So today, shortly after getting home from work, I heard some singing, some bells, and all sorts of banging on drums and whistles outside my building.  Due to the porch roof, I couldn’t see anything from my window, so I went downstairs to investigate more closely.  What I found was a group of men dressed in white, with bells, drums, and towels (or so they appeared) dancing right outside.   One of them spotted me, and came over and told me about their background.  Apparently, my building, The Perry, was once The Drake (which clarifies the graffiti down the block that says “save the drake”), which was apparently once a bar/brothel/hotel that was a pretty wild place to be back 30 years ago.  The guy told me all about the respectable first floor, which regularly rejected them, and the “rat hole” basement, which readily let them in, including – according to one of the dudes dancing – beer served in metal buckets.  These guys used to hang out at the Drake in the 60s/70s and have been doing the dancing ever since, which is a good 30 years, as one specified.  Specifically, every 7th Tuesday after Easter is “Drake Tuesday”, which they come and dance out in front of the building, on the porch, and in front of the “save the drake” graffiti.

One of the guys also mentioned that, in viewing this dance, I was granted 1 year and 1 day of good luck.  I’ll take it.

The dancing?  According to their website:

The Morris is a living tradition of ritual dance and music, whose origins are shrouded in mystery, not to mention antiquity. The dance comes from England where it has been danced for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. John of Gaunt is said by some to have brought the dance back from Saracen Spain where he had been crusading. Others believe its origins are pre-Christian, possibly Druidic, perhaps even pagan. Similar dances are found throughout Europe and the Near East. Believe what you will. Many theories exist and, for now, no one can prove you wrong.

Morris dancing was almost lost in England during the nineteenth century. The tradition nearly died along with many other old, community based customs during the Industrial Revolution. The most recent revival began in England in the early twentieth century with the work of collectors like Cecil Sharp. There are hundreds of Morris teams in England now and at least 100 in the U.S. and Canada as well as other parts of the world.

Here are some pictures I took:

The videos were way over the upload limits for this site, so I threw them up on youtube:

Here is what I first saw when I walked outside.

Then they headed up onto the porch!