The Commonwealth Morris Men

Repertoire

Commonwealth's core repertoire comes from what is known as Cotswold Morris, which is a group of related dance styles originally developed in various villages of the south central Midlands in England.  It is this repertoire that we dance for most of the year.

We also dabble in other related dance and drama forms, such as Border Morris, Molly Dancing, Rapper Dance, and Mummer's Plays.  We like to feature these other forms at our annual MidWinter Celebration.

Our Cotswold Morris

Each style of Cotswold Morris is known as a "tradition", and is typically named for the English village where it is considered to have originated. Commonwealth currently dances two such traditions, Ascott-under-Wychwood and Minneapolis-on-Charles.  In the past, we have also danced Withington.

Ascott-under-Wychwood

Ascott-under-Wychwood is a "village tradition", having been collected from the village of Ascott-under-Wychwood, in Oxfordshire, England.  Commonwealth began dancing Ascott-under-Wychwood in early 2007.  Check back here for details of our interpretation of this fine tradition.

Minneapolis-on-Charles

Minneapolis-on-Charles is what is known as an "invented tradition", because it was developed recently, rather than having been collected from some English village by folklorists early in the twentieth century.  Minneapolis-on-Charles is actually an adaptation of the Minneapolis-on-Mississippi tradition, also "invented", which was established by Jim Brickwedde and the Bells of the North in the midwest United States in the early 1980s.  As Minneapolis-on-Mississsippi had been developed for a team of women who danced in skirts, we revised and updated it to meet our needs, renamed it after our own local river, and have been dancing Minneapolis-on-Charles ever since.