,&$I American ,- L Morris Newsletter --From the Editors Not unlike a shell game, the manner in which the Newsletter has been handed off from eaitor to editor during the brief periods any of them were around this summer. Capering through western Canada and Cascade glaciers, through the wilds of the Colorado Rockies and through the quiet, green villages of the Cotswolds, its editors wisely left AMN in its cool, dank cellars to mellow and age, to settle and clarify in its cask like good mead. And here is the result: hosts of Direc- tory revisions, an exposition on the fine art of the hobby horse, an introduction to the Open Morris, and yet another pensive peccadillo by our own sage and sot. As always we are grateful for a plentiful supply of team news and the like, and we once again invite those of a more serious turn of mind to own up to their occasional critique and loose the hoard of scholarly gems. Faux Pas The Cditors recently received word that the letter from Geoff Rogers which appearec 1: 1: the last issue of .Ax! was intended as a personal communicztior. 2nd not for publication. Happily we were able to make amends in person at the recent MidwSst Yorris Ale, but wish to take this opportunity to do so publicly. In order to avoid future confusion of this sort, please address personal letters by name an6 mark them "personal". -Team- - - .. -.-News This feature of the American Morris Newsletter is meant to provide for the regular communication among all morris sides as well as those who dance sword, ribbon, and garland. It is dependent upon your letters, postcards, and telepnone calls. The names of the correspondents appear at the end of each club's news. -----bells of the North (Minneapolis/St. Paul, !IS) The Bells of the North have just had the pleasure of celebrating our fourth year in existence--past the teething stage and learning to caper and hookleg without assistance. Mayday much-too-early morning found us once again doing Abrams Circle Dance at dawn on the shore of another beautiful Minneapolis lake--this year it was Lake Nokomis. (And the $10,000 question is...how long will it take us to dance at all of the lakes in Minnesota? For the answer to this and other exciting questions, tune in 10,000 years from now!) Seriously, words cannot describe the feelings that this dawn tradition evokes.... When this brief solemnity had passed, Mayday proceeded with its usual gaiety and drinking of our revered homemade mead (Huzzah to Jim Linton-- our personal brewer and team mascot). 10,000 cheers to the Ann Arbor Morris and Sword for a truly wonderful Midwest Morris Ale. And a special thanks to Rick Nagler of Ann Arbor, who 'gave all of himself' to present the Eells with an award for sending in their registration fees first. It was the high point of the weekend, and in honor of the occasion the Bells have officially installed Rick as an honorary member of our team (green garter and all). This honor was bestowed in recognition of his great courage in allowing himself to be handed over to all sixteen of us, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a red bow. Ah, but we blush to disclose further. Meanwhile, we have returned to our regular rehearsals on Wednesday evenings--outdoors until fall or mosquito season, whichever comes first. We've been busy dancing at a variety of community festivals almost every weekend, and are currently gearing up for a brewery tour to New Ulm with the Minnesota Traditional Morris on July 16. Carol Buche, 1366 Raymond, St. Paul, MN 55108 Circleweavers (Denver, CO) Circleweavers Folk Dance and Music Ensembie was formed in 1979 to present programs in inter- national dance and music. Since then, we have turned our attentions to specializing in dances and music of America and the British Isles. Our repertoire currently consists of suites of Welsh, English and Hebridean dances, Morris, Lancashire clogging, and dances from Appalachia, including clogging. Many of our members sing or play various musical instruments, and we include music and songs in our programs. While Morris is just a section of our expanding repertoire, it is a growing one and a great famrite. CW began learning Morris in March 1981. Our appetite whetted, we continue to learn new dances and traditions. We currently do a few dances from Adderbury, Ilmington, and Eynsham, with our greatest concentration in Headington and Fieldtown. We have also begun learning Rapper swo*r d . We have danced Morris at the Colorado Renaissance Festival, the British Faire held in Denver last year, the AFS Diplomatic Ball, the Boulder Folk Festival and many other year-round events in Colorado. We are looking forward to the upcoming All Colorado Morris Ale in August and have been working with the Boulder Maroon Bells, trading dances aad practicing Rapper. We have both a women's and a men's side, and frequently do mixed, depending on the number of available dancers. As with Berkeley Morris, the necessity of dancing mixed at times has given the dances a more energetic flavor while combining the best of our maleffemale dancing qualities. We welcome new members of any skill level. Donna McGinnis, 1640 Humboldt #I, Denver, CO 80218 ---Green Fiadie Morris (Toronto, On:.; It seems as though the iae~to start a morris team was sparked for us when Tony Barranl brought the Marlboro Morris and Sword to Torontc for the Mariposa Folk Festival in the summer of 1976. By the following winter Green Fiddie ?iorrio wes established, having derived its namc from the Fiddlers Green Folk Club. Ir. 1975, botk organizations moved to the TRANZAC (Toronto Australia-hew Zealand Ciub), tneir present headquarters. Practices are now neid every Mon~zy night. The team has always been mixed, although generally speaking, men and women dance sep- arately at dance-outs. Originally there were two squires, one male and one female, but this - proved to be unsatisfactory, and now only one is elected to cover both hen and women. Green Fiddle has danced several different traditions in its history. We began vith Bampton, Adderbury, and Longborough. This season we will be dancing Bampton, Fieldtown, and Sherbourne mixed, with Bledington as our men's tradition and Ducklington as our women's tradition. Mope you had fun at the Midwest Ale! Ve wish we hadn't been tied up. Doug Creighton, 86 Follis Avenue, Toronto, Ont. M6G 1S6 Madcap Morris (Seattle, WA) The Gasworks Morris team (listed in the directory) no longer exists. Seattle now has three teams: Mossyback Morris Men, Misty City Morris, and Madcap Morris. Over the July 4th weekend, the Victoria inorris teams are dancing at their festival and have invited the three Seattle teams to join them in Victoria B.C., along with the Vancouver Horris Men. The Mossyback Morris Men were privileged to dance for the Queen at her recent visit. We (Madcap Morris) have been together for a year and a half, and dance Adderbury, Headington, and Bampton to the music of a tin whistle played by Chris Roe. Patricia Tanin, 2720 N.E. 92nd, Seattle, WA 98115 ---Maroon Belis Morris (Boulder, CO) We will be touring in Boulder with SQords over Sopris (Carbondale, CO) on July 9, as they're coming here to dance at the opening ceremonies for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on July 8 & 9. We'll be doing similar frivolities for the opening nights of the second and . third plays of the summer on July 15 and 22. Ron Geering has asked us to dance with Swords over Sopris at the Carbondale Mountain Fair July 29-31. We're hoping to have enough people to do that. Similarly we've received an invitation to the Long's Peak Festival in Estes Park on September 10 and 11 at the old Stanley Hotel. Rocky Mountain Morris is rumored to be parti- cipating there as well. Anyone who's in the area for these weekends should feel free to join us. I think we've plenty of floor space and/or tent space for anyone who wishes. We've also come across a costuming question that someone among the readership might be able to answer. Our current kit is the traditional whites with ribbons, bells, and vests. ~e'reworking on baldricks. The Shakespeare Festival is willing and enthusiastic about let:inf us use an;: appropria~eitem ir. their costume closet for our dancing with ther.. They're suggestin; aoubiecr anC tipncs. ii~arec'~ surc char morris dancers ir Shakespeare's time uouii nave been wearing ioubiets anc tigncc? bu: con': nave any better suggestions. We think the curren: iits are base& on dress fro^ arounL 1900, but we don't even know where that idea came fror.. S: the 'aueszior. is, what die morris dancers wear ir. Shakespeare's time? I'd like tc . near fror;.anyone W~Chas any information on the subject. Szliie Sprague, 145 So. 30th Street, Boulder, CO 80303 ---?lerrie Mac Morris (Concord, NH) We dance monthly with the Nonesuch Morris team of Durham in Epsom, NH. We started in September, 1980 with the assistance of Dudley Laufman of Canterbury and a handful of rank beginners. We dance primarily Adderbury, Headington, and a bit of Fieldtown, Bledington, and Bampton. We are quickly developing traditional dance out dates for: late April--&eu England Folk Festival; Mayday with the Nonesuch Morris Team, usuall>~in the seacoast area of SE; mid-Nay--a full-blown English Nay festival at the Mill Pond Center in Durham, compiete with Maypole, Hay Queen and King, as guests of the Nonesuch Morris; late July--Canterbury Fair; mid-August--Epsom Old Home Day.