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I love Eynsham’s dancing, it’s a brilliant, lively tradition. I did a workshop with you at Sidmouth a few years ago and found it really challenging. Did your academic interest in morris history stem from being a dancer? The Three-point Fold is first folded into a triangle, then the corners are folded up and across to make three points. Although it has been strongly infiltrated by Hindu thought and custom, Sikhism remains a mono-theistic faith. Idol worship is forbidden and no rivers, mountains, or places are held to be sacred. Yet Sikhism accepts the Hindu theory of the transmigration of the soul, holding, however, that the human form of life is the highest and that it is human actions which determine whether one will attain salvation by the fusion of one’s light with the light of God. The team worked in the city of Zlín, at a state-owned studio. Besides Týrlová, a few other key talents on the film were Josef Pinkava, who directed the live-action parts, and designer Kamil Lhoták. Týrlová called it a broad collaboration. She wasn’t an ego-driven filmmaker — allowing others into the process was part of her process. General Lafayette was greeted on a visit to Providence, R.I., by "nearly 200 Misses, arrayed in white", who strewed flowers in his path "at the same time waving their white handkerchiefs". "Lafayette In America". Times [London, England] 16 October 1824, p.2.
In America , Netflix Animation and Warner Bros. Discovery saw more layoffs this week — roughly 30 people at Netflix, around 100 people in Warner’s ad sales divisions and an unspecified number on Warner’s film Bye Bye Bunny . Yes, but rather by accident. After I’d been with the Oxford City Morris Men for a couple of years, the bagman produced a battered old photograph album and said, “This is our history from 1937 to the early 60s – can you bring it up to date?” So I started digging and never stopped. In the end, I produced 11 volumes for Oxford City, bringing the history up to 1982. They’re now in the Oxfordshire History Centre, together with the six continuation volumes to 1996. The story of The Knot in the Handkerchief is simple, but it hinges on an idea that needs explaining to modern viewers. At the time, knotting a handkerchief was a way to remember something — like a string around your finger.Meanwhile, Russia ’s government ponders a bill that would pull state funding from “producers, distributors or cinemas” that “propagandize their anti-patriotic actions, condemn the actions of state authorities and do not support the civilian population of Donbass.” Using scrap paper. As soon as we have a piece of scrap paper, we have a way of expanding our memory, by writing things down. I have tried very hard to make this a narrative history which is understandable to, and interesting for, anyone with no previous knowledge of morris dancing. My wife was very helpful in this – as a non-dancer she read through several drafts and pointed out where I needed to explain things better to a lay readership. I have also tried to convey not just what was done, but what people – both practitioners and audience – thought about it, so it is as much a history of the ideas as it is about the practice.
For years, she didn’t try it. “I was afraid to film it for a long time,” she recalled . This was a character without a face, or hands, or limbs of any kind. She hadn’t done anything quite like it. Sikhism started when a young Punjabi, Nanak Chand, who was born in 1469, set out to draw together the Hindus and the Muslims. He believed that there was much in common between the two faiths and that the misery and the wars which had so hurt the Punjab over the centuries could be avoided if the two peoples could be brought together. Accompanied by a Muslim musician and a Hindu peasant, Nanak preached his message of the brotherhood of man throughout the Punjab and as far afield as Assam and Ceylon. His crusade was against the fanaticism and intolerance of the Muslim faith as much as against the meaningless rituals and discriminations against castes and sex which were marring the Hindu religion.I love anecdotes like this. I think they show that these dances were not performed for the sake of ‘tradition’ or set in stone, but because people enjoyed dancing them and would adapt them to suit the situation. I began to look at the early records and then found out that John Forrest in the USA was doing the same. We agreed to collaborate and that produced our Annals of Early Morris listing of early morris-dance references in 1991, and a joint article discussing the material. Annals was comprehensive enough to give us a much fuller perspective on the early history, instead of the fragmentary and only half-understood sources available before then. We set our cut-off date at 1750, partly, from my perspective at least, on the presumption that after that morris was much closer to what we see today. I was wrong!
More often people were aware of historical changes over their lifetimes. This first emerges in the 16th Century when one text talks of a morris ‘in the ancient manner’, and Will Kemp, in 1600, pinned streamers to his shoulders which he described as ‘the olde fashion’, rather than holding napkins in his hands. So this hasn’t just been about revisiting and updating work that’s gone before; you’ve covered a lot of new ground and uncovered new history? What it does show us, though, is that short-term memory is limited and prone to interruption. And, as a result, we forget things. Probably, WTF!? I think that one new element that has emerged in the revival is the idea of morris as a hobby for its own sake. It is of course done for a variety of reasons, and always has been. Another thing that might strike an older dancer is the variety of styles of dancing visible at the same time. Morris dancing was much more regionally focused before the revival, so most people would only know of one style for much of the historical period. Recreation for Ingenious Head-peeces (1650); the first depiction to show a dancer holding handkerchiefs
Starting with her first major project, Ferda the Ant (1944), Týrlová made lyrical films for kids. As a documentary noted in 1961, “The aim of her remarkable work is to give the best to those she likes the best — children.” Like The Knot , many of these films are playful and near-plotless. The style won her fans, but detractors as well. During the mid-1950s, she spent a few years listening to her detractors. The material of a handkerchief can be symbolic of the socio-economic class of the user, not only because some materials are more expensive, but because some materials are more absorbent and practical for those who use a handkerchief for more than style. Handkerchiefs can be made of cotton, cotton-synthetic blend, synthetic fabric, silk, or linen. So are you optimistic about the future of morris? Do you think it will evolve further into the 21st Century?
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