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What
a shame it was! At your recent Auction of Promises, no-one took up the
chance of a bargain evening's
entertainment offered by Greensleeves Morris Men. We practitioners are proud
of our art, but obviously we need to
be more evangelical about the Morris.
However your editor Alan Morris (no relation) has offered us a chance to
explain a bit about ourselves.
For a start, Morris is reckoned to be
one of England's major contributions to traditional culture. There are no
other dances so sophisticated in
Europe, which is why many countries beyond England have teams. Then it's all
a bit mysterious. No-one knows how
old is the Morris. Although it is suspected to have roots in pre-Christian
fertility rights, its recorded history goes back only 500 years or
so. We can't even tell you what the name Morris means. The most likely
explanation is that, because many teams blacked their faces as a form of
disguise, they got called `Moorish'
after the moors of North Africa.
So, why do we do it? For
a start, we enjoy the exercise. We wouldn't deny that we like a beer
afterwards (we practice on Friday
evenings in All Saints Church Hall opposite one of the Wimbledon's few
remaining locals, The Sultan).
But the real explanation is probably that moving as a team in time to
wonderful old tunes satisfies something
deep within us. Yes, there's a social
side to it as well, which is why, as a club, Greensleeves have been around
for 80 years. For at least 25 of
those years Wimbledon has been our parish. We dance a lot locally, and have
performed several times at St Mary's summer fair.
If you can't wait until the next
Auction of Promises, please contact me on 020 8540 1689, or visit our
website
for details of our practices and our
programme. We do music as well as movement,
and our website has details of the
acoustic music sessions we run once a month at The Hand in Hand on Wimbledon
Common. We'll be out performing a
lot this summer, but come October our practices start again, and all you men
are welcome. If you don't try it once, you'll never know what you are
missing - I promise.
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