Learn New Dances
The May Jig Festival is a FREE month-long workshop series.
Join us for a series of 8 workshops hosted over zoom during the month of May. You can attend any or all of the workshops in the series. We are pleased to highlight the fine teaching and dancing of instructors from several different regions of the US. The 2021 May Jig Festival is presented in collaboration with the Marlboro Morris Ale.
The dances taught during the May Jig Festival will be mass dances during the Midwest Morris Ale.
Join us every Tuesday and Thursday in May at 6:30 pm CDT.
Please note that the May Jig Festival is in US CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME (GMT -05:00). Please adjust for your own time zone accordingly.
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Not able to make the workshop time? No problem!
After each workshop, a short recording will be made available with a brief summary and run-through of each dance. Check back at this page for updates!
Instructors
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Nadia Pierrehumbert found out about Morris dancing in fourth grade, tried it with great delight at several University of Chicago folk festivals, and finally got hooked permanently when she ran into the Midwest Morris Ale in downtown Chicago in 2015. She has been a member of Pullman Morris and Sword in Chicago, IL since 2016. |
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Tom Baxter studied music theory/composition at Saint Olaf College and the University of Minnesota. The summer after graduation, in 1989, a friend from a Renaissance music ensemble invited him to play recorder for a new dance group in the Twin Cities. Dave Siebert of MTM and Kim Siebert of Bells of the North were creating a mixed-gender, own-tradition Morris side. Dave needed more musicians, so he would be able to dance rather than playing melodion the entire time. After attending the 1990 Midwest Morris Ale, Tom was hooked. Tom has been dancing with Uptown-on-the-Lakes for about 32 years, the last of the original members still with the side. The team dances primarily its own dances in its own peculiar style, which has its stylistic roots in Bampton, Fieldtown, Iconoclasm, and Snark. For instance, most of the team’s stick dances are danced to other traditions’ hankie-dance tunes, and vice versa. |
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Marissa Roque started Morris dancing with Renegade Morris in Philadelphia, PA around 2009. Since then she has danced with Braintrust Morris (of many places), Maple Morris (also of many places) and Ha’Penny Morris (Boston metro area). She currently lives with her two cats in Cambridge, MA and teaches middle school social studies when she isn’t dancing or crafting. |
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Crispin Youngberg (he/him) grew up in the UK morris community with both parents dancing, and started dancing himself with Great Western Morris in 2006. Since then he has danced with other teams including Morris Offspring, Maple Morris, and Hammersmith Morris Men, and twice won the John Gasson Jig Competition at Sidmouth Folk Festival. He has been foreman of Great Western Morris, has led morris workshops at a number of UK folk festivals, and now lives in Western Massachusetts where he is foreman of Marlboro Morris M. Crispin will be teaching the jig Lumps of Plum Pudding, in the Longborough style of Marlboro Morris M. |
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Crystal Bailey is a Morris dancer, trad musician, gardener, cat fancier, and physicist who currently lives in the greater Washington DC area. She first discovered her love for the world of folk dancing (step dance, contra, and of course Morris) when a graduate student at IU Bloomington from 1999 – 2009, where she danced with Bloomington Quarry Morris. Today, Crystal is current foreman of Rock Creek Morris Women in Washington DC, which she joined in 2009.
Image credit: Aurélie Beatley |
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Fred Gerhard has been dancing with the Pinewoods Morris Men since 2011, serving two years as Squire. He started folk dancing in 1974 with the Kutztown College International Folkdancers, and founded the International Folkdance Club at Wilkes College in 1981. He worked at Pinewoods Camp from 1983 to 1985 where he first met morris dancing. When not waving hankies or sticks he writes poems, practices psychotherapy, and has long conversations with his tortoise, Twyla. He lives in a small rural town in Massachusetts in a magical house with his spouse and son. |
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Karl Schults– Karl has danced Morris all over the country: with Green Mountain Morris growing up in Vermont, with Deer Creek Morris in San Francisco, and now with Greenwood Morris in Florida and with Thames Valley International. Karl is happy to return to the May Jig Festival to teach a different jig this year! |
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Matt Tillotson was kidnapped late one night in the spring of 1993, and when he woke up he was in the presence of strange music, odd men dancing with bells, ritualistic patterns of movement, and thus was forced into the life of Morris. After his first ale in 1995, he abandoned any thoughts of escape and eventually resistance was deemed so futile he became team squire. He has grown to love The Braggarts, and his wider Morris Family. |
May Jig Festival Recordings
Did you miss one of the May Jig Festival Workshops? Want to review the jig you just learned and brush up on your moves? Let’s get up and dance! Need more jigs, or want to brush up from last year? Check out the 2020 May Jig Festival.
| Jig | Workshop Video | Details |
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Old Mother Oxford (Headington) Music by Jonathan Whitall |
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Kemp’s Jig (Your Tradition) Music by Robin Rayfield |
Music Recording |
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Princess Royal (Oddington) Music by Natty Smith |
Music Recording (double jig) |
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Lumps of Plum Pudding (Longborough) Music by Mog Youngberg |
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Princess Royal (Ducklington) Music by Barbara Gorin |
Music Recording |
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Sheriff’s Ride (Lichfield) Music by Jan Elliott |
Music Recording |
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Enlist for a Sailor (Sherborne) Music by Rich Crew |
Sheet Music |
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Lumps of Plum Pudding (The Braggarts’ Bledington) Music by Michael Shewmaker |
Sheet Music |
