2019

TG2308 : Kemp's Men dancing in Castle Street

taken 5 years ago, near to Norwich, Norfolk, England

Kemp's Men dancing in Castle Street
Kemp's Men dancing in Castle Street
Twenty-four sides (ie groups) of Morris dancers were performing at Norwich today at different locations in the city, where all types of Morris and traditional dance were on display at various spots, including Cotswold and Border Morris, Sword dancing and North West Clog dancing.

Kemp’s Men of Norwich are named in honour of Will Kemp, colleague of Shakespeare, fellow shareholder in the Globe Theatre, and Europe’s most famous comic actor and Morris dancer extraordinary. Eventually, in 1599, the two Wills fell out and Will Kemp went on to dance the Nine Daies Wonder from London to Norwich as a bet in 1600. In the year 2000, in order to celebrate said event, many Morris dancers from all over the UK re-enacted his great feat by dancing the 120 miles from London to Norwich. Two of the dancers and two of the officials who walked with them were Kemp’s Men, and shortly afterwards  a sculpture commemorating Will Kemp was erected in Chapelfield Gardens in Norwich > Link.

Kemp’s Men dance a wide mixture of Cotswold Morris from a number of traditions but have also a repertoire of local invented dances, composed by the Men, often given names related to local people, places or events and based on the Norfolk longdance, with the music for these generally being based on local tunes.  Many of the dancers are also musicians and the pre and après dance session is a part of Kemp’s culture.  
 
Morris dancing

Morris dance is a type of English folk dance . It is usually accompanied by music and based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers, frequently wearing bell pads on their shins and wielding sticks, swords or handkerchiefs. The earliest known and surviving English written mention of Morris dance dates from 1448 and records the payment of seven shillings to Morris dancers by the Goldsmiths’ Company in London. 

The name was first recorded in the mid-15th century as Morisk dance, moreys daunce, morisse daunce. The modern spelling 'Morris'-dance first appears in the 17th century. It would seem that the dance became part of performances for the lower classes by the later 16th century, and in 1600 the Shakespearean actor William Kempe Morris-danced all the way from London to Norwich - an event chronicled in his 'Nine Daies Wonder'. By the mid 17th century, the working peasantry is documented to have taken part in Morris dances, and Morris dancing continued in popularity until the industrial revolution.

A number of English folklorists were responsible for recording and reviving the tradition in the early 20th century, often from a bare handful of surviving members of mid-19th-century village sides. The most notable among these are Cecil Sharp, Maud Karpeles, and Mary Neal. In the first few decades of the 20th century, several men’s sides were formed, and in 1934 the Morris Ring was founded by six revival sides. In the 1950s and especially the 1960s, there was an explosion of new dance teams, some of them women’s or mixed sides. At the time, there was often heated debate over the propriety and even legitimacy of women dancing the Morris, despite there being evidence from as far back as the 16th century that there had always also been female Morris dancers.

Historically, Morris dancing music is believed to have been played on loud and rhythmical instruments of the time such as the pipe and tabor. Today, the music is often played on accordion, melodeon and concertina, the so-called "free-reed instruments," but fiddle and flute can also often be heard, together with percussion instruments such as the tambourine, tabor and bass drum.


Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Evelyn Simak and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: City, Town centre People, Events
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Norwich [2712] · Street [1498] · Display [462] Title Clusters: · Kemp's Men dancing in Castle Street [3] ·
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TG2308, 6226 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Evelyn Simak   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Saturday, 14 September, 2019   (more nearby)
Submitted
Sunday, 15 September, 2019
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TG 2306 0854 [10m precision]
WGS84: 52:37.7252N 1:17.6715E
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! TG 2305 0853
View Direction
Northeast (about 45 degrees)
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Image Type (about): close look 
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