About Meon Valley Morris
Meon Valley Morris is an English morris /swing fusion dance side from the Meon Valley dancing double jigs in both Clog-Jump Jive and Cotswold-Boogie Woogie styles. We can be seen at folk festivals, clog dance sessions in pubs, and vintage fairs.
Meon Valley Morris Description
Meon Valley Morris is an avant-garde English morris side from the Meon Valley dancing the Warnford tradition of Clog-Jive double jigs and the Boarhunt tradition of Cotswold-Boogie Woogie. We are members of the Open Morris organisation
Reviews
The MVM contribution to the Lone Morris Festival is inspired by Conor's "Bogroll Cotswold" - our very own Pixie presents the "Coronavirus Clog Jig" with full protective gear, obligatory bogroll, and appropriate levels of social distancing. The Portsmouth Hornpipe was chosen as Portsmouth has traditionally been a bit of a plague hotspot over the centuries... #lonemorrisfestival
More of Top Folk Photographer Dorset Morri'arty's work at the always excellent Salisbury Day of Dance organised by Sarum Morris.
Well, that's our first show of the year cancelled ☹️☹️☹️
We had a great time at the Salisbury Day of Dance and hope to be back again next year. You can just about see us in the background of one of the pics!
Hold the front page! Meon Valley Morris accused of being "too traditional"... In order to produce our fusion dances that can have as many as a dozen different dance styles packed into three minutes, we have to be able to dance them all to a certain standard. Most people that know us will have seen us do Cotswold, or Clog Stepping, or some other traditional styles, but, maybe not all the other dance forms that we incorporate in stand alone form. Recently, thanks to some free t...ickets from Sound Leisure Classic Jukeboxes, we found ourselves in a "Modern Jive" competition, despite the fact that we don't actually do "Modern Jive" as we find it a little antiseptic. So, we threw some 1940s Swing, and 1950s Rock'n'Roll at it. Which is when someone in the audience shouted "You're great, but, the judges won't like you, you're far too traditional". Possibly the first time that we've ever been called too traditional. Or even just "traditional". Ever... We still did ok though :-D
See More
If you're wondering where we get our natty dance shoes, hats, and other Rock'n'Roll apparel, it's at places like The Jukebox & Retro Fair, where these fantastic red and white patent leather saddled brogues came from. This year, however, we've been given complementary tickets by the extremely generous Sound Leisure Classic Jukeboxes, designers and manufacturers of CD, Digital, and Vinyl Jukeboxes.
We had a great time at Sarum Morris's Day of Dance in the summer, introducing the good people of Salisbury to Rock'n'Roll Morris - sharing stands with Bloodstone Border Morris, Oyster Girls Morris Dancers, Isle of Wight, Sarum themselves, and massed dances with many others. It was a great day out.
See us at Tenterden Folk-Fest this Sunday out and about around the town - weather permitting, the forecast does not look good. Luckily, we're very compact and can dance inside pubs, so, if the public is starved of Morris entertainment, we can quench their thirst. Our first ever dance out was at Tenterden in 2017, and once again, we have new material for this year. It's like Fieldtown, but, with more handstands...
Apparently, we're "brilliant and eclectic" :-D Rather like Bunkfest itself. The most enjoyable festival I've been to in years.
We had a great time at the awesome Salisbury Day Of Dance organised by Sarum Morris - full report to follow, but, this is the local newspaper report.
We were extremely happy to be invited to Sarum Morris's Day of Dance in Salisbury. It was an excellent example of a one day walking tour of a city with big crowds, excellent dance venues, short walks between spots, and some great other Morris sides to be dancing with
Not long now...
Not long now until the Salisbury Day of Dance where we'll be dancing around the city in the company of Alton Morris, Bloodstone Border Morris, The Bourne River Morris Men, Clausentum Morris, Festus Derriman Cotswold Morris Side, Morena Slovak Dance Company, Mr Wilkins Shilling, The Oyster Girls, and our hosts, Sarum Morris. You can see us at the following places around the city:
11:10 - Guildhall Square (Show Dance) 11:30 - 12:00 Mompesson House (with Bloodstone) 12:30 - 13:0...0 Guildhall Square (with Sarum) 14:30 - 15:00 Old George Mall (with Oyster Girls) 15:20 - Cathedral West Door (Show Dance)
See More
We're proud to call the Meon Valley our home.
We're in the Hampshire Chronicle this week, dancing at Winchester Mayfest outside Winchester Cathedral for the Mayor of Winchester. When they talk about the styles of Morris being danced at the festival ranging from traditional to the "culturally on-trend", do they mean us :-D
Top folk photographer Dorset Morri'arty took some excellent action shots of us dancing for the Mayor of Winchester at Winchester Mayfest at the weekend.
We were asked to open the Mayor of Winchester's finale at the Winchester Mayfest with an extended set of three of our dances. Our middle dance was our new for 2019 stick dance, "Straighten Up and Strike Right" which is mainly based on the Cotswold Fieldtown tradition, but, with some rapper, broom dancing, Swing Jive, random other Cotswold, American Smooth, and even some gymnastics. For one of the choruses, we've used a bit of The Bo Diddlers. The track is the Nat King Cole classic, "Straighten Up and Fly Right" from 1943, played by top swing band Bad Cat and beautifully sung by Cat Eliza T. Thank you to Penny Munday for shooting the video for us.