About Dark Horse Rapper

We are based in Maldon, Essex, and are all Morris Junkies, most of us dancing both Cotswold and Border Morris with local sides.

We trace our origin back to a Rapper workshop given by the Suffolk dancer, Pip Sadler, in 1996. Having learnt one dance, we went the route of many Morris sides who 'do a bit of rapper', dancing occasionally with our parent Morris sides (Maldon Greenjackets - Cotswold, and Dark Horse - Border). During that time we met up with

Thrales Rapper, who encouraged us to take part in a DERT (Dance England Rapper Tournament) meeting.

We danced at DERT 2000, succumbed to the Rapper virus, and have not recovered. We competed for the first time at DERT 2001, coming second in our class (out of an entry of two sides!). We are now working hard on improving our dance technique, mastering new knots (see below) and making our dances more exciting to watch (and to do!).

The Rapper Sword dance

The Rapper dance takes its name from the 'sword' that is used in the dance. It is not really a sword, but a highly flexible length of spring steel, about 28 inches long, with a fixed handle at one end and a swivel handle at the other. Five dancers linked in a circle by the swords perform a very fast series of dance figures, weaving in, out, over, under each other, punctuated by twisting and interleaving the swords into complex display figures (Knots).

The dances originated in the coal mining districts of the Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Durham where different communities developed their own dance. Like most 'Folk' traditions, its origins are a matter of conjecture. The jig dance step used in the modern dance may have developed from the stepping in the clog dances that are found in the same communities.

We recently found, hanging on a wall at our revered, prize winning local Pub, The Swan, Little Totham, a horse currying blade, which looks almost identical to a rapper sword. The publican had been given the blade by a customer who had recently cleared out a tack room. Similar blades, used in horse and pony grooming, may have been the origin of the rapper.

In Cecil Sharpe's classic collection "The Sword Dances of Northern England", published in 1911, he describes many of the dances which were either still being danced, or were still remembered by living dancers at the time (the early years of the 20th century). These 'traditional' dances, and others that researchers after Sharpe have described, are still danced by modern rapper sides. But many other figures and knots have been discovered, and they can be assembled into dances in thousands of ways, so the dances you see today are probably of modern origin. (In any case, the idea of a 'traditional' dance is something that modern dancers have invented. We have no reason to think that the dancers of the 19th century regarded their dances as forever fixed in form; Sharpe's descriptions are a snap-shot, taken at a single point in time, of continually evolving dances.)

Links:

You can find out more about the Rapper dance via these links:

Rapper On-line - the internet guide to the Rapper Sword Dance: http://www.rapper.org.uk/

The Nut on the Net - an on-line Journal devoted to the latest news from the Rapper world. http://www.rapper.org.uk/the-nut/

Contacts:

Mike Watson 01621 852941

Dave Kelly 07748 653733

Number of visitors: This page was last updated 12th March 2001

You might like to visit some other Maldon related Pages:

The Maldon district Directory: http://www.maldon.co.uk

The River Blackwater http://www.maldon.co.uk/theriver.htm

The Maldon Crystal Salt Company: http://www.maldonsalt.kemc.co.uk

and, if you are into local history, check out the Battle of Maldon site:

http://www.airflow.demon.co.uk/byrhtnot.htm

Thanks to http://www.skoardy.demon.co.uk for the page tile pattern