Border Morris
Border Morris
Where
The English-Welsh borders - the counties of: Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
Context
In the 19th century border morris was a simple form of dance usually performed by men for money. Groups of dancers would tour their local areas in the winter months when there was less work on the land. Border morris was a cadging activity like busking today; the dancers offered entertainment (dance) in return for money. Historical border teams were small, and the music which accompanied the dancing featured much percussion, including instruments such as triangles and drums.
What
In the early part of the 19th century Cotswold, Border, and Northwest morris clothing would have been indistinguishable from each other. Dancers would have gone out in their finest Sunday best clothing, perhaps dressed in white, covered in ribbons, and topped off with a smart hat. Throughout the 19th century the quality of costumes in the Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire area deteriorated. One cost efficient method was to attach coloured strips of rags to old clothes. Sometimes these clothes were normal jackets turned inside out, in other places the (mostly male) dancers wore women’s clothing (see molly dancing, section 8). In some places rags were even replaced with strips of paper. By the 1920s some dancers were wearing fancy dress costumes. There were two main purposes to the wide styles of costume used in this type of morris 1) to entertain and 2) to symbolise performance. This was something special and different, this was morris dancing.
Face Paint
In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was common practice for morris dancers in this geographic area to apply soot or other black substances to their faces. The most probable reason for this is that the dancers were cashing in on the popularity of minstrelsy, a highly offensive form of entertainment where white people applied black face paint as part of a show which featured the gross misrepresentation black people. In the 1970s revival of Border morris the historical use of face paint was not properly understood. Dancers thought that black make up had originally been used for disguise. Over time, dancers became aware that applying black face paint was offensive; teams took to wearing different coloured face paint, or masks instead, and now no morris teams dance in full blackface.
Further Developments
Today Border morris dances create eye-catching costumes often using facial disguise and rag jackets. Rag jackets, also known as tatter jackets or ‘raggles’ are a waistcoat, or coat covered in many rows of small fabric strips. Whilst some teams wear old fashioned working style clothing replicating what might have been worn in the past, other teams have used the rag jacket-and-disguise combination to great visual effect. Alternative morris is a recent development with teams creating dark, gothic style costumes. They dance wearing mostly black costumes and create very striking performances, often with heavy drumming and eerie tunes in minor keys.
