Chandos Five Dance

One of my favorite Morris dances that Briggate dance is Chandos Five. The dance is set up with the five dancers in the figure of a cross, facing inwards and each dancer has a name for the figure she dances; pick-up, arches, twiddle, windows and reel.

Though it took a while to learn (I only had chance to dance it through twice at a practice and since then have had to muddle through at dance outs) now I know it well it has become very fun to dance and the various circles and arcs made as we move have played on my mind. I dreamt about the patterns it would make if you drew the dance out and Phil helped me make an image to represent this:

I would like to film some dances from above to try and create some images which show the patterns the dances make as I thought the Chandos pattern looked extremely beautiful.

We use bobbins with bells and ribbons on for a lot of our dances, North West style Morris is derived from the parade dances of mill workers, which also gives us the wooden clogs. Some people say the steps of some dances are supposed to echo the sound of the mill machinery, perhaps a little of the weaving patterns made it's way into the dances too.