Like any gregarious 30-year-old, the Tiddley Cove Morris dancers celebrated their birthday on Saturday with song, dance and drink.
The local women’s dance group — or side, as preferred — performed to live music at the downtown branch of the Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Public Library and recharged at a pub before another outdoor performance in front of the Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Art Gallery accompanied by the Apple Tree Morris, Bridgetown Morris Men and Renegade Rose Morris, all visitors from south of the line.
The four “sides” made up the “Red Queen Tour” of the city, while three other groups, comprised of dancers and musicians from other areas of B.C., the U.S. and the U.K., also roamed the city.The Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Morris Men, as part of the “Mad Hatter Tour,” performed at Science World — the place where their female counterparts formed three decades ago.
The Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Morris Men danced at the British Pavilion at Expo 86 — the only participating country where its exhibits took visitors down a winding walk that led, conveniently, to a pub. The leader of the group, as a favour to Sandi Cleary, whose husband Steve was and is still a member, took to the microphone.
“Their leader made an announcement that somebody was wanting to form a women’s side and pointed in my direction,” Cleary recalled. “And nobody came forward.”
Not to be deterred, Cleary went ahead and put the word out via posters. Soon, there were three members and, after performing at a festival in West Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»in 1987, the group doubled and was able to perform dances requiring six.
Morris dancing is a traditional and centuries-old English folk dance that includes many regional variations such as North West Morris, which developed out of the mills in the North-West of England in the 19th and 20th centuries; Border Morris from the English-Welsh border; Molly dancing from Cambridgeshire home and traditional feast dances; and Cotswold Morris, from Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, which explains the handkerchiefs, sticks and bells the dozen-strong Tiddley Cove Morris dancers incorporate into their routines.
There are often “characters” at the dances, such as a “Green Man” or “Green Lady,” rooted in English folklore. Diana McKenzie, out of the dancing lineup with an injury, still partook in the festivities by wearing an elaborate Green Lady costume. Another character sometimes seen in Morris dancing is that of the fool who carries a pig’s bladder, added Cleary.
“He’s supposed to be one of the better dancers, if not the best dancer, and what he does with the bladder is he’ll go out and whack one of the dancers on their rear end if they made a mistake,” she said with a laugh. “It was the best dancer pointing out the fact that somebody screwed up.” There was a fool with a pig’s bladder rumoured to be with one of the out-of-town groups, which would have no doubt made for an interesting cross border customs story.
A sense of humour goes hand-in-hand with being a Morris dancer, but a newspaper article about the local women’s side in 1988 was cause for a change of name. The Tiddley Cove Morris dancers originally called themselves The Captain’s Ladies, and a newspaper tried to poke some fun at the name in a tiresome manner.
“Did the women conquer Captain Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»or was it the other way around? It was something like that. Yeah, we didn’t like the connotations so let’s change the name so we don’t get questioned about it,” said Cleary.
The group went with Tiddley Cove, a name inspired by the North Shore location of Tiddlycove that was featured in Len Norris’s cartoons that once ran in the Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Sun newspaper.
The Tiddley Cove Morris dancers do seem to enjoy wordplay. The name of Saturday’s event, which ended with a party, or ale, in Surrey’s Camp Alexandra was called Exponenti’Ale — a name that cleverly included Tiddley Cove’s place of birth and one of their favourite pastimes.
“We’re keeping the tradition alive,” said Cleary who is still very much a part of the group despite retiring from dancing in 2009. “The youngsters involved put their own spin on things as they do but it’s keeping it going.”
Morris dancing isn’t limited to those of English heritage. More information on the Tiddley Cove Morris dancers can be found at tiddleycovemorris.net.
