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Molly is the most recently rediscovered tradition in the broad
grouping of regional English seasonal performance dance forms that also includes
morris and sword. Springing from the country-dances of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk,
Suffolk, Essex and Kent during the later years of Victoria's reign, it is also
called East Anglian Morris The heyday of molly was the mid-1800s and when performed,
it was done both in procession and in pubs in the current style of the times.
Seasonally molly is associated with Plough Monday, the 1st Monday after Twelfth
Night. Plough Monday was the end of the workers' midwinter holiday. Folk tradition
has it that husbandmen maintained a plough light in the churches. On Plough
Monday they held a feast then went about with a plough and dancers to get money
to buy oil for the light. In one form of the procession, the Plough Boys were
men dressed as molly dancers, led by the Lord and Lady, dressed more elaborately,
who carried the plough. In another form the boys were harnessed to the plough
in pairs, and paraded neighing like horses while a ploughman guided it, accompanied
the cracking of long whips and cries of, "A penny for the plough boys;
only once a year!" Costumes were simpler, usually blackened faces, a few
bits of ribbon pinned to the cap or jacket, and pieces of metal harness for
the "horses". Inhabitants who refused to welcome the Plough Boys or
donate money to the cause had their front lawns and sometimes threshold of their
houses ploughed up.
Molly distinguishes itself from Cotswold Morris by including a male dancer dressed
as a woman, with the broomstick dance, a solo jig. Molly falls out into 2 broad
groups: the old Cambridgeshire style and the Seven Champions style. Although
once widespread in East Anglia, few traces of the old style remain. These collected
dances number around 12; so few because they came from a small area and were
collected only for a brief period of time. Cecil Sharp, the Morris dance historian,
early in his dance-collecting career, saw and made notes on molly dance, but
apparently considered it a poor or degenerate tradition and ignored it.
The Seven Champions molly dancers from Kent started as street entertainment
in the 1970's. They present themselves as miners from the treacle mines in Kent.
Said mines are widespread in folklore, although every locale claiming a mine
thinks theirs is the only one in the world. It can be surmised that the stories
are based on the discovery of underground tar pits rather than reservoirs of
molasses. The 7 Cs slowed down and shortened the old style molly dances, and
introduced strong arm movements, sharp and precise body movement, a slow deliberate
stamping step, very high knee lifts, and heavy noise-making hobnail boots. They
blacked their faces, and added an emcee to introduce dances and amuse the crowd
between sets. Their hallmark is style, precision, discipline, and satiric, non-social
dance interpretations of the common country-dance basics; i.e. - classic street
theater. This approach is wildly successful; the vast majority of molly teams
copy the 7 C's rather than the Cambridgeshire style.
Mad Molly patterns itself on the 7 C's, doing what great folk artistes everywhere
have done: we adapt, we steal, we downright make it up. We do a few old style
dances, but we also convert favorite Cotswold Morris dances to molly stepping,
write new ones, and use tunes we heard in passing on NPR. We've also invented
a molly stick-dance tradition borrowing mostly from Border Morris Our stepping
is bouncy with knees lifted high. In performance we might burst into song at
any moment.
Molly - not as it was, but as we say it should be!
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