Foresters Morris Men
Foresters Morris Men
Happy Birthday to the Foresters Morris Men
60th Anniversary
By Joseph Earp
This year sees the 60th birthday anniversary of Nottingham's oldest existing Morris dance side.
The Foresters Morris Men (full title "The Foresters Morris and Sword Dancing Club") was formed in 1952, and with the Morris revival in the early 20th century, the Foresters became the first Morris dancing club in Nottingham. Since the side are near to Sherwood Forest, we have Robin Hood as our logo. The club was formed from the demise of other sides in nearby towns, which had been in existence in the 1930s, and were kept going by ladies during the war years.
We perform mainly English Morris dances from the Cotswold and border regions, together with some dances from Lichfield. At appropriate times of year we perform a traditional local Plough Play (a type of mummer's play, see photos and sound) and mummer's play. We also include rapper sword dancing in our repertoire.
On the 29th of September the team will be celebrating their birthday by dancing in Nottingham city centre. Help the team celebrate by coming to see us dance. We will be dancing in Nottingham city centre from 11.00pm. We have no formal dancing locations for the day, so if you see us, come over and watch us dance. We will be joined by local sides, Dolphin Morris Men and Lincoln & Micklebarrow Morris Men
If you fancy having a go at Morris Dancing, come and join us for a practice session. We are not fussy and accept all dancers of any age and fitness. However as we are an all male side we only accept male dancers. Please see the link to our website below where you will find information about practices plus anything else you wish to know about us:
http://www.chezfred.org.uk/for/index.html