
  4. Spike S

    You don’t have to ‘get’ Morris dancing, you just absorb it.
    It’s merely an ancient form of aerobics from the time when football was kicking some serf”s severed head around the battlefield !

    Reply
  5. Black Flag

    We have ‘aerobics’ and ‘drinking’ , both socially acceptable pastimes. Am I not right in concluding that you have to be pretty blootered to attempt this specific type of exercise? (To avoid the embarrassment etc?)

    I’m more of the belief that these people are, in fact. being forced to dance like this as some kind of punishment.

    Reply
  6. DKR87

    Black Flag – there’s this amazing thing called google…and another equally illuminating thing called wikipedia..from whence i found the following…it appears that morris dancing has it’s roots in the removal of the moors from spain:

    The term is derived from moorish dance, attested as Morisk dance and moreys daunce, morisse daunce in the mid-15th century. The spelling Morris-dance appears in the 17th century. Comparable terms in other languages are German Moriskentanz (also from the 15th century), French morisques, Croatian moreÅ¡ka, and moresco, moresca or morisca in Italy and Spain.[6] Another theory is that it derives from the Romanian “moriÅŸca”, which means “little mill”.[7]

    By 1492 Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille succeeded in driving the Moors out of Spain and unifying the country. In celebration of this, a pageant known as a Moresca was devised and performed. This can still be seen performed in places such as Ainsa, Aragon. Incorporated into this pageant was the local dance – the paloteao. This too can still be seen performed in the villages of Aragon, Basque country, Castille, Catalonia and northern Portugal. The original “Moresca” is believed[who?] to be a sword dance. A similar sword folk dance is known as the CăluÅŸari dance of Romania which spread abroad in Bulgaria and Serbia and it is also believed to be closely related to the Morris dance. Speculations suggest that the dance was borrowed from Dacia by the Celts.[8] The sticks in Morris dance are a residual of the swords in the “Moresca”. The similarity to what became known as the English “morris” is surmised.[citation needed] Although the Great London Chronicle records spangled Spanish dancers performing an energetic dance before Henry VII at Christmas of 1494, Heron’s accounts also mention “pleying of the mourice dance” four days earlier which could mean that the Morris Dance was an indigenous entertainment already in existence in England, perhaps from the Middle Ages.[9] Early court records state that the “moresque” was performed at court in her honour, including the dance – the “moresque” or “morisce” or “morys” dance.

    Reply
  7. Pingback: Mr Hemmings Day of Dance – May 11th 2013 | Summertown Morris

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