If Flamenco why not Morris?

Duvet

Duvet

Member
As with Bollywood, Flamenco fusion seems to be quite popular at the moment. Fusions are fine by me, some work, some don't (tap-dance doesn't, Breton dance does). Bollywood seems to have seeped into Bellydance under the aegis of having common gypsy roots (true or false or maybe), and Flamenco is included as an Arabic dance because it has its roots in the Andalusian gypsies who were heavily influenced by the Moorish occupation of Spain (711-1492). I've also heard of Zambra Mora, said to be the Moorish influenced gypsy style Flamenco, but unless I've seen bad performances of it, I have to admit I only saw the similarities to bellydance because I was looking for it, not because it was very evident.

How distant does a dance need to be from any Arabic connection for it not to be claimed under the Bellydance umbrella? If some teachers think any gypsy type dance = common link to bellydance, or think 15th Century Moor = Flamenco = suitable as Arabic dance, when are we going to start seeing Morris Dancing as a workshop option?

Potential for an untapped market. ;)
 
khanjar

khanjar

New member
But is the Morris Moorish, other writers suggest otherwise due to references made from a much earlier time to ask how a North African dance ended up becoming a folk dance in England. Perhaps why there isn't fusion to speak of, is because the dances are too different, where I see belly dance as an earthy dance and the morris as an air dance.

Earth Mysteries: Morris Dancing

But I used to dislike the morris, that was until I started to learn bd, and now I hold a lot of respect for those that do it, but it's not for me.
 
Shanazel

Shanazel

Moderator
There is nothing new under the sun or under the belly dance fusion umbrella. Belly dance step dancing fusion- now that was weird.
 
Duvet

Duvet

Member
Thanks all. I wasn’t trying to suggest that Belly-Morris was a new idea. I’ve got Belly buddies who have danced with Morris Dancers, and one who used to be in an all women side herself.

So is the general consensus that Morris Dance is already under the Bellydance umbrella, and that we should start seeing it in Bellydance classes?

I personally don’t see much similarity between Morris Dance and Bellydance movements. I tried it for a while. It was an interesting experience to compare with bellydance – a predominately male dance vs. a predominantly female one. The discussions I had as a newbie with some of the older Morris Dancers reminded me of some of the stories I’ve encountered surrounding Bellydance.

Morris is ancient pagan worship = Bellydance is ancient Goddess worship
Morris is a fertility dance = Bellydance is a birthing/fertility dance
Morris is a male only dance = Bellydance is a female only dance
Morris is danced in male areas (pub/work) = Bellydance is danced in female areas (harem)
Morris was banned as immoral = Bellydance was banned as immoral
GP see it as just leaping and waving hankies = GP see it as just wiggling and wafting about

I also had a conversation with one guy about how Morris can’t be danced properly by women. He accepted women only sides, but mixed sides don’t work because women dance to a different rhythm in the music. I wonder how he thought partner dancing, from Ballroom Rumba to Jive, had managed to cope this long if men and women danced to different rhythms?

There is of course one big difference; Morris = real ale & Bellydance = chocolate, although the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
 
B

Birdlight

New member
Duvet said:
Thanks all. I wasn’t trying to suggest that Belly-Morris was a new idea. I’ve got Belly buddies who have danced with Morris Dancers, and one who used to be in an all women side herself.

So is the general consensus that Morris Dance is already under the Bellydance umbrella, and that we should start seeing it in Bellydance classes?.
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Oh lord no! although there are similarities-in that both are folkloric dances at the roots-the overlap seems to be in that people wish to combine two earthy, historical dances, not in the movement vocabulary or the aesthtic.

Re: the immorality similarity- fun Morris dance fact time!

Morris was indeed made illegal for a period of time, and that is where the blackface and tat coats stem from- the coal miners used to go to church in their Sunday best, then black up and turn their Sunday jackets inside out to reveal the tatters. This was used as a disguise. It was banned because the only day off the miners got was Sunday and the church was NOT happy about something with potential pagan links being danced. Also it earned the miners essential extra money to support their families (especially over the hard winter months), and working on a Sunday was frowned upon.

Whereas I believe bellydance was banned as it was considered licentious and innappropriate for women to perform? Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think people will fuse anything that they have an interest in- Morris included. And like any fusion, this sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. A lot of things are put under the bellydance umbrella, but that doesn't mean they are suitable to be taught in classes as bellydance! As has been discussed many times, to fuse well you need a good grounding in BOTH dances.
The group above teaches a local Gypsy Caravan variant which is enjoyed by morris dancers because of the musical choices and the overlap of Morris-esque costuming, they tend not to be doing the full leaping and swirling that Morris can involve. Certainly no Border style mock stick figghting, although i have seen hankies used. But then hankies are kind of like small veils aren't they?!:lol:
 
khanjar

khanjar

New member
I find it very curious how dance has been and still is inhibited by religious dogma, when so many religious scriptures mention dance as being something humans should do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_in_mythology_and_religion

But I think it is inhibited because it excites human instinct and certain religious beliefs frown on that and consider the nature of humans as ungodly, which kind of does not make sense.

The morris I am aware has been watered down and mutilated by the church in Britain and is in fact probably a mere shadow of it's former self, so in understanding it's origins, we can't because the important components have been eradicated as it is likely what has survived is the less contentious parts of the dance as it is people will modify just to be allowed to continue.

Like belly dance religious dogma has had it's ripping claws into that as well and quite probably the keys have been lost through religious control so we all wonder where it came from.

So it is my belief that religion over the past two millenia has done mankind a disservice and has done it's best to destroy the culture of humans and it is one of the reasons I am so scathing of religion and just hope the next two millenia is not so similarly dogged by illogical and perverted notions from the past and with that will we be a better people without religion, you know free from group thought and control ?

But interesting last night one of my class mates was doing something different I recognised as slightly flamenco-esque, I asked after and discovered my class mate comes from Spain and no she had not done Flamenco, so I guess it is a cultural thing and lovely to see, bearing in mind where Flamenco is purported to have come from.

But as to separate male and female dances, to me, my notion is smash the boundaries make them become people dances and when culture and art is totally unisex, then maybe the rest of society will follow and we can rid the wholly discriminating and damaging past from our future.

But Morris and Belly dance maybe it could work thinking on what I mentioned earlier, belly dance being an earthy dance and the Morris being an air dance, combining the two could be more balanced the up movement and the down movement and somewhere in the middle neutrality. But thinking on that all we need now to make it truly natural and there whole is a fire dance and a water dance, because we have the spirit ; us.

I mention those elements because of an experience I sometimes get when all elements are working together, the feeling is well, magic, very much like the zone in dance a feeling of being totally in tune with everything and part of it. Where I get this feeling outside of dance is sometimes when I am working with the forge, then the mind kicks in and starts to think and the moment is lost.
 
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I

indrayu

New member
Community dance groups throwing something together, mixing it with ale and laughter...it's all the fun of the fair. :) If it's not blatantly disrespectful, it's just the joy of dance.

But to take a spontaneous "fusion" and work it up as a dance style... for most of us, it's a free world and we're free not to believe someone else's publicity.

The 400 Roses were interesting for me, for a completely non-dance reason. Here in Oz, the ABC (local version of the BBC) often has a Sunday evening TV programming slot of a British period drama. The 400 Roses costumes looked like a youth version of that (I'm a crusty over-50 :lol:): an English novel dramatisation costumed by Vivienne Westwood's daughters. A very British look.

They are evolving their dance style, but I'm a purist when it comes to names. It's great that people are trying different things, it just annoys me when they call it something it obviously isn't.
 
Duvet

Duvet

Member
Birdlight said:
Re: the immorality similarity- fun Morris dance fact time!

Morris was indeed made illegal for a period of time, and that is where the blackface and tat coats stem from- the coal miners used to go to church in their Sunday best, then black up and turn their Sunday jackets inside out to reveal the tatters. This was used as a disguise. It was banned because the only day off the miners got was Sunday and the church was NOT happy about something with potential pagan links being danced. Also it earned the miners essential extra money to support their families (especially over the hard winter months), and working on a Sunday was frowned upon.

Whereas I believe bellydance was banned as it was considered licentious and innappropriate for women to perform? Correct me if I'm wrong.
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While the 19th Century industrialists did try to control the labourers' leisure as much as their work and education, Morris had been frowned upon hundreds of years earlier by the Puritons in the 16th-17th Centuries. Anything that they interpreted as pagan or open to sinful pleasures, such as dance, gamboling, sports, music, many festivals and the customs held to celebrate them (including Christmas), were criticised, and when they gained political power under Cromwell, heavily curtailed.

This website http://http://www.winerock.com/sources/index.html has many sources on Elizabethan dance (not specifically Morris), including Puriton tracts entitled "A dialogue agaynst light, lewde, and lasciuious dauncing wherin are refuted all those reasons, which the common people use to bring in defence thereof" (1582), and "A Treatise of daunses, wherin it is shewed, that they are as it were accessories and depēdants (or thinges annexed) to whoredome" (1581). Dancing has frequently been seen as sinful, and not just women dancing.
 
Duvet

Duvet

Member
khanjar said:
So it is my belief that religion over the past two millenia has done mankind a disservice and has done it's best to destroy the culture of humans and it is one of the reasons I am so scathing of religion and just hope the next two millenia is not so similarly dogged by illogical and perverted notions from the past and with that will we be a better people without religion, you know free from group thought and control ?
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Just the last 2,OOO years? Religion has been influencing people's minds and behaviour for a lot longer than that, whether you feel it attempts to pervert or to enlighten. Dance itself can be, has been, and still is used as a religious expression across many traditions. If you are meaning Christianity specifically, then dance was used as a form of worship in the early Church, and continued within the Catholic Church until the time of the Reformation, when the Protestants did away with all the colour, pomp and festivities of worship. Here's a very potted history (from a Baptist) http://http://www.pastornet.net.au/renewal/journal6/coleman.html


khanjar said:
But Morris and Belly dance maybe it could work thinking on what I mentioned earlier, belly dance being an earthy dance and the Morris being an air dance, combining the two could be more balanced the up movement and the down movement and somewhere in the middle neutrality. But thinking on that all we need now to make it truly natural and there whole is a fire dance and a water dance,
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Maybe Latin American for fire, and Tai Chi for water? Have you heard of Keti Sherif's Pulse8Elements? She attempts to combine different styles to create the different elements in a bellydance framework (more fusion I'm afraid :confused:).
 
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