Is Morris dancing on its last legs?

Why do they think it's dying?

There are still some 14,000 Morris dancers in the UK performing in about 800 troupes or "sides" but the Morris Ring, which represents more than 200 British troupes, says numbers are dwindling while the age of the dancers is increasing. The Ring's message board carries the obituaries of men who have been at the heart of England's Morris scene since the early 20th century. For instance, Thomas Townsend, who died last year, first danced at Whitsun in 1925 at the age of 11, and continued dancing into his late eighties. So unless younger blood is recruited, Morris dancing could be extinct in 20 years.

Why aren't the young participating?

For various reasons – a loss of interest in tradition; competition with television, the internet and the iPod. But undoubtedly the main reason is that today's fashion-conscious young are "too embarrassed" to take part in all the prancing and handkerchief waving. Morris dancers, as Paul Kendall observes in the Daily Telegraph, are "not assiduous followers of fashion". The majority are "grey, many are balding and almost all… are at least a couple of stone overweight – men, in short, who don't care what they look like, or, even worse, get a thrill out of looking slightly eccentric". The original purpose of Morris dancing was as a ritual to demonstrate a man's virility, a ritual most Morris dancers take seriously. But the result is that most troupes are all male, and, in general, wives and girlfriends are expected to keep in the background and wash and iron the white shirts, trousers, hankies, etc.

But how traditional is Morris dancing in reality?

Many of the dances now performed are largely 20th century inventions, based on patchy information about how they were danced traditionally. Indeed, Morris dancing might well have died out altogether had it not been for Cecil Sharp, founding father of the folklore revival in England in the early 20th century. In 1899 he and his family were staying in Headington, Oxfordshire, for Christmas, when they saw the Headington Quarry Morris troupe performing, with William Kimber on the concertina. Sharp asked Kimber to write down the Morris tunes and, in 1911, founded the English Folk Dance Society in the hope of preserving the tradition. Several new troupes formed as a result, although the big explosion in dance teams came in the 1960s and 1970s.

How did it originate?

Some claim, without much evidence, that it's a remnant of pre-Christian Celtic, or Druidic, fertility rituals, the bells, fluttering handkerchiefs and clashing sticks serving to scare away malevolent spirits. Others claim that it originated in Africa – Morris being a corruption of the word "Moorish" – and that it was brought back to England by Moorish captives from the Holy Land during the Crusades. The earliest confirmation of a Morris dancing performance in England dates from London on 19 May 1448, when "Moryssh daunsers" were paid 7s (35p) for their services. In All's Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare makes it clear that the Morris dance was often performed on May Day. Among the amusements to be enjoyed on a Sunday permitted in King James I's Book of Sports were "Morris dances, and the setting up of Maypoles".

Why did it then decline?

Puritans never liked it. Philip Stubbes in his Anatomy of Abuses of 1583 described it as "the Devil's dance". Oliver Cromwell regarded it as potentially seditious: in an Ordinance of 1654, the staging of Morris dances and other "Licentious practices" was grounds enough to "eject Scandalous, Ignorant and Insufficient Ministers and Schoolmasters" from their jobs. It revived under Charles II, but by the end of the 19th century, as with other folk traditions, it was withering due to the growth of rival leisure pursuits and the loss of patronage by the rural gentry. But some villages kept the tradition alive: Morris dancers performed for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebrations in 1887.

Does it occur everywhere across the UK?

There are a variety of traditions. In the Cotswolds, dancers commonly dress in hats decorated with flowers, white shirts covered by a tunic, white trousers, bells below the knees, and black shoes. On the Welsh border, dancers blacken their faces, wear mainly black top hats with pheasant feathers – and make fun of the village squire and the gentry. Clogs are a characteristic feature of the costume in the northwest, where the dancing is more military in style, a tradition parodied by Bill Tidy in his Private Eye cartoon, the Cloggies.

And does it have its own arcane terminology?

Most certainly. A "Squire" is the leader of a side who will lead or call the dances, and decide the programme for a performance. The "Foreman" teaches and trains the dancers; the "Bagman" is the treasurer or bookings secretary. Many troupes have one or more extravagantly dressed "fools" who communicate directly with the audience in speech or mime and prance around during a dance without appearing to be a part of it. Many sides also have a "beast" or "hobby", a dancer in a costume made to look like a real or mythical animal.

Isn’t it all just clod-hopping?

No, it's far harder than it looks and takes years to master. As Paul Kendall noted when he joined the Jockey Men for the day, many dances "require considerable co-ordination and concentration. At the root of each is a simple caper – a shift from one foot to another – but there are many more complicated steps which have to be performed in perfect harmony with the music." Dame Ninette de Valois used to encourage dancers at the Royal Ballet to practise Morris because she believed it developed quick, nimble feet – perfect preparation for the corps de ballet. ·