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Silhill Morris Homepage |  |
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Morris Dancing: |
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Morris Dancers: |
Regalia Contacts Recruitment Picture Gallery Authenticity Related Matters Sidmouth International Festival 2003
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Silhill Morris are a lively group of Morris Dancers, men and women
based in the Solihull area near Birmingham, UK.
Silhill attend dance and folk Festivals around the country, join days-of-dance with
other sides, and beer festivals at Real-Ale public houses. Moments of glory with Silhill include appearing in the Daily Mail and on an episode of BBC TV's "Dangerfield". The side can also claim to wrecking a relationship when a new recruit 'dared to go out without permission' from their other half for their first and only practice!! Silhill did not appear in 2001 in an episode of BBC TV's "Daziel & Pascoe" because we would not go along with the Political-Correctness-gone-mad policy of the BBC who wanted us to perform without our blacked-faces. The aims of Silhill Morris are to keep alive our heritage whilst enjoying ourselves in the process. Thus we are not archivists in the sense of only performing dances that have proven ancestry to the year dot, but perform traditional and contemporary Morris whilst striving to retain the essence of this dance style. We believe Morris dancing should be available to both men and women. We dance both for our own enjoyment, and undertake paid bookings whenever a suitable opportunity presents itself. |
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Silhill Morris appeared at the Sidmouth International Festival 2003, at errrr Sidmouth in
ummm August 2003 ! ! !
A couple of photographs appear in the Photo Gallery section of this page, larger images by clicking as instructed. In additional to performing a number of Arena spots and in the Showground, Silhill ran a workshop and taught 2 of our own dances, based upon the Border Morris style. The notation for the taught dances is in RTF format here (for "Birthday") and here (for "Diagonal Witchwood"). |
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Border For Border Morris, Silhill wear (from the bottom up) black boots, black trousers, red / white / blue lallygags, one red and one blue Enormous Handkerchief (from The Enormous Handkerchief Company in Banwell, Avon), red / white / blue rag jackets over a r/w or b shirt, black top-hat individually dressed in r/w/b. Winter Musicians kit includes one bright red thermal vest and two additional T shirts - these additional items with the exception of the thermal vest to be removed whilst drinking in a pub. Hat adornments include charity badges, frogs, parrots (this parrot is dead), birds-nests (without soup), arachnids (spiders - shriek!!!), pheasant feathers (I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant pluckers mate), the sun, the moon, the stars (luminous), a cravat, mirrors, conveyor belt, sliding doors and a CUDDLY TOY!!!! |
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Prospective members are always warmly welcomed, on a you-try-us and we'll-try-you basis for a while(!!!).
We are happy to introduce people with no previous experience to the pleasures of the Morris.
We are currently practicing fortnightly Tuesdays in a school near Wythall (just off Junction 3 of the M42,
so if interested in joining please contact us to get the schedule (and to find to which pub we
adjourn afterwards). |
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Silhill believe in maintaining true authenticity of their attempts
to uphold our ancient traditions. To this end we use Webpages and Email to ensure we communicate fully with interested parties; we use Mobile Phones and VoiceMail to ensure our availability at all times; Company Cars ensure our timely arrivals at events; equipment and apparel is purchased using Credit Cards; Spreadsheets keep our accounts recorded and available for audit and Desktop Publishing tools allow us to fully record activities and provide advance information to venues. Silhill use the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC TV) as a teaching aid - to focus the attention of many millions of Prime Time viewers on one of the dances (Dangerfield - series 1, episode 6. 3rd March 1995 BBC1 21:30hrs). Silhill Morris have widely published their views (with photographic illustration) on the participation of both sexes in The Morris in The National Press (Daily Mail, Dec 5th 1994, page 26) - the accuracy of reporting being fully up to that expected of the Tabloid Press. Silhill are confident that in years to come, yet-to-form Revivalist sides will continue to perpetuate these aspects of The Morris - hard though it will be for them to find these traditional items from the days of yore. |
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