The team dancing at Upper Heyford in 1998
Bloxham Morris is a team founded in the early nineties by Tim Radford and Verna Wass to provide opportunities for women to dance Cotswold morris in and around Banbury. The style and repertoire was based on dances from Ascot-Under-Wychford but has moved on a long way since the early days. The first dance out was at the Adderbury Day of Dance in April 1992 and the team has continued to perform and practice ever since.
Practices are from 7.30 to 9.00 in Bloxham most Thursdays
Contact us for details of bookings and practices, new members are always welcome.
In late July and early August of 2005 we toured in Romania, specifically the province of Sibiu within the region of Transylvania, dancing at a variety of local festivals and packing in a little sight seeing too!
We stayed in a hostel in a converted priest's house next to the fortified church in the village of Basna. Out door dining was a top attraction
One of our excursions was by horse and cart to the nearby village of Boian to watch the cows come home!
Our first booking was for the shepherds' festival high up in the mountains near the village of Jina. It was hot, very hot and we clustered in the shade of the concrete stage waiting our turn.
When we came to dance we did brilliantly well despite the soaring temperature. Meg played her debut piece on her pipes to huge audience scattered over the field and stalls beyond.
Later in the week we teamed up with a group of local musicians for a bit of a session and then supper in the hills with the shepherds and their dogs.
the other big event we performed at was the festival in the provinicial capital, Sibiu. After a wet afrenoon and quite a lot of hanging around we scrambled onto a stage in the market place for our spot and then retired to the beer tent for food and drink and the chance to watch other performers such as....
.... the legendary Kalushari who look rather like morris dancers with bells and baldrics but dance individually in a way which has little connection to anything we do in the Cotswolds, impressive none the less.
We danced a couple of times in Medias, the nearest town to Basna, on this occasion for the Mayor and council staff in temperatures touchong 42 degrees Celsius !
Later on Nell made herself popular with other local teams who were unsure what to do about a perambulating elephant.
All in all a great trip.
Highlights of 2000
The Bloxham Literary Society fit a quick dance between books
The team dance with such energy that some of their sticks start to smoke!
The Squad; Cathy, Stephen, Verna, Jenny, Sheena, Imogen, Linda, Ginny, Jane and John, all photographed at the Bloxham Millennium Fete.
Preparing to dance for the bride and groom as they emerge from Mollington Church, how were we to know the church bells would go off at the same time?
All the Bloxham tunes played by Stephen Wass on the melodeon. This is written in MP3 format with each tune downloaded separately.
As ever comments and suggestions (polite ones please) welcome.
