Video of Ezra dancing the Rose

Here's a video of Ezra's first dance out - The Rose

(sorry, it needs Quicktime 7 and I haven't sussed how to embed the video in this page yet)

Jousting at Acton

Well, who would have thought, our newest member would be the "dashing" Count Adhemar of Acquitaine, seen here wearing the distinctive London Pride bowler?

On Saturday we started the dancing season, performing at a St George's Fayre, at The Park Club - a health club in Acton.

Further up the bill were the New Scorpion Band. They're not, as one might suppose, a tribute band for the well-known German heavy metal band, but a lovely acoustic folk band.

Also on the scene were the Knights of the Damned, a jousting stunt team. Count Adhemar, the Black Knight won my favour, and honoured me by wearing the black bowler, before competing in the lists. I thought that "favours" were really a sort of courtly love thing, but obviously, the Kinghts are more broadminded than you might have expected. Anyway, I'm a sucker for the glamour of evil.

We danced two sets, with three Kanssens in the team. Noah and Ezra got plenty of dancing in, in fact we relied on them, since the day coincided with a London Pride club weekend elsewhere...

Farewell to Wakefield Street; Thank You Lynette

Last night was Lynette's fairwell do at the URC hall in Wakefield Street. We celebrated with a number of the other groups that have been using the space. Lynette's been managing the place for 18 years, and we've been practicing there for about that length of time.

The hall's been sold - to a Buddhist group - and we're looking for somewhere else to practice in September.



It's been a fabulous place, and we got a picture of how fabulous at Lynette's leaving party, as we met some of the other groups that use it. The Hungarian dancers were especially exciting, and I also liked the Philhellene Greek dance group, with their solemn style and wonderful costumes.




I didn't manage to get any photos of us dancing - yet. Anyone else got some to post?

Sian Lloyd and the Blue Sky

So last night, as promised, we used Morris to explain why the sky is blue.

I got to hug Sian Lloyd who - only for the purposes of the show, Mr Opik - is an old and very close friend of mine.

Ezra and Noah were centre of the set, and we danced Banks of the Dee - or parts of it - more times than we ever have in our lives (and we've danced Banks of the Dee pretty often, I can tell you). This was pretty tough for us, but Peter K, John M and William had to play that tune - and sometimes just the A tune - over and over for an hour and half.

The crew filmed us from overhead, dancing with different colour hankies, to illustrate the way blue light is scattered out of sunlight. I'm imagining it will have a sort of Busby Berkeley effect.

Of course, even with all that practice, the hays still weren't as slick as they should be - or even in some cases, actually correct. When it all gets edited down to one minute, I'm sure they'll edit out the collisions. Either that or they'll edit the rest out, and use Morris dancers colliding as a metaphor for sunlight hitting the moleculse in the air.

London Pride Morris - supporting science?

We have another media opportunity. It would involve giving up our practice on 20 Feb to be feted and filmed in a Busby Berkley manner. However, it is all in the cause of science.

A TV production company want to use us to illustrate a scientific principle, for a proposed TV show. The show isn't yet commissioned, but they're making a sample episode, in which they want us to help explain why the sky is blue.

As you all know the sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering. The other colours pass right through the atmosphere, but short wavelength light, at the blue end of the spectrum, is absorbed and re-radiated. So the sky - which only has a colour because it scatters sunlight - is blue.

That's simple enough - but to make it fun, they want to have a team of morris dancers with multi-coloured handkerchiefs. For the scattered light we'd just have blue hankies.

They want to film us from overhead in a sort of Busby Berkeley manner, and edit it into a routine in which the hankies change colour at the clash of a pair of sticks...

They don't have any budget, but their studios are just round the corner in Newman Street (near Goodge Street). They could either come to our place (is the gallery in the back room suitable for overhead filming?) or we could come and do it in their courtyard.

If the series is commissioned, they would do a more polished version of the item, and there could be money. Maybe they could have Morris every week, illustrating a different principle. Maybe they could ditch the presenter and just use us!

I think it sounds fun, and I'm happy to give it a whirl.

I also want to use corner dances to illustrate quantum mechanical interactions between leptons, and maybe cyclotron effects in some rounds figures....

The question is, would it interfere with Ezra's steady progress in learning the morris, and seduce him into the bright lights of showbiz at too early a stage?

Next season's dances?

I just got the Morris Ring newsletter - it turnes out they have put Lionel's "Black Book" of Morris dances online here

and, wonderfully, it seems that the (in)famous village of Trunch (of Kipper Family fame) in Norfolk has a little-known tradition, that I'm dying to try out on the men.

Unfortunately "The girl I left unconcious" is unpublished, and "the Norfolk Constabulary wish it to remain so." :)

An Eventful Feast

We formally danced in our two new men and officially gave them their baldricks and hats, and spent the afternoon dancing.
Allan had emailed me a suggested list of dances, with a jig in the middle, which it turned out was for him to do. (I am very grateful for him thinking of the running order as I hadn't.)

We had an RHP - (Rapid Half Pint) at the pub before going back for the feast itself.
Peter J phoned me while we were there to say he couldn't get to the feast. - So I was acting up as Squire. Noah dutifully volunteered to be Vice-Bagman, and sat beside me for the feast.
William phoned me just as I got back to the hall to say that Allan had collapsed in the pub.
Allan was taken to UCL hospital (unwillingly I think!) and it seems to have been just a combination of low blood pressure and low blood sugar, after doing 4 dances on the trot and then a jig.
While all that was going on Simon was missing. He seems to have got lost on the way back form the pub.
Eventually Simon turned up just as William and Bob came in from being with Allan, and then Richard after about an hour (he'd stayed with Allan)

All was OK in the end, and it doesn't seem to have been anything more serious. Allan still managed to catch the last tube home.
We still managed to have a few songs and a lovely meal (the venison was delicious!)

Noah learnt the value of doing Greek Gods for his project at school, having had the conversation at table dominated by debates about which God did what and what was the Roman version, and how did the Can Can fit in with it all?

Antony took some photos - Hopefully he'll post a couple on the blog.

Venison, pheasant or lamb?

• Michael R has the urge to cook, and I certainly approve. He's thinking of a stew, perhaps lamb, venison with chestnuts, or pheasant. The hall oven is on the blink so it looks like we're cooking on a motley assortnemtn of gas burners. This implies mashed potatoes and maybe Brussels sprouts.


• Peter has paid for the hall all day on 3 December, the day's programme will be as usual


• Any thoughts on a guest? One suggestion was to invite Richard Lewis, author of The Magic Spring, that we met on ITV's This Morning but he's based in France, so other suggestions welcome...
• 
  
• The cost will be £12 as that's what we charged last year and we're fairly flush - thanks in part to ITV's This Morning.
  

Feast planning

Time to start planning the feast. It will be on Saturday 3 December.

I assume that we'll be doing something like what we've done in the past - but any comments and suggestions are welcome.

I've just discovered that I won't be at many practices this term, owing to pantomime rehearsals.

Peter

12 Sept 2005: The Queen's Larder

The audience at the Queen's Larder were less friendly than they have been, and apparently the new landlady is not yet aware of the vast asset that our twice-yearly visits represent (Lynette put her straight on that).

Still with an excellent turn-out (everyone shows for the last dance of the season), we danced to moderate enthusiasm crossed with indifference from a rapidly changing crowd.

The second stand at the Nofolk Arms was a much better event. As usual, there was almost no one about in Leigh Street, which looks a bit bleak and forbidding, but people who actually live there materialised as if by magic.

A chap who's seen uas there before was enthusiastic, to the point of almost volunteering to come to practices. Other people asked about the meaning of it all. Visitors from other countries joined in (I can't remember where they were from though).

We celebrated the Ashes win, of course, with a "balance the straw" danced to Waltzing Matilda. I don't go in for this sort of jingoistic hollering as a rule, but could see the attraction of singing "Who won the ashes? We won the ashes! La lalala lalala lalala."

Another lady told us it was the first time she'd been cheerful for a year - which somehow makes it all worthwhile.

There was food too, courtesy of Allan visiting Tesco.

Here's some photos of us dancing in the Blue Peter Gardens on May day that Ezra took:



I think that was my favourite show of 2005.

Show report: The Angel Canal Festival

Possibly my favourite show of the year. this year was our third outing to the Angel Canal Festival, and the 20th year the Festival has happened.

The first Sunday in September, the towpath at the Angel is lined with stalls. There are boat rides and canoes to try, second-hand books, food and other things. Including Morris of course.

This year, London Pride were upstaged young Bollywood dancers, the excellent continental busking of the Tragic Roundabout and, as you can see, cute baby owls. Despite that, we did our bit, performing three shows, at two spots either end of the festival.

Apart from the owls, the highlight was the encouraging audience. Some of them were ready to join in, especially some of the smaller ones who wandered in when they felt like it.

Practice Season Starts Again

We're back at the URC Hall in Wakefield Street for regular Monday practices, at the back, beyond the psychological self-help classes.

So far this term, we've danced Fieldtown and Bampton, and welcomed one new dancer.