Morris Dancing – Just Do It?

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Yesterday my life was changed. I saw street Morris Dancing. Well it was just ordinary Morris Dancing. But in the street. I’m sure there’s room for updating this old fashioned art – perhaps mashing it up with some rude drum and bass styles. Or something like that.

Actually it was just really good fun as it was. For about half an hour a small pocket of our local community had a bit of a laugh together with no pretensions of cool or age or anything. People just laughed and jumped around a bit.

Because of the role of Morris Dancing as a really important social glue. I think there’s a huge opportunity for the big global sportswear brands to get in on the act. I noticed that the Black Reebok Classic (or variants thereof) appears to be the shoe of choice of today’s Morris Man:

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However there was a clear competitive advantage shown by the guy wearing Nikes:

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That guy could be the Jordan of Morris Dancing – I kid you not!

If you want to see more pictures of men and sticks and small St George flags I’ve got a Flickr set here: http://flickr.com/photos/iaintait/sets/72157606153242104/.

Sophie and I even had a go. But thankfully there are no pictures. I hope.

4 thoughts on “Morris Dancing – Just Do It?”

  1. I really like the idea of Reebok getting involved with Morris Dancing. It’s just so right. I’ve been thinking about sportswear because its huge in China and Reebok who are a smaller player than Adidas or Nike use Yao Ming (the huge Basketball star) as brand endorser which is just boring and yet I suspect it works for the kids who need role models. But for a well thought out mature strategy I would notice quirky roles for sports brands rather than the endless bollocks about competing to win. I’m not competing with anyone. Its the sports brands who are competing for me and my wallet.

  2. I’ve said for a while that the ultimate face down would be the All Blacks’ Hakka being followed by the Lions doing a Morris Dance. It’s a cultural dance so it would hardly be derisive

  3. In all the time i have been dancing (20 years) publicity has always taken a back seat. It has always been about self achievment and enjoying a truely great british past time. But as I am 26 years of age and have always been the opposite of the standard Morris stereotype, i hav been seen as a bit of an oddity. I am a squire of a Morris side in Cornwall of all places (where there are only nine teams), and our team has the collective age of 280 years, rather than the average team which has around 600 years. This works to our advantage,as you can imagine. We have students, lecturers, Engineers, Pro surfers, and Pro skaters. Myself having an eventfull youth participated in both Skating and Surfing. Which takes me to foot wear. The shoe of choise in my eyes is infact a Skating shoe brand such as DC, ETNIES or OSIRIS. Believe me when i say i have danced on all conditions, on many surfaces and in many different shoes and my DC’s are by far my favourite. I can only put it down to the many manhours put in on the shoe manufacturers part in research and development, because these shoes seem to be made purposely for recieving abuse on the wearers part, They do Not! tear, they do NOT! cause pain in the first two weeks of wearing and the soles must be a secret only known to NASA, due to there ability to stick to even the most beer soaked pub floor known to man. Also i think the advertising for such a shoe company would not even be difficult, as Morris Dancing as far as the Insurance company are concerned with public liability is in fact an EXTREME sport. So watch this space, the next time you enter a well known Quicksilver or Ripcurl store you could very well be sold a pair of DC ‘morris pros’ by your local celebrity cardboard cut out Morris team. See you then.

    steve (squire Porthleven morrismen)

  4. In all the time i have been dancing (20 years) publicity has always taken a back seat. It has always been about self achievment and enjoying a truely great british past time. But as I am 26 years of age and have always been the opposite of the standard Morris stereotype, i hav been seen as a bit of an oddity. I am a squire of a Morris side in Cornwall of all places (where there are only nine teams), and our team has the collective age of 280 years, rather than the average team which has around 600 years. This works to our advantage,as you can imagine. We have students, lecturers, Engineers, Pro surfers, and Pro skaters. Myself having an eventfull youth participated in both Skating and Surfing. Which takes me to foot wear. The shoe of choise in my eyes is infact a Skating shoe brand such as DC, ETNIES or OSIRIS. Believe me when i say i have danced on all conditions, on many surfaces and in many different shoes and my DC's are by far my favourite. I can only put it down to the many manhours put in on the shoe manufacturers part in research and development, because these shoes seem to be made purposely for recieving abuse on the wearers part, They do Not! tear, they do NOT! cause pain in the first two weeks of wearing and the soles must be a secret only known to NASA, due to there ability to stick to even the most beer soaked pub floor known to man. Also i think the advertising for such a shoe company would not even be difficult, as Morris Dancing as far as the Insurance company are concerned with public liability is in fact an EXTREME sport. So watch this space, the next time you enter a well known Quicksilver or Ripcurl store you could very well be sold a pair of DC 'morris pros' by your local celebrity cardboard cut out Morris team. See you then.

    steve (squire Porthleven morrismen)

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