Preserving Morris Dancing

Posted July 16, 2013 by lazylibrarian

For the last two months I have been enmeshed in a collection about Morris Dancing. Until two months ago, I did not know such a thing existed. So imagine my great surprise Friday night when I ran into multiple Morris Dancer groups performing on the Common in conjunction with Shakespeare on the Common!

I wasn’t even supposed to be there at that time but had absentmindedly gotten off at the wrong T stop and ran into the very people my collection documented! As I stood watching, a woman came up to me and said, “Has anyone told you what this is yet?” She seemed used to having to explain it to passersby. “It’s Morris Dancing!” I said excitedly and she looked at me as if I were the one jumping in the common with bells tied to my shins. Yes! I do know what it is!

This led me to a wonderful opportunity to not only talk with her about Morris Dancing and how she came to be involved with it but also about how I know what it is and explain what an archivist does. I also got to invite them all to the exhibit at the Cambridge Public Library I had just finished setting up!  The Boston area has so many fun cultural things to see and do and it’s so cool to be involved in the documentation and preservation of their history!