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A Morris dancer leaping into a sky of Valentine's Day hearts. Image by Dalle2.

Dating confessions of Morris dancers

Does anyone mention Morris in their dating profile? Does it come up on the first date? And if so, what’s the reaction of the unsuspecting other party? Ahead of Valentine's Day, Tradfolk asked the questions...

Does my sex life include Morris-themed things? No. Imagine that with any other hobby. Scuba divers would have trouble.

Anonymous Morris dancer

Everyone has by now probably realised that Tradfolk is a fairly niche platform. In fact, it was created specifically as a place for topics and articles relating to folk music, dance and customs you wouldn’t find anywhere else. So, when we were thinking about what to write to mark St Valentine’s Day this year, we didn’t want to repeat the general overview of the celebration we did last year.

Nor did anyone fancy an article about what folk music can tell us about relationships. You could probably fill several articles with lessons in love from traditional songs, especially if you were looking for the smutty, adulterous and more murderous aspects of romance. Perhaps that’s one for next year. 

We didn’t even want to merely do a history of the Morris dance that takes its very name from Valentine’s Day; although if you’re interested, here’s my own morris team, Five Rivers Morris, performing ‘The Valentine’ in the Fieldtown tradition…

No, we wanted to do something even more obscure. So, in part inspired by Tradfolk Rach’s confession a few months ago, “that she’d just been for dinner with bellringers” (we didn’t get further than that), for Valentine’s Day 2023, we present to you… the dating confessions of Morris dancers.

Oh, and we also decided to ask an AI bot (Dalle2) to create some digital approximations of folk art depicting Morris dancers in love to illustrate it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’m having nightmares. 

The pros and cons of dating as a Morris dancer

A Morris dancer and a Morris beast falling in love on Valentine's Day. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot
A Morris dancer and a Morris beast falling in love on Valentine’s Day. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot

“Try everything once, except incest and Morris dancing.”

Sir Thomas Beecham (supposedly)

The quote above is often attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham, although nobody seems to be able to prove when and where he said it, and I’ve also seen it credited to everyone from Sir Winston Churchill to Oscar Wilde. Whoever said it, and whether it was true at the time it was coined, it now gets repeated often enough to become self-fulfilling. I hate it.

While Morris is hopefully the more socially acceptable of the two exceptions, there’s no denying it still has an image problem. A quick scan of the search term ‘Morris dance’ on Twitter will show you dozens of derisive comments. Morris in the media is usually accompanied by a slight sneer or mocking tone of voice; it tends to be the butt of the joke, rather than the star of the show.

To those of us that take part in Morris dancing as a vibrant hobby and a unique tradition connected to the social history of the country, this can get somewhat trying. But, if you’re willing to put on bells and caper around town squares with hankies in your spare time, you usually have a pretty thick skin when it comes to cultural mockery.

However, doing something as part of a group in a dedicated time set aside for that activity is quite different from proactively advertising yourself as a Morris dancer, especially when it comes to relationships and dating. Around a third of relationships started between 2015 and 2019 began online, so it’s never been easier for those looking for love to portray themselves how they want. 

'Valentine's Day Night'. Image credit: Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot
‘Valentine’s Day Night’. Image credit: Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot

I’ve been happily in a relationship for almost the entirety of my 10-year Morris dancing life. I actually met my now-wife at a dance out of my now-Morris side, and am now in loving, committed, fulfilling relationships with both (although only one requires me to wear bells and a top hat). So being a budding Morris dancer didn’t hamper my love interests. What’s more, after a few years of being together, my wife actually went on to start dancing rapper herself. I’m reasonably sure that was more because she was fed up with following me around festivals, rather than because she thought it would furnish her with content for a future online dating profile if things didn’t work out.

While my personal experience of dating while being a Morris dancer is non-existent, there are enough young dancers out there, many of them presumably still in the dating game. Which begs a few questions. Does anyone mention Morris in their dating profile? Does it come up on the first date? And if so, what’s the reaction of the unsuspecting other party? I decided to ask the Tradfolk readership and wider Morris world to send me their anonymous stories and experiences of dating and Morris dancing.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure what we’d get back. Would there be tales of getting upstairs for strange bedroom antics, involving old women tossed up in blankets and blue-eyed strangers? Is everyone just making haste to the wedding? Or is Morris still treated as a black joke?

Bumble, Tinder, Hinge… OKCapers

 A Morris dancer taking a photo for his dating app profile. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot
A Morris dancer taking a photo for his dating app profile. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot

As it turns out, what I heard were a number of anecdotes that might just show that Morris dance isn’t the social anathema it once was. Plenty of people use Morris in their online dating profiles and the reaction is mostly positive.

“I had a dating profile with four pictures, including one in full face paint. I had some excellent conversations and the person I ended up with knew exactly what they were getting into…”

“People often ask me about it and nobody’s said anything negative. It may, of course, have scared a fair few lily-livered men away, but if so, good riddance to them!”

“I’m on several dating apps and all feature at least one photo of me dancing in kit and of me holding a melodeon. I usually get positive interest, in the sense that it’s a unique thing and shows that I have diverse interests. On dates, I think it comes across as a quirky passion, and having it at the front of my dating personality has generally been helpful for me.”

“Whenever my Morris hobby came up in job interviews or social situations, it tended to be positively received and a topic of curiosity, not ridicule (though perhaps being female helps).”

These responses are actually an even split of male and female (we did ask during the survey), and from the comments we received it seems gender doesn’t have an impact on how being a Morris dancer is perceived. 

Age was another factor we asked about, and one response in particular highlighted that perception was perhaps different across the generations.

Two older Morris dancers sharing a tender moment. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot
Two older Morris dancers sharing a tender moment. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot

My main team often refer to me as a Morris tart, because I’m a member of so many sides!”

Anonymous Morris dancing tart

“I am openly a Morris dancer and I think, generally, that young people understand that hobbies exist for a reason, and that people have all sorts of unusual interests. I think it tends to be older generations that have a problem with Morris dancing and dancers, possibly due to continuous efforts by some to include their prejudices in the way they conduct themselves in all areas of their lives.”

We also had a few mentions of Morris helping to secure a job (presumably because it was an interesting, memorable characteristic on a CV, rather than because of a shadowy Masons-like network of Morris dancers helping fellow dancers into the upper echelons of civic society)…

“It always takes pride of place on any online dating profiles that I’ve created in the past (with photos to boot). The same goes for job applications (without the photos, as that would be a bit odd). Morris dancing is such a big part of my life, I’d struggle not to mention it. My main team often refer to me as a Morris tart, because I’m a member of so many sides!”

“It’s only ever aided my quest for jobs, and has also piqued the interest of potential suitors, but when they realise that I’ll be spending most of the summer at various folk festivals over the weekend, whether they want to tag along with me or not (and a fair few weekday evenings, for that matter…), it doesn’t take long for things to fizzle out.”

OK, so not everyone is cut out for the strenuous programme of summer Morris festivals. So how do our Morris daters get people on board?

Two Morris dancers enjoying a conversation on a hotel bed. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot
Two Morris dancers enjoying a conversation on a hotel bed. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot

“Morris can be sexy, I’m the living embodiment of this.”

Annoymous Morris dancing sex beast

“When I describe it I usually highlight the social aspects of Morris dancing.”

“Morris can be sexy, I’m the living embodiment of this. Thanks for asking. Does my sex life include Morris themed things? No. Imagine that with any other hobby. Scuba divers would have trouble.”

Interestingly, no one but this respondent included an outright denial of Morris-related bedroom antics. We’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions from that.

However, we did receive plenty of Morris-inspired and originated love stories.

“I took up Morris dancing while at uni (Yare Valley Morris at UEA Norwich, back in 1987) purely because I really fancied the Squire, a fellow student in the year above me, and hoped I’d be able to attract his attention and get a date. I had no luck with him, but discovered I enjoyed the group nonetheless and maintained the hobby as a great way of making new friends when I got my first proper job as a stranger in an unfamiliar part of the country. Through Morris, I eventually met the love of my life, a fellow Morris dancer, and have been happily married for over 20 years. Morris dancing has certainly bought me a lot of fun, friends and love over the years.”

“My now-husband told me it was the weirdest thing about him when we were dating and kept it a bit secret. I loved it, and have now joined and am just as involved.”

Get me to the church on time. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot
Get me to the church on time. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot

There have even been Morris weddings at folk festivals, resulting in an annual anniversary ceilidh.

“I met my husband when I joined a Morris side in 2013, after my first marriage broke up. I was partnered with an experienced dancer; I thought he was bossy! Anyhow, after a while we started to get on well and he made me laugh again. Nine months later we started going out. We got engaged in 2016 and married in 2017 at FolkEast with a full-on festival wedding. The Thursday anniversary ceilidh is named so because we put the first one on for our reception but invited anyone who was camping to join us.”

So there you go, Morris singletons. Don’t be afraid to use Morris to your advantage in your quest for love. Opinions are changing – ‘quirky’, unique hobbies are a positive – and the image of Morris is generally on the up. 

And failing that, you could always follow the advice of our self-professed morris tart mentioned above:

“My dream is to meet someone out and about somewhere who’s as Morris nuts as I am. Failing that, I’ll quite happily resign myself to being the Crazy Morris Lady, with Morris outfits in the place of cats.”

Crazy Morris cat lady. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot
Crazy Morris cat lady. Image credit: Dalle2 AI bot