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An early highspot in the new century was a visit to the folk festival at Mediaş in Rumania in 2001. The side made an impression and even got an article in the local press!
Throughout the decade the team has danced with Headington Quarry Morris Dancers at Black's Treat, the 'alternative' May Morning hosted at 6 a.m. by sculptor Michael Black at the Aristotle Lane bridge over the Oxford Canal, after the main event in Central Oxford got too overrun by amplified music. It has become almost as 'traditional' as the main event.
In May 2006 the team flew to the United States to dance at the biggest morris festival in North America, the Marlboro Morris Ale, held at Marlboro College, Vermont. Thirteen men flew to Boston and hired three people carriers to drive first to the home of our friend Rhett Krause (ex Oxford city and Kirtlington dancer) in Massachusetts, then on the next day to the ale venue. We danced in baking hot temperatures but it was an an amazing experience. Almost twenty teams gathered for the Ale. In the course of the event the side wrested the Aunt Sally trophy from the host side, upholding the honour of Oxfordshire pub sports.
The first day's dancing tour finished in Brattleboro. The next day finished with a massed display at Newfane Common.
We then drove on to New York (let's pass over the moment two of the vehicles drove into each other...) where we stayed with three host families in Brooklyn and Manhattan. We did the tourist thing and visited the Empire State Building and the site of 9/11, and in the evening danced with all the NY teams at Brooklyn Heights, across the river from the famous Manhattan skyline.
The next day on via the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, which owns one of the Nicholson paintings of Eynsham morris from a century ago, to Boston, where we were again hosted byseveral local families. A day's dancing at Copley Square with Muddy River and the Pinewoods Men and more sightseeing -- several went whale watching off Cape Cod.
Then back to Eynsham and normality.... See the New England album for a fuller account.
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 Foreman Rupert Boulting
(c) Suzy Pryor
Click on the picture for the photo album
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