For those of you who don't know me, I am the West Midlands Area Rep, member of Shakespeare Morris amongst other folky/morris involvements! I suspect like many clubs, my first time of hearing about the Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) group of the JMO was when the Songs Survey was released via the Ring Bagman and on social media. I was interested to find out more about the work of the EDI group and the Songs Survey and consequently ended up being one of the Ring's two reps on the group alongside Paul Redhead of Devil's Dyke Morris Men.
In my relatively short time with the group I have been really pleased to see the work that goes on behind-the-scenes exploring new ways of recruiting people into the Morris and identifying barriers that may prevent people from doing so. Incidentally, if you personally have any queries or suggestions you could offer, please pass them my way and I will endeavour to represent the Ring as best I can, working alongside Paul and the elected Ring officers.
Back to the Song Survey, you can see a summary of the Survey's findings below. Meeting up on the 12th November to present the findings of our survey to the conference 'Folk dance - Grappling with Tradition' at Cecil Sharp House was a really memorable experience. Singing 'Lads a Bunchum - Adderbury' in key at the start of the presentation was a great start (OK we'd had a couple of practices beforehand, but still!). After the conference a number of Ring team members came up to me and gave me their views on the survey which I took on board and discussed. Then, having attended the conference with my family, the remainder of the day I was in and out of London's museums with my two little ones!
The conclusion of the Songs Survey is that, for many of us in the Morris, songs are a very important part of our performance and that in some cases the lyrics of songs are being adapted by particular teams. In other cases they are not, but the spirit of the tradition lives on, whatever words are being sung. Again, please contact me with any thoughts you have, or any skills you have to offer on any of the topics covered by the EDI group. We want to work together to promote the Morris to as wide an audience as possible.
Songs in Morris Dance Performance Survey
Matthew Turvey
West Midlands Area Rep
The Morris Ring