Holt Ridge Morris are coming!
I’m proud to be a member of Holt Ridge Morris, who are a mixed gender side. Location wise, we are loosely based on the North Norfolk area running from the glacial Holt-Cromer ridge down to Reepham and Aylsham.
There are several different styles of Morris dance – Holt Ridge perform ‘Cotswold’ Morris (which is the most common style and the best documented historically) along with a tiny amount of ‘Border’ Morris (the second most popular type). Other common styles of Morris dancing are ‘North West Clog’ and ‘Molly’. At some Morris events, you may also see two types of sword dancing which are members of the Morris family – ‘Longsword’ and ‘Rapper’.
Holt Ridge Morris dancing Cotswold Morris for the crowds
Fiddlesticks dancing North West Clog Morris at a country house
Gog Magog Molly dancing Molly Morris at a daffodil festival
Kenninghall Morris dancing Border Morris at a heritage railway
Morris dancing is first and foremost about having fun with a group of like-minded people (or should that be like-minded nutters)! As a by-product, it automatically gives your brain a good workout and increases physical fitness – many of the dances are extremely strenuous, especially the hanky dances.
As Morris dancing is about having fun, members of Morris sides are not averse to hamming it up and playing around with the dances – and I don’t just mean the dancers. As our former Musical Director said ‘the purpose of the dancers is to entertain the musicians’… they seem to get a perverse pleasure from gradually speeding up the music during particularly strenuous dances! I should say at this point, although hamming it up and playing around is part of the fun, it is never at the expense of good Morris dancing. Holt Ridge Morris are well known locally for the playfulness of our performances. If you have seen us perform, you may have seen us making strange animal noises for a specific dance, or witnessed us beefing up a potentially dangerous dance which only semi-jokingly includes the wearing of hard hats…
Morris dancers regularly meet up with other sides to perform alongside/with them. There is a very well known invitation only Morris side called ‘Bunnies from Hell Morris’ whose members live all over the country (all over the world in some cases). Various cohorts of them come together throughout the year to dance at different venues all round the country. Two of their members happen to be members of Holt Ridge Morris and several others join with Holt Ridge Morris for some of our performances. I was privileged to be able to dance with them once, and wow, do they know how to have fun! To see what I mean, just watch their version of Princess Royal Abingdon in the following link – although the dance is recognisable and danced well, the dance figures are on steroids and the chorus is not exactly true to the original…
While some Morris sides like to just perform occasionally within their local area, others enjoy performing at large Morris gatherings all over the country or go on annual tours of different parts of the country. Holt Ridge Morris are somewhere in the middle, which ironically means those members who wish to, probably get the opportunity to dance at more venues than members of almost any other side. We can be found dancing at suitable venues throughout North Norfolk almost every Monday evening during the summer months, as well as at weekend events on Saturdays and/or Sundays throughout Norfolk and parts of Suffolk, with odd forays into Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. Although the peak season for dancing out is summer, Holt Ridge Morris’s season normally starts by leading Wassails at the beginning of January and continues through to Boxing Day... so we do get a week off!
Morris dancing at sunrise on May Day is traditional, in this picture it is dawn on Sheringham promenade
Hoxon Hundred Morris warming up before boarding the steam train to dance in the carriages with us to Weybourne
Outside of the summer months, we practice and learn new dances on Monday evenings at a village hall near Aylsham (accompanied by the musicians – they have their own separate monthly practice sessions accompanied by one or two dancers).
No, the camera is not tilted and we aren’t drunk! This really is a Morris dance step and is used for going backwards. If you fancy joining in the fun experienced by Holt Ridge Morris (as a potential dancer or musician), you can email me or visit the Holt Ridge website https://holtridgemorris.co.uk/.