The border in Border Morris is the line dividing England from Wales. Border Morris is distinguished by an exuberant spirit with simple stepping and exciting sticking. It has much in common with wassailing or caroling, where group go door to door performing and begging alms.

We will be showing traditional dances from the villages of Evesham and Upton-on-Severn and newly composed dances in the Border style, Not for Joe from Kettering in England, Battle of New Orleans to that popular tune, Ockington and Mr. Dolly learned from a team in the Syracuse NY area, and The Impossible Dance from a Burlington VT team.

Unlike the showy solo sword dances of Scotland and Ireland, English Longsword dancing is part of a linked-sword tradition widespread throughout Europe, in which teams of five to eight dancers weave patterns while linked together by “swords” held by the hilt (one’s own handle) or point (the tip of the neighbor’s sword). Such dances usually climax in the forming of a star or lock that is displayed by the lead dancer. The lock may be used to symbolically behead someone who is then revived with kisses or foolery, as in another British tradition, the Mummer’s Play. The dances we perform are based on figures from the towns of Ampleforth and Kirby Malzeard, both in the Yorkshire Dales of northern England.