And as a second May Day passes without being able to dance safely because of Covid, I share this dance with you.

This school has an incredibly long running maypole tradition, and also one of the most complex dances out there!

And danced without a single mistake - but I can why they have chalk marks to help them out!

Click to view

This entry was originally ( Read more... )

 It's May day, darn it.

Can't do what I'd normally do, which is have the maypole at a fete with loads of dancers joining in.

So, here is proof that it's possible to do maypole dancing even in these days of social distancing!

The first time Oswin has ever done maypole, but she took to it like a duck to water!

We carried on long after this video was ( Read more... )

 For reasons too lengthy to go into, I'm on a maypole kick this week.

So I'm sharing a good modern maypole dance with you.  It's official name is "Twister" but the kids I teach called it "Snakes"and I prefer that name. If you watch, you'll see where the name comes from.
Wait for the undo, it's very different from the construction - though you can ( Read more... )

 I'm knackered.  May bank holiday weekend is the top time for morris and maypole bookings, but dancing, playing and calling maypole dancing two days in succession is really exhausting ( Read more... )

 I'm going to be pretty croaky by Sunday evening ( Read more... )

 Just discovered this old movie footage from 1938 of the Peeover Rose Queen.

Look at the male morris team and their pom pom style sticks.  I've never seen ones like that before on a traditional side.  I wonder if modern sides actually avoid that look because we now associate it with carnival morris/majorettes/cheer leaders...

Also, look at the women' ( Read more... )

 Vera, could you take a look at this one?



Scroll forward to 31:23 - this is the first time I've seen a Czech maypole dance using ribbons, but it's done by an American folk group (though they seem to be doing specifically Czech and Slovak dances, so I hope they've done some research).

I couldn't catch the name of the village they gave.

It's only a ( Read more... )

 I've just done a couple of maypole sessions with the Dorset Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers.

I had high hopes of this one, and I was proved right.

A group of all adults, and, being weavers, they understood exactly what I meant by 'maintain an even ribbon tension'.

Ah, the joys of a group who all know left from right and clockwise from anti- ( Read more... )

 The Czechs aren't the only ones with a tradition of raiding maypoles from other villages....

Read this page here - which will tell you how an enterprising group managed to steal this maypole!


( Read more... )

 Spoke too soon about bad teachers...

I had a group today who got almost everything wrong!

In my defence, I should say that groups with more than three children age under 4 are very tough indeed, and I did have 24 dancers, but it was still a mess.

24 are just too many to handle without a wrangler, and my volunteer wrangler was new to the job, so wasn' ( Read more... )