We primarily dance Cotswold morris.

Current Traditions

We are currently dancing the following traditions at performance standard:

• Adderbury
• Badby
• Bledington
• Bucknell
• Headington
• Lichfield

Traditions on Hiatus

These are traditions we have danced in the past, but they may need a little work to revive to performance standard

• Bampton
• Brackley
• Hinton
• Kirtlington
• Longborough
• Oddington

Adderbury

Adderbury has been developed and taught by Dave Smith – one of three foremen in the team. The tradition is much as would be expected as Adderbury.

A notable dance in this style is one of our own invention – “Bound for South Australia”.

Badby, Hinton

Badby and Hinton was taught by “Black Bob” Pilgrim who danced with Brackley and brings a unique view of the tradition to the team.

Bampton

Bampton has recently seen a revision in style in an attempt to instil a greater degree of vigour and movement whilst attempting to maintain a sense of gracefulness.

Bledington

The tradition of Bledington has been the mainstay in the repertoire over the life of the Adelaide Morris Men and before. The team dances all the collected dances and a few contemporary additions. Initially a few but notable Bledington dances were taught to the side by Hugh Perry – an itinerant English morris man who danced with the forerunners of the Adelaide Morris Men. Trunkles, Gallant Hussar, Cuckoos Nest and Young Collins were the extent of our contact with the tradition from 1977 to 1980. This was later expanded in the size of the repertoire and “fine tuned” by Mike Bowe and Geoff Wark around 1981. The style was mainly developed from an interpretation of the description of the tradition contained in the Handbook of Morris Dances and other available literature.

Our Bledington style as now danced has changed since it was first danced in Adelaide. The style of dancing Bledington came in for a revision in the early 1990’s when a critical eye was passed over the performance of the dances and the weak points of the performance were identified and removed or refined. This overcame many of the inherent problems in performing Bledington and resulted in a stronger presentation. Rather than a gradual evolution of a tradition the dance style has been consciously developed to suit what we wanted to present as Bledington, how we wanted to perform the tradition highlighting the strong points of the dances whilst retaining to spirit or “feel” of the tradition. The team strives for a slow, graceful but powerful performance with plenty of lift.

We also borrow dances from other traditions and convert them into our Bledington style. Dances such as Balance the Straw, Orange in Bloom, Bean Setters, Country Gardens, and Black Joke have seen their way into the repertiore. Lillie Bolero was added to the repertoire in 1983 being borrowed from the Earls of Essex at a Cardiff instructional weekend. Princess Royal is a Bledington version of London Pride (Longborough) – adopted after seeing the Hammersmith Morris Men in 1981 performing the Longborough dance. Bean Setters, a variation of the Brackley was taught to both the Dublin City Morris Dancers and Aberystwyth Morris in the early 1980’s and both teams continued dancing this dance longer then we did!