The Mummers Parade dates back nearly 120 years in Philadelphia.
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This makes the Mummers' distinctly local, DIY, transgressive grit feel increasingly important.
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The annual festival consists of numerous community events and culminates in the Mummers Parade.
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According to the parade website, mummers are costumed entertainers that celebrate the new year.
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This selfish, hateful behavior has no place in the Mummers, or the city itself.
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Her ring slid off her finger as she threw popcorn, a common Summer Mummers occurrence.
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Historically, the Mummers Parade plays an important part in the history of oppressed people in Philadelphia.
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The Mummers exemplify much of what defines older generations of Philadelphia: a tough-guy, underdog attitude.
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The legendary Mummers Parade -- the biggest New Year's Day event in Philadelphia -- just skewered Caitlyn Jenner.
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The Mummers represent Philadelphia's untamed, fiercely independent spirit, and give a face to a working-class community.
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Laura Ford's Mummers is a chilling reflection on mortality, loss, and youth, captured in a frozen moment.
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When Mr Fo won the Nobel prize in 1997 he received it on behalf of all mummers, tumblers and clowns.
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An impeachment trial is a medieval play, with its mummers and its costumes and its many-colored cloth-covered tables.
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Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads PHILADELPHIA — 2016 has not been a good year for the annual New Year's Day Mummers Parade.
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The spectacle is all part of the Mummers Festival, which celebrates a once-banned, centuries-old tradition in the province called mummering.
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"There has been a feeling of exclusion and of disrespect by the Mummers that has been allowed to permeate forever," she said.
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"There has been a feeling of exclusion and of disrespect by the Mummers that has been allowed to permeate forever," she said.
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The Mummers must come to terms with the parade's racist past, and instead of glorifying it in the present, they must denounce it.
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CNN reached out to the organizers of the Philadelphia Mummers Parade and to the Froggy Carr club but has not yet heard back.
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Kelce was decked out in his full Mummers costume -- and named names of writers/media members who predicted doom for the Eagles this year.
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But with revival efforts like the Mummers Festival now in place, it looks as though this eccentric tradition will continue to flourish and evolve.
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The organizers claim Summer Mummers sells more popcorn in its annual three-month run than any local movie theater sells in an entire year.
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Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D) on Wednesday condemned two men who wore blackface while marching in the city's annual Mummers Parade on New Year's Day.
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The humble origins of the parade can be seen at the Mummers Museum, which sits at Washington and "Two Street" (as South Philadelphians refer to it).
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Text in the museum honors James Bland, the author of the Mummers' unofficial theme, "O Dem Golden Slippers" — interestingly, Bland was an African-American minstrel composer.
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It is a 67-year-old Midland tradition called Summer Mummers, and it has quietly become one of the rowdiest and messiest experiences in American theater.
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The actors must have been thankful the audience was no longer allowed to toss peanuts, as they had been when Summer Mummers first started in 1949.
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In many respects, in our age of Occupy Wall Street and the 1%, the kind of hierarchical shifting that the Mummers Parade represents seems a fitting sentiment.
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By the nature of their chosen disguises, which frequently reference farwaway locales, Mummers often invoke the "Other," sometimes in earnest, sometimes in jest, and too often in ignorance.
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In an effort to preserve this quirky part of Newfoundland's culture, the first-ever Mummers Festival was born in 2009 and is now going into its eighth year.
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He does remember the parade that was held in Nazareth — with Mummers string bands and a replica of the lunar module — to honor his father later that summer.
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Some inclusions are expected, such as hunting, hawking, archery, jousting, and theatrical "mummeries," also known as mummers' plays; others are more unusual, including Strutt's examples of Hot Cockles.
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Among these are one massive portrait of Benjamin Franklin, a rough depiction of the Mummers Museum, and homages to the African-American abolitionist James Forten and the photographer Thomas Eakins.
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The Mummers represent a wild, exuberant, and frankly bizarre tradition that deserves to continue; where else can you see your electrician dance down the street as a sequined cow carrying a miniature umbrella?
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The ACLU has confirmed, in response to this year's controversy, that the city itself has no ability to force the parade to change, so change must come from within the Mummers' own loose organization.
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That's when Jason Kelce, the team's center, donned a bedazzled lime green costume lent to him by a Mummers brigade, a Philadelphia-specific kind of performance group made up mostly of blue-collar men.
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Until a police horse kicked him in the face while he was watching the 1929 Mummers Parade, Louie Lemberger had been the smartest boy at Thomas Junior High, a whiz kid, self-taught in calculus.
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In the ecstatic closing sequence, they take part in some impromptu crustpunk Mummers parade, led by a homeless man named Horse (who, just like Farran, has been revealed to be a member of the professional class in disguise).
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To celebrate the end of 2019 and the start of 2020, WalletHub gathered trivia about New Year&aposs Eve and New Year&aposs Day, from the amount of trash in Times Square to how many people march in Philadelphia&aposs Mummers Parade.
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A mummer, according to Rusty Martz, president of the board of directors of the Mummers Museum, is "any man, woman, or child involved in the fantasy of song, dance and costume splendor on each January 1st in the annual Philadelphia New Year's Day parade."
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" Later on in the book, Arya Stark gets a brief explanation about glamor magic too, from her mentor in the Faceless Men: "Mummers change their faces with artifice," the kindly man was saying, "and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye.
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In the early part of the 19th century, mummers existed in the United States as part of a working-class Christmas ritual found in many communities of recent immigrants: a bedecked procession of young men would march through their neighborhoods, going door to door and sometimes also performing a folk play.
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This power reversal is maintained in today's parade: contemporary Mummers are largely union plumbers, electricians, and contractors, many of whom were born and bred in working-class South Philadelphia and are descendants of the Irish, Italian, and Polish immigrants who once strove to find a sense of community by marching together on New Year's Day.
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Costumes are often a mix of intensely labored garments styled in the distinctive mummer's garb — satins trimmed with sequins, head and back pieces covered with feathers, skirts, wide bibs — paired with store-bought accessories like wigs, rubber masks, and funky sunglasses, all capped off with painted faces and the Mummers' quintessential gold spray-painted sneakers.
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She is misguided revenge incarnate — killing Freys and Lannisters who couldn't possibly have been involved in the Red Wedding, hanging crowd favorite Podrick Payne, and taking over and corrupting the Brotherhood Without Banners, a band of outlaws that had been doing their best to protect the common people of the Riverlands against Northern raiders and the Bloody Mummers.
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With little else to occupy their time, Philadelphia's mummers of the 20143s began taking their celebration to the broader city streets, where they collided with other, more violent working-class customs like "shooting in" the new year by firing guns into the night sky, playing loud, cacophonous music, demanding free alcohol from pubs, and engaging in altercations with fellow revelers — all in costume and, mimicking the growing popularity of minstrel shows, often in blackface.
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The only place to start this story is with Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce — standing at the podium on top of the famous Philadelphia Museum of Art steps, dressed in a gaudy green and purple Mummers outfit — leading a couple million Philadelphians in this song: No one likes us No one likes us No one likes us, we don't care We're from Philly, fucking Philly No one likes us, we don't care His speech was, I say without hyperbole, the greatest thing that has happened in the history of Philadelphia.
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There is a Mummers Museum dedicated to the history of Philadelphia Mummers.
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Cartoonist John Geering, the artist behind Bananaman, lived here. Comberbach Mummers perform the traditional Soulcaking Play (a form of mummers play), from 31 October for two weeks. It restarted in the mid-1980s. The mummers meet most Thursday evenings in The Spinner and Bergamot pub.
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Adelphia New Years Association is one of four Fancy mother clubs in Philadelphia's centuries old Mummers Parade.Becky Bacha, Philadelphia Daily News, 28 December 2007. "Mummers + 2". Accessed 8 January 2008.
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Highsmith, Steve (June 17, 2009). "The Mummers and Kevin BaconThe Bacon Brothers Band Were Joined in a Philadelphia Studio To Record a Version of Their Song, New Year's Day, with Actual Philly Mummers!". WPHL-TV. Retrieved January 3, 2012. Proceeds from the sale of the CD went to the Save the Mummers Fund.
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Numerous Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans from South Philadelphia became involved in the Mummers Parade as both Mummers performers and parade goers. Other ethnic groups were soon integrated into the parade through the years. Italian-Americans and Italian immigrants to South Philadelphia began to participate in the Mummers Parade in large numbers after World War II. While South Philadelphia (especially Pennsport) remains one of the most important centers for Mummers traditions and Mummers members, more recent immigrants to the neighborhood from Asia and Latin America generally have fewer ties to the parade and tradition.Hepp, Chris (August 7, 2014).
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Italian and Irish immigrants and their children in South Philadelphia also revived, altered, and continued the Philadelphia tradition of the Mummers Parade.Hepp, Chris (August 7, 2014). "Mummers Parade going south? City mulls big change".
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Mummers performing in Exeter, Devon in 1994 Mummers' and guisers' plays were formerly performed throughout much of English-speaking Great Britain and Ireland, spreading to other English-speaking parts of the world including Newfoundland and Saint Kitts and Nevis. There are a few surviving traditional teams of mummers in England and Ireland, but there have been many revivals of mumming, often associated nowadays with morris and sword dance groups. These performances are comparable in some respects with others throughout Europe. On 4 November 2017, following a similar announcement from the Lewes Bonfire Council, the Association of Mummers in England and Wales (AMEW) announced that Mummers would immediately cease the practice of "black- facing" or "blacking-up".
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Strauss, Robert. (December 29, 2008). "Mummers, Dollars and Change". Philadelphia Daily News.
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They also have a Local History Study Group and a Mummers group.
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22, 139 Although the term mummers has been in use since the Middle Ages, no scripts or details survive from that era and the term may have been used loosely to describe performers of several different kinds. The earliest evidence of mummers' plays as they are known today is from the mid- to late 18th century. Mummers' plays should not be confused with the earlier mystery plays.
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"Mummers Parade going south? City mulls big change". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
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The parade's name is a spoof of the nearby Philadelphia Mummers parade. As opposed to the Mummers, which is judged seriously, the Hummers dress up and make fun of all the popular news headlines, political, celebrity, and local happenings of the year.
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Icknield Way sponsors the Wantage Mummers,www.wantagemummers.org.uk, retrieved 19 April 2010 who perform a traditional Mummers Play on Boxing Day every year in Wantage. The players are all members of the Icknield Way team, who have put on the play every Boxing Day since 1977.
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The Philadelphia Mummers: building community through play. Temple University Press, 2007. In 1960 the band relocated and established its headquarters at 2844 "D" Street. The band is a charter member of the Philadelphia Mummers String Band Association and, as such, can never change its name.
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He is mad at Sadiku for tricking her to go see Baroka, and at the same time concerned that Baroka will harm or imprison her. Some mummers arrive. Sadiku remains calm, despite Lakunle's growing stress. Sadiku steals a coin from Lakunle to pay the mummers.
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The Mummers Troupe was founded in the autumn of 1972 by Chris Brookes and Lynn Lunde, and is best known for their performances of the "Traditional Newfoundland Christmas Mummers Play" every December from 1972 to 1982."Mummers Ttoupe", Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador The Hall is now "one of the most important centres for the arts in Newfoundland and Labrador".Canada's Historic Places. The LSPU Hall is a registered heritage building "because of its historical and architectural values".
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A Philadelphia tradition since the early twentieth century, the Mummers Parade is held each New Year's Day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It is believed to be the oldest folk festival in the United States.Todt, Ron (January 1, 2012). "Mummers Strut Down Broad Street in Annual Parade". WCAU-TV.
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Greater Kensington is a string band in Philadelphia's annual Mummers Parade. The Greater Kensington String Band was organized in 1946 and first marched in the New Year's Day Mummers Parade in 1948.Morning Call (Allentown, PA), 25 September 1987, page B3. "Good Weather Predicted for Liftoff of Quakertown Flight Festival".
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In 1987, the mayor at the time, Wilson Goode had Mummers photos removed from City Hall because the Mummers appeared to be wearing blackface. Saying the Mummers were not in blackface, a petition resulted in the photos being restored, though not near the mayor's office. In 1996, half of the string bands reported having female members. The bands' captains, though, made it clear to reporters that they did not want to let women in the bands, but felt they had to, due to declining membership.
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The English mummers play occasionally involves Morris or sword dances either incorporated as part of the play or performed at the same event. Mummers plays are often performed in the streets near Christmas to celebrate the New Year and the coming springtime. In these plays are central themes of death and rebirth.
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After the end of city funding for the parade, the Mummers created the "Save the Mummers Fund" to help cover the additional city fees to paying expenses for police and sanitation services during the event. Funding for the parade during the first decade of the 2000s was provided for several years by Southwest Airlines, which also took naming rights of the parade, which was called "Southwest Airlines Mummers Parade." Funding for the 2012 parade was provided by SugarHouse Casino, which renamed the parade to "Sugar House Mummers Parade." In September 2009, The Bacon Brothers musical duo (comprising Philadelphia natives Michael and Kevin Bacon) recorded a special version of their song "New Year's Day" with members of the All-Star String Band.
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Retrieved January 3, 2012. Numerous Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans from South Philadelphia became involved in the Mummers Parade as both Mummers performers and parade goers. Several Irish themed bands have emerged from the area. The Green Fields of America is an ensemble which performs and promotes Irish traditional music in the United States.
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Incidents of foul weather have delayed the parade on occasions by several hours, including 2008. On January 1, 2015, the Mummers began their parade route at Philadelphia’s City Hall and headed south along Broad Street to Washington Avenue. The Mummers used the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as a staging area prior to moving to City Hall to be judged. After the judging, the mummers joined the parade heading south on Broad St. The parade ended at Washington Ave, with some clubs still heading east to Second Street for the unofficial “Two Street Parade”.
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Overton has a group of Mummers, who perform frequently over the Yuletide period outside some of the public houses in the village.
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The name Mummenschanz is German for "mummery," or a play involving mummers. Mummer is an Early Modern English term for a mime artist.
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Annual events include film festivals and parades, the most famous being the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Mummers Parade on New Year's Day.
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St. George slays the dragon, in a 2015 Boxing Day production, by the St Albans Mummers. Mummers' plays are folk plays performed by troupes of amateur actors, traditionally all male, known as mummers or guisers (also by local names such as rhymers, pace-eggers, soulers, tipteerers, wrenboys, and galoshins). It refers particularly to a play in which a number of characters are called on stage, two of whom engage in a combat, the loser being revived by a doctor character. This play is sometimes found associated with a sword dance though both also exist in Britain independently.
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Philadelphia Mummers Museum at 2nd St and Washington Ave Because of the large number of clubhouses there, South 2nd Street (Two Street) often serves as a party location after the parade, with the center of activity being South 2nd Street and Mifflin Street. Local residents and others in the area for the parade crowd the local bars, clubhouses and sidewalks, sometimes joining in the unofficial parade. With the parade they spent months preparing for finished, the Mummers let loose and celebrate. This multi-block party continues well into the night or early morning, with some Mummers not sleeping for twenty-four hours straight.
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The greeting "a merry Christmas and a happy New Year" is recorded from the early eighteenth century."a merry X'mas and a happy New Year", letter of Samuel Goodman dated December 20th 1710, in A closely related verse, dating from the 1830s, runs: It was sung by "mummers" – i.e. children who would go about singing from door to door to request gifts. An example is given in the short story The Christmas Mummers (1858) by Charlotte Yonge: After they are allowed in and perform a Mummers play, the boys are served beer by the farmer's maid.
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In December 2011, Kent joined the Brummagem Mummers, inventing and playing the character Wild Bill Hitchcock, a spoof Wild West gunman, in their Mummers' Play until December 2013. In 2012, Kent became the first-known person to identify and climb all of Staffordshire's 65 1,000-foot peaks, completing his ascents on New Year's Eve. He collectively named the hills The Staffordshire Kents.
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A "guiser" (sometimes spelled "guizer") is someone in disguise, though in the Winster area the term was widely used for the teams of Christmas mummers.
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Having watched Philadelphia's annual New Year's Day Mummers parade since he was a child, Raab set out to capture the world of the Mummers. STRUT! featured music from turn-of-the-century ragtime and Dixieland hymns to Broadway show tunes and pop music hits. Raab also produced the film's soundtrack. Raab then collaborated with filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. on the documentary film Rittenhouse Square.
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In keeping with the theme of an inversion of rules, and of disguise, crossdressing was a common strategy, and men would sometimes dress as women and women as men. Travelling from house to house, some mummers would carry their own musical instruments to play, sing and dance in the houses they visited. The host and hostess of these 'mummers parties' would serve a small lunch which could consist of Christmas cake with a glass of syrup or blueberry or dogberry wine. Some mummers would drink a Christmas "grog" before they leave each house, a drink of an alcoholic beverage such as rum or whiskey.
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This was soon extended through New Year's Day with costumed celebrants loudly parading through the city."The Philadelphia Tradition" . Philadelphia Mummers Association. Retrieved November 27, 2007.
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City Councilmember Cindy Bass introduced a bill that would hit Mummers who wore blackface with a $75 fine and a five year ban from the parade.
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Lacking the usual clubhouse, they meet in a room over a local pub.Becky Bacha, Philadelphia Daily News, 28 December 2007."Mummers + 2". Accessed 8 January 2008.
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Green, sings the ballad while the actors and mime perform the play. The two ingredients never meet; both are completely self-contained, involved only in themselves. But near the end, in the final tableau, there is a slight acknowledgement of each other's worlds when the presenter of the mummers' play, Father Christmas, completes the story Mrs. Green has been telling, and Mrs. Green momentarily enters the mummers’ acting area.
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In the Middle Ages, the Mummers Play was a traditional English folk play, based loosely on the Saint George and the Dragon legend, usually performed during Christmas gatherings, which contained the origin of many of the archetypal elements of the pantomime, such as stage fights, coarse humour and fantastic creatures,Barrow, Mandy. "Mummers' Plays", Project Britain, 2013, accessed 21 April 2016. gender role reversal, and good defeating evil.Barrow, Mandy.
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"Darkie Day". YouTube.J. R. Daeschner, "True Brits and Darkie Day: Is It Racist?". YouTube.The Untold - Darkie Day: Michael and the Mummers, BBC Radio 4, Monday, 22 February 2016.
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Accessed January 17, 2020. A 1964 city policy officially banned blackface,Tom, Brittany. the grio.com, January 3, 2013, "Philadelphia’s Mummers parade features blackface performance." Accessed January 3, 2016.
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The festival performance featured an appearance from musicians from the Mummers to perform the title track of the record. That same summer, Kevin and Michael teamed up with Philadelphia singer Bunny Sigler and a group of mummers from a local string band to record a special edition of their song "New Years Day" as a part of a fundraiser to be able to pay for the Mummers Parade in 2010 after the city could no longer fund the parade. An MP3 of the recording was sold online and people paid donations to purchase the song. In addition, they performed a one night only benefit on December 5, 2009 at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, PA which was broadcast live.
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In Philadelphia every New Year's Day there is a Mummers' Day Parade that showcases pageantry and creativity. This grand parade has history in the old world, and performances in Philadelphia began in the year 1900. The parade traces back to mid-17th-century roots, blending elements from Swedish, Finnish, Irish, English, German, and other European heritages, as well as African heritage. The parade is related to the Mummers Play tradition from Britain and Ireland.
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John Fisher, About.com. Adelphia New Year's Association Photos - 2008 Mummers Parade . Accessed 8 January 2008. They are the first new Fancy added to the Parade since Hog Island in 1942.
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The first string band, Trilby, was organized in 1898, first paraded in 1902, and last paraded in 2014.Mummers’ famous Trilby band is sidelined for Philadelphia parade - Reading Eagle Dec.
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There is an annual "scarecrow trail", a village fête and, in August, a duck race on Hacca's Brook. In recent years a Mummers Play has toured the village in December.
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The Joseph A. Ferko String Band or Ferko String Band is a perennial performer in Philadelphia's Mummers Parade. They gained national popularity through their hit recordings in the 1940s and 1950s.
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Thomas Hardy's novel The Return of the Native (1878) has a fictional depiction of a mummers' play on Edgon Heath. It was based on experience from his childhood. Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace (1869) has a depiction of mummers, including Nikolai Rostov, Natasha Rostova, and Sonya Rostova, making house-to-house visits. They are depicted as a boisterous crowd dancing and laughing in outrageous costumes where men are dressed as women and women are dressed as men.
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There is evidence of mummers' plays since circa 1141. The Marshfield play was discontinued in the 1880s when a number of the players died of influenza but it was resurrected after the Second World War. In the past centuries the mummers were probably a band of villagers who toured the large houses to collect money for their own Christmas festivities. During the latter half of the 19th century the play lapsed, presumably for lack of interest.
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Hole, Christina. British Folk Customs. Hutchinson, 1976. p. 91 It is suggested that the mummers and guisers "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune".
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The village is home to the Potterne Mummers, who re-enact performances of a traditional mummers play during the week before Christmas in pubs around the Devizes area and ending each year with a performance at the George and Dragon and Potterne social club on Christmas Eve. The Mummers were founded in 1953 by Bernard Baker, a local schoolteacher, who brought together a group to perform a local mummer's play which he had found from an archive report from the late nineteenth century. The initial revival of the play only lasted one year; it was performed by Potterne teenagers under the direction of Bernard Baker. In 1976 the cast included Nigel Weeks as Valiant Soldier, and it was next performed in 1972, with a cast which included Mick Hiscock.
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Also important in this period were the folk dramas of the Mummers Play, performed during the Christmas season. Court masques were particularly popular during the reign of Henry VIII.Brockett and Hildy (2003, 101-103).
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Concerned about a possible riot, the city called in extra police for the parade.Orso, Anna. Billy Penn (WHYY-TV), January 5, 2016. "Blackface, prostitutes, hate speech: A brief history of the Mummers behaving badly".
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A dragon seems to have appeared in the Revesby Ploughboys' Play in 1779, along with a "wild worm" (possibly mechanical), but it had no words. In the few instances where the dragon appears and speaks its words can be traced back to a Cornish script published by William Sandys in 1833. Weston Mummers perform at the Packhorse Inn, Southstoke on Boxing Day, 2007. Mumming groups often wear face- obscuring hats or other kinds of headgear and masks, some mummers' faces are blackened or painted.
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While almost all parade participants are currently white, African American mummers existed in the past. The all African American Golden Eagle Club, formed in 1866, had 300 members in the 1906 parade, for example. Judges systematically discriminated against black clubs, however, and the last, the Octavius Catto Club, withdrew after receiving last place in the 1929 parade. The brass bands hired to accompany the Comic Brigades often include black musicians, but do not dress in costume and consider themselves session musicians rather than Mummers.
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The parade has often included hate speech, racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ, and culturally insensitive costumes, makeup, and images.Brennan, Chris. The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 2, 2019, "Philly City Council president inaccurately accuses Mummers troupe of wearing blackface". "The parade has a history of controversial and, at times, racist skits...". Retrieved January 12, 2019. The wearing of blackface carried over from minstrel shows in the early 20th century.John- Hall, Annette (December 26, 2007). "A Photojournalist Shows There's More to Mummers Than Feathers, Wigs and a Racist Past".
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News reports showed a Mummer with the Wheaties/Froot Loops sign screaming "fuck the gays!" Social media posts led to two of the Mummers being fired from their day-to-day jobs and ousted from the club. Additional skits that year featured multiple "Lives Matter" references and appearances of blackface. In 2020, after members of Froggy Car Wench Brigade wore blackface for the parade, mayor Jim Kenney said the city would end the parade "if Mummers leadership does not make immediate changes to better control the parade".
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One was often a man dressed as a woman. They sang 'popular ditties' and performed a mummer’s play.R. Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England (Llanerch, 1993) Appendix E (facsimile of 1881 original) In The Delectable Duchy 'Q' (the writer Arthur Quiller-Couch ) tells of mummers, guise-dancers and darky parties in c1892. Bottrell describes guise-dances as light-hearted plays in doggerel with music and dance interludes. Perhaps these shows, formalised in Nance’s Cledry Plays were the last evolution of the mummers' art.
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They appointed a "speech director", who performed a special dance with a traditional rhyme: The Mummers derive their name from the Mummers' plays performed in Philadelphia in the 18th century as part of a wide variety of working class street celebrations around Christmas. By the early 19th century, these coalesced with earlier Swedish customs, including the Christmas neighbor visits and possibly shooting firearms on New Year's Day (although this was common in other countries as well) as well as the Pennsylvania German custom of "belsnickling," where adults in disguise questioned children about their behavior during the previous year. U.S. President George Washington carried on the official custom of New Year's Day calls during the seven years he occupied President's House in Philadelphia. The Mummers continued their traditions of comic verse in exchange for cakes and ale.
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Welch, Charles E. Oh! dem golden slippers: the story of the Philadelphia Mummers. Book Street Press, 1991. The band, known as "GKSB", has taken first prize on three occasionsMorning Call (Allentown, PA), 30 August 1989, page B1.
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"Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" is a minstrel song traditionally performed by blackface mummers in the United States. The song, penned by African-American James A. Bland in 1879, is particularly well known as a bluegrass instrumental standard.
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"The Mummers' Dance" is a song written, composed, and performed by Canadian Celtic singer Loreena McKennitt, released as a single from the album The Book of Secrets in 1997. The song was a surprise hit in the United States, reaching No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 3 on the Adult Top 40 chart, and No. 17 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song refers to the seasonal Mummers Play performed by groups of actors, often as house-to-house visits. Its lyrics indicate a springtime holiday.
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A mummers play text attributed until recently to Mylor, Cornwall (much quoted in early studies of folk plays, such as The Mummers Play by R. J. E. Tiddy – published posthumously in 1923 – and The English Folk-Play (1933) by E. K. Chambers), has now been shown, by genealogical and other research, to have originated in Truro around 1780. The widespread tradition of Nine Lessons and Carols originated in Truro in 1880, when its bishop at the time, Edward White Benson, formalised the evening singing of carols before Christmas Day.
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The total loss was estimated at $20,000, with $6,000 of that being feathers alone. As of December 2007, they are unsure if their insurance will cover the loss.Jennifer Lin, Philadelphia Inquirer, 31 December 2007. Mummers of a feather.
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Latviešu gadskārtu ieražas. Riga, 1992. Another widely known Ziemassvētki tradition was ķekatas walking or gypsies walking. Mummers, dressed in various masks, went from one village to another, to bring them blessing and to drive away various evil spirits.
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Hutchinson, 1976. p.91 It is suggested that the mummers and guisers "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune".Peddle, S. V. (2007). Pagan Channel Islands: Europe's Hidden Heritage. p.
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The Mummers' Festival in New Inn is a seasonal (Christmas) festival which is hosted and promoted by the community council. It is designed to give entertainers a platform to demonstrate their talents and continue the Mummer tradition in rural Ireland.
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Many mummers' plays have been collected in Cornwall, notably by Robert Morton Nance. Morris is sometimes associated with mumming and some tunes used for morris are in Cornish MSS, but there is no evidence of the dance in 19th century Cornwall.
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Mumming, at any rate in the South of England, had its heyday at the end of the 19th century and the earliest years of the 20th century. Most traditional mummers groups (known as "sides") stopped with the onset of the First World War, but not before they had come to the attention of folklorists. In the second half of the 20th century many groups were revived, mostly by folk music and dance enthusiasts. The revived plays are frequently taken around inns and public houses around Christmas time and the begging done for some charity rather than for the mummers themselves.
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The school hall is used for other village activities such as Bentworth Garden Club meetings, performances by the Bentworth Mummers (a local amateur theatrical group), other meetings, and as a polling station for elections. In November 2010, the Bentworth Mummers put on a performance of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. Bentworth Cricket Club is just south of the village. The village has five tennis courts, one just to the south of the church and school, one just further to the southeast on the main village street, another at Hall Farm, and two more either side of the Sun Inn on Sun Hill.
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Every Boxing Day at 11:00am increasing numbers of visitors come to the village to see the performance of the celebrated Marshfield Mummers or The old time paper boys. Seven figures, led by the Town Crier with his handbell, dressed in costumes made from strips of newsprint and coloured paper, perform their play several times along the high street. Beginning in the Market place after the Christmas Hymns which are led by the vicar the mummers arrive to the sound of the lone bell. The five-minute performances follow the same set and continue up to the almshouses.
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The concert included numerous performances such as The Fralinger String Band, and Bunny Sigler onstage with the band. Though many of the people in the crowd were from the Philadelphia area and had ties with the mummers, fans from various cities and states came out to support the band that night and the 2010 Mummers Parade took place. For their service, Kevin and Michael were given positions of grand marshals in the parade. On May 6 and 7, 2011, The Bacon Brothers gave two concerts for the new non-profit California Dream Week design contest and event week.
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Men dressed or disguised as women have featured in traditional customs and rituals for centuries. For example, the characters of some regional variants of the traditional mummers play, which were traditionally always performed by men, include Besom Bet(ty); numerous variations on Bessy or Betsy; Bucksome Nell; Mrs Clagdarse; Dame Dolly; Dame Dorothy; Mrs Finney; Mrs Frail; and many others.Master Mummers website: Character Name Index to Folk Play Scripts, Compiled by Peter Millington Accessed 1 Dec 2011 The variant performed around Plough Monday in Eastern England is known as the Plough PlayHole, Christina (1978). A Dictionary of British Folk Customs, p.
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Mumming was used as a means of entertaining at feasts and functions, particular mention is made of one feast where 150 torch bearers lead the same number of mummers in, who would do acrobatics in a variety of costumes, including animal costumes.
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The Mummers are a band based in the English seaside town of Brighton, centred on London-born singer/songwriter Raissa Khan-Panni, composer Mark Horwood (before taking his own life in September 2009), producer/writer Paul Sandrone and co-producer/manager Alastair Cunningham.
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Department services include ecosystem management, historic preservation, event permitting and management, citizen engagement, youth employment, tree services and concessions. Philadelphia Parks & Recreation also organizes signature events and entertainment series like the Mummers Parade, Broad Street Run, The Oval and the Dell Music Center.
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A text from Islip, Oxfordshire, dates back to 1780.The Islip Mummers' Play of 1780 A play text which had, until recently, been attributed to Mylor in Cornwall (much quoted in early studies of folk plays, such as The Mummers Play by R. J. E. Tiddy – published posthumously in 1923 – and The English Folk-Play (1933) by E. K. Chambers) has now been shown, by genealogical and other research, to have originated in Truro, Cornwall, around 1780.The Truro cordwainers' play: a "new" eighteenth-century Christmas play — Research article at BNET.com A play from an unknown locality in Cheshire, close to the border with Wales, dates from before 1788.
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"'Minstrel shows were huge in Philly at the turn of the century,' said Kennedy, explaining the origins of blackface Mummery. 'There were even ads for minstrel shows in the Philadelphia Tribune. The string bands are a direct descendant of the minstrel shows and vaudeville.'" The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved January 9, 2008. Growing dissent from civil-rights groups and the offense of the black community led to most clubs phasing out blackface in the early 1960s. In 1963 one week before the parade, concerned about their image for a nationwide broadcast, the Mummers banned blackface for the parade. Angry Mummers picketed the parade magistrate's home, leading to a reversal of the decision.
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In 2003, word spread that Slick Duck Comic Brigade was working on a skit involving priests chasing altar boys. Protests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Diocese of Camden and the Catholic League and WPHL-TV announcing they would not air the skit led to the group cancelling of the skit and claiming it was just a prank. Goodtimers Comic Brigade's 2003 entry highlighted the Mummers' continued use of blackface, skirting of the rules with brown, red, purple and blue makeup and strong references to minstral shows. Mummers have declared the alternate color choices as a direct protest of the longstanding and frequently flouted ban.
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Another case highlighted by Dewar was taken from an account provided by G. W. Greening of Dorchester, in which a member of the Bradstock Mummers was dressed as Beelzebub. Given these similarities, Dewar ultimately suggested that the Ooser was "likely enough an off-shoot from the 14th century and later Mummers' plays". The antiquary Frederick Thomas Elworthy expressed the view that the Dorset Ooser was "the probable head" of a hobby horse. The folklorist E. C. Cawte, in his in-depth study of the hobby horse tradition in English folk culture, stated that although both entailed dressing up in an animalistic costume, the Ooser had no clear connection with this tradition.
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When one of the mummers approached, begging for coins, the boy struck him aside and the mummer cracked his head against a standing stone. From the blood and violence the Ragman was born, thrusting itself out of the stone and into the body of the dead mummer, tearing apart the boy and doing something even worse to the girl. When the townsfolk attacked the Ragman it killed many of them and then retreated back into the stone, to await the day when its message could spread to the world. The terrified townsfolk executed the other mummers, soaking the stone with their blood, and sent the bodies and the stone far away.
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Passing by some of Philadelphia's most famous landmarks, the course averages over 35,000 participants a year. Additionally, the section of Broad Street from near Oregon Avenue (Marconi Plaza) to City Hall, in South Philadelphia and Center City, is the traditional location of the Mummers Parade on New Years Day.
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Bridesburg is home to the second oldest VFW Post in the world, founded in 1899. Bridesburg is also home to the Joseph A. Ferko String Band. The Ferko String Band is a member of the Philadelphia String Band Association, which is a division of the Philadelphia Mummers Parade.
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Classical musicians who also explored the Sussex repertoire include Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Grainger was rather cavalier in his appropriation of the folk melodies he recorded from all over the world, including arrangements of old Sussex tunes such as The Merry King and the Sussex Mummers' Christmas Carol. (Mummers in Sussex dialect are known as Tipteers or Tipteerers). Singer, Henry Burstow, was known to have over 400 songs in his repertoire. Ralph Vaughan Williams' use of the tune of Our Captain Calls All Hands as sung by Harriett Verrall of Monks Gate, near Horsham, as a setting for John Bunyan’s To be a Pilgrim and George Butterworth’s arrangement of Folk Songs from Sussex.
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By 1900, these groups formed part of an organized, city-sanctioned parade with cash prizes for the best performances. About 15,000 mummers now perform in the parade each year. They are organized into four distinct types of troupes: Comics, Fancies, String Bands, and Fancy Brigades. All dress in elaborate costumes.
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The Merchant plays the accordion. #The Merchant and the Gypsies leave #Dance of the Coachmen and the Grooms #The Mummers #The dances break off. Petrushka dashes from the Little Theater, pursued by the Moor, whom the Ballerina tries to restrain. #The furious Moor seizes him and strikes him with his saber.
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6), The Three Suns (No. 10), The Uptown String Band (No. 11), and Arthur Godfrey (No. 14). In modern times the song is perhaps most associated with Merrie Melodies cartoons, as it appeared in several of them, and a common tune played by the string bands in Philadelphia's Mummers Parade.
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Mummers with a Turoń creature singing Christmas carols called kolędy in Poland, 1929 postcard Christmas carols are not celebrated in Poland until during-and-after the Christmas Vigil Mass called "Pasterka" held between 24 and 25 of December."The Shepherds' Mass". Polish-American Liturgical Center.org. 2008. Retrieved December 21, 2012.
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Nonetheless protests resurface annually. The day has now been renamed Mummers' Day in an attempt to avoid offence and identify it more clearly with established Cornish tradition. The debate has now been subject to academic scrutiny.M. Davey, Guizing: Ancient Traditions and Modern Sensitivities, In: P. Payton (ed), Cornish Studies 14 (Exeter, 2006) p.
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Meteņi mumming group (Budēļi, Buduļi or Būduļi) of Zemgale and Courland regions in Latvia, 2016Masku tradīcijas latviešu kultūrā Inese Roze, Viewed February 26, 2016 Whittlesea Straw Bear, 2009 Mummers and "guisers" (performers in disguise) can be traced back at least to 1296, when the festivities for the marriage of Edward I's daughter at Christmas included "mummers of the court" along with "fiddlers and minstrels". These "revels" and "guisings" may have been an early form of masque and the early use of the term "mumming" appears to refer specifically to a performance of dicing with the host for costly jewels, after which the mummers would join the guests for dancing, an event recorded in 1377 when 130 men on horseback went "mumming" to the Prince of Wales, later Richard II.Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951, pp. 150-1, quoted in History of the Masque GenreJohn Cutting, History and the Morris Dance (2005), page 81 According to German and Austrian sources dating from the 16th century, during carnival persons wearing masks used to make house-to-house visits offering a mum(en)schanz, a game of dice.
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Mummers plays are still performed regularly throughout the United Kingdom.Hannant (2011). What relation they may bear to their medieval antecedents is unknown. The surviving texts of this oral tradition were recorded in the 18th century, at a time when the industrial revolution began to break up the rural communities in which the plays were performed.
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Mummer is the sixth studio album by the English band XTC, released on 30 August 1983. It reached No. 51 on the UK album chart and No. 145 on the U.S. Billboard album charts. The album title refers to a Mummers play. A working title considered for the album was Fruit Fallen From God's Garden.
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In June 1840 the Great Western Railway reached Steventon, south of Drayton. Steventon station was the nearest station to Drayton until British Railways closed it in 1964. The nearest main line station is now , about southeast of Drayton. In 1924 Drayton still held traditional celebrations on May Day and performed a Mummers play at Christmas.
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No 214. page 29. At concerts, although the group often performed without Glenn Wardle, they were generally accompanied by The Cruel Driver and Dick - two characters from the Lacock Ragged Heroes Mummers - who would introduce the show. The Dick character was a Mari Lwyd horse's head, and would spend most of the group's performance frightening the audience.
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But in the end it became a clown.Василий Тахистов Роберт Городецкий: «Я всегда честно относился к работе» // Вакансия от А до Я. 30 мая 2008 г.Людмила Грабенко Интервью с Робертом Городецким // Газета «Бульвар Гордона», № 9, 21 июня 2005 г. Since 1982, Robert Gorodetsky serves clown-mime theater Litsedeyi (Russian for "mummers" or literally "people who make faces").
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Pennsport is a string band in Philadelphia's annual Mummers Parade. They are one of two new groups added to the parade in 2008. They have taken a new approach to mummering: keeping expenses low, paying out of pocket and avoiding fund-raising and weekly jobs to fund their march.Caitlin Meals, South Philly Review, 11 October 2007.
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The wearing of blackface was once a regular part of the annual Mummers Parade in Philadelphia. Growing dissent from civil rights groups and the offense of the black community led to a 1964 city policy, ruling out blackface.John Francis Marion, Smithsonian Magazine, January 1981. "On New Year's Day in Philadelphia, Mummer's the word". Archived version accessed January 4, 2008.
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Agriculture and horticulture are important industries, and hops were grown and kiln-dried in the parish until 1974. Crookham was formerly noted for brick making and potteries which produced coarse red ware of the flower-pot-type. A traditional Mummers play is performed outside two of the public houses and on the village green each Boxing Day.
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In addition, local residents are known as Sawyeds, owing to a traditional story about a farmer who freed his prize cow from a gate in which it had become entangled, by sawing its head off. Today the story is re-enacted raucously and colourfully every Wakes week by a local mummers group called the Tidza Guisers.
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According to the 2001 census Barrow upon Humber had a population of 2,745. For many years the village supported a mummers troupe known as the Plough-Jags. Such troupes were associated with the festivities of Plough Monday which marked the opening of the agricultural year. There are two public houses: the Royal Oak and the Six Bells.
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Winterbourne has a Non-League football club Winterbourne United F.C. who play at Parkside Avenue and a popular village cricket club that fields 5 senior sides - Winterbourne CC - who share the same ground. Winterbourne Down Border Morris performs during the year at events such as wassailing, and especially on Boxing Day when they perform a Mummers play.
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Arthur tries to downplay the event, claiming that it was all a Mummers Play. But the axe has been left, and is hung on the wall for all to see. The act ends with an abstract representation of the passing of the year. The court prepares Gawain for his travel and ordeal as the seasons pass.
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It also refers to a specific drum of African origin (see List of Caribbean drums). In addition to the Bahamian Goombay tradition, Gombey is similar to some other Afro-Caribbean styles and celebrations (such as the Mummers). Afro- Caribbeans brought to Bermuda as slaves or convicts during colonial times introduced other Caribbean traditions. -Read full Wiki on Gombey.
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An 1852 depiction of an English mummers play Although there are earlier hints (such as a fragmentary speech by St George from Exeter, Devon, which may date from 1737, although published in 1770), the earliest complete text of the "Doctor" play appears to be an undated chapbook of Alexander and the King of Egypt, published by John White (d. 1769) in Newcastle upon Tyne between 1746 and 1769. The fullest early version of a mummers' play text is probably the 1779 "Morrice Dancers'" play from Revesby, Lincolnshire. The full text ("A petygree of the Plouboys or modes dancers songs") is available online.The "Plouboys or modes dancers" at Revesby 1779Morrice Dancers at Revesby — 1779 Although performed at Christmas, this text is a forerunner of the East Midlands Plough Monday (see below) plays.
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Buki's masks were made under the sheet by affixing a flexible card arcing downward, which was covered with a sheet and attached to it horns and a beard, as for cranes - they inverted the fur coat to the other side and in one sleeve put an ax with a head, with spoons tied to both sides, which looked like ears and a beak, which could be modified. One of the mummers' customs was also to disguise as death, when one of the mummers covered himself with a white sheet, preparing from turnips redundant teeth. One hand holds a wooden dagger, which was smudged in red color, second hand bore a plate, which was put into a combustible substance. This fire cast light on death's face to look pale, similar to a corpse.
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Eventually they outgrew the Estonian Club so they moved to the British Legion club in Womanby Street. On their opening night at the new location, there were 500 folk singers and other guests in attendance. Harris decided to try his luck as a professional folk singer after a well-received performance at the Sidmouth Festival in 1964, after being fired from three different jobs for taking time off to perform. In 1967 he founded the Nottingham Traditional Music Club, which was known, and criticized by some, for its very strict adherence to traditional music. The club was active for 22 years and had its own Morris Dance team, mummers group and research group. Harris encouraged various other groups and clubs to form over the years, including the Dolphin Morris Men and the Owd ‘Oss Mummers.
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All known Irish play scripts are in English though Irish custom and tradition have permeated mumming ceremony with famous characters from Irish history – Colmcille, Brian Boru, Art MacMorrough, Owen Roe O'Neill, Sarsfield and Wolfe Tone. The mummers are sometimes referred to as wrenboys. The main characters are usually the Captain, Beelzebub, Saint Patrick, Prince George, Oliver Cromwell, The Doctor and Miss Funny.
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By the medieval period, the mummers' plays had developed, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality.
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There were also performances by mummers and Pace Eggers, musicians and from some of the more idiosyncratic traditional teams; notably The Britannia Coconut Dancers, Abbotts Bromley Horn Dancers and the Whittlesey Straw Bear. There were stalls selling music, ephemera and crafts, films, workshops and talks. The event was refreshed with plenty of real ale, and finished with a ceilidh late at night.
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Down by the Greenwood Side is a "dramatic pastoral" composed by Harrison Birtwistle to a text by Michael Nyman. It was first performed on 8 May 1969 at the Festival Pavilion, West Pier, Brighton. The text comes from two sources: a popular ballad called "The Cruel Mother", and passages from various mummers plays, the folk plays of the English countryside. The soprano, Mrs.
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Ducklington has a Morris dancing sideDucklington Morris and Mummers performances. It also has its own Morris Dance tradition; its own style of dance that was collected around the beginning of the 19th century. The Ducklington tradition is danced by many sides throughout Britain and the United States. Ducklington has one public house: The Bell, and a sports and social club.
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By 1964, only one African American mummer, Willis Fluelling, remained. As of 2007, a few of the less traditional clubs, such as Spiral Q Puppet Theater's West Philadelphia Mummers Brigade, were integrated. The comic "wenches" and other female roles in most skits are typically performed by men in drag. Women were not officially allowed in the parade until the 1970s.
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Latgale region mummers were called kaļedās (kaladnieki) or talderi. The idea of masking is based on ancient fertility rites. Usually, maskās tried to portray themselves as spirits, who wanted to either placate or impress. One of the best known ancient mummer masks was a bear mask because it was believed a bear with his growl was able to frighten off all evil spirits.
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Painting of a hobby horse with Morris dancers beside the River Thames at Richmond, London, c. 1620 The term hobby horse is used, principally by folklorists, to refer to the costumed characters that feature in some traditional seasonal customs, processions and similar observances around the world. They are particularly associated with May Day celebrations, mummers' plays and the Morris dance in England.
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Therefore, mummers everywhere were gladly welcomed and treated. Budēļi leader - father budēļi or elder budēļi, who had all mummers serve to a regimental leader, always carried along a ferrule, which was used to whip all the people in the house. This was Father Budēļi's ferrule of life, to which Latvian tradition attributed a magical power of health, fertility and carried a moral status, in tune with Europe wide distributed habit of expecting winter solstice with scalded branches, they took it along for marches and, touched with it people and beasts, transferring to them a life force, that dwells in these branches. In Courland and Semigallia regions, ķekatas or ķiņķēziņus (ķēmus) were called budēļi (also known as bubuļi, buduļi, buki, būzaļi, buzuļi) or dancing children, Vidzeme region calls them vecīši, maskās (maskarati), skutelnieki (suselnieki), nūjinieki (kūjinieki), preiļi, kurciemi.
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Cheshire Play — Before 1788 Chapbook versions of The Christmas Rhime or The Mummer's Own Book were published in Belfast, c.1803-1818.Belfast Christmas Rhyme — Smyth & Lyons (1803–1818) A mummers' play from Ballybrennan, County Wexford, Ireland, dating from around 1817–18, was published in 1863.Ballybrennan, Wexford play — about 1823 It is from the 19th century that the bulk of recorded texts derive.
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"Coming from, what I can gather, roots in punk and mummers plays, this seven-piece are something to watch out for. The folk roots are there with accordion and dulcimer weaving an intriguing pattern for a honking sax to blare over ... this rustic rock and harmony is well worth searching for." Simon Jones (Folk Roots)Jones(1), Simon. "Record Reviews" in Folk Roots (fRoots) Magazine, May 1988.
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At his daughter's suggestion, Nakdimen started acting in the Mummers and Minstrels, an Anchorage, Kentucky-based volunteer performance group. He said "The first time I went on stage, it scared the hell out of me... there's no question that memorizing lines keeps you using your brain rather than sitting on the sofa and being a spud." By 2011, Nakdimen had appeared in six productions in six years.
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The local minstrel performer James A. Bland composed songs that attained phenomenal success, especially "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (1878) and "Oh, dem Golden Slippers" (1879). The latter became the 'theme song' of the Mummers, who established clubs and formally inaugurated the annual tradition in 1901 of dressing in extravagant costumes and parading on New Year's Day while performing on banjos, guitars, saxophones and glockenspiels.
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Raissa was born and grew up in middle-class south London, in Lambeth. Her mother is English and her father of mixed Chinese, Indian, and Mexican ancestry.The Mummers: 'We're honouring his spirit completely' Raised in South London, Raissa met regular collaborators Paul Sandrone and Dan Birch while studying music in Bristol during the 1990s. This partnership has produced three albums, including 1999's Believer.
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No Mummers Allowed In, Lulu, The (In)complete Herstory of Women in Newfoundland (and Labrador!) and Fruithead. Under the working title Snowflake, her debut novel won the Percy Janes First Novel Award for unpublished manuscripts in 2004."St. John's author/actress wins Percy Janes First Novel Award". The Western Star, June 11, 2004. The book was published by Pedlar Press in 2008 under the title Skin Room.
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Mummers Parade Director Leo Dignam said, "I kind of like that trend. Some of the people are getting sick of all the money involved and the practice, and they just want to keep the tradition. These old guys just want to have fun." In 2008, for their first parade, they were led up the street by U.S. Representative Bob Brady and Mayor-elect Michael Nutter.
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Marshfield is justly proud of its special local tradition revived now for more than 40 years and looks forward each year to the social gathering each Boxing Day. The mummers have been featured on radio and television and at events of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. A few years ago they featured on the Rev. Lionel Fanthorpes "Fortean TV" aired on Channel 4.
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It has been performed every year since and is a firm annual tradition and the cast, still including Mick Hiscock, put on their tatter coats and tour the pubs collecting money for various charities including the Wiltshire Air Ambulance. The Potterne Mummers were presented to Prince Philip in 2012 at the Queen's Jubilee event at Salisbury Cathedral and were shortlisted for a Community Service award in 2014.
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Steelbands, village groups, masquerade ensembles and mummers all perform. Jump-up Day commemorates and celebrates emancipation from slavery, and is accompanied by steelbands, masquerades and dancing men carrying chains to symbolize the bondage of slavery. Music is also an important part of St Patrick's Day, which is a celebration of Montserrat's Irish heritage and music and has now been transformed into a whole week of activities.
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Off with His Head is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh; it is the nineteenth novel to feature Roderick Alleyn. It was first published in the USA (by Little, Brown of Boston) in 1956, under the title Death of a Fool, and in the UK (by Collins) in 1957. Set in the freezing, snowbound Winter of a small English village, Mardian (based on the Kent village of Birling, where Marsh had recently stayed with her old friends, the Rhodes family), the plot concerns the annual performance in the courtyard of the local crumbling castle of an historic folkloric ritual, "The Dance of the Five Sons", containing elements of Morris dancing, sword dance and Mummers play. This fictional version of the English Guiser/Mummers play, performed on "Sword Wednesday" of the Winter Solstice, includes carefully detailed characters: "The Fool", "Crack" The Hobbyhorse and the half-man/half-woman "Betty".
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Wrenboys on St. Stephen's Day in Dingle, Ireland. In past times and into the 20th century, an actual bird was hunted by wrenboys on St. Stephen's Day. The captured wren was tied to the wrenboy leader's staff or a net would be put on a pitchfork. It would be sometimes kept alive, as the popular mummers' parade song states, "A penny or tuppence would do it no harm".
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The Penthouse Theatre, on the fourth floor of Collins Hall, served both for debuts of professional shows and home for theater groups like the Mimes and Mummers. The Penthouse Theatre was turned into office space in 1966. In 1991, the Alumni House, constructed in 1842 by William Rodrigue, was turned into Rodrigues Coffee House. Rodrigues, more commonly referred to as "Rod's" is an entirely student run coffee house and event space.
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Throughout the 19th century, especially in the east of Cornwall, Darkie Parties (originally Darking Parties) were common Christmas celebrations held in Cornish homes and public houses. People would have performed traditional Cornish and other seasonal music and seasonal folk drama such as Mummers plays.Courtney, M. A. (1890), Folklore and Legends of Cornwall. "Blacking up" was also a way of preventing the labourer's Lords and Masters from recognizing who they were.
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Retrieved December 30, 2008. As of 2008, the parade began at 9:00 am and ended sometime before 8:00 pm. fancy brigades performed at the nearby convention center at noon and, in a second, judged show, at 5:00 pm. An individual Mummers' struta weaving, comical dance/walk with pumping arms held out to the sidemay last two or three hours from South Philadelphia to City Hall.
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Butkovitz graduated from Temple University and earned a law degree from the Temple University School of Law. Prior to holding elected office, Butkovitz was an Philadelphia attorney handling civil, criminal and environmental coverage cases. He was a partner of Gold, Butkovitz & Robbins P.C. In 1980, he won a first amendment case in U.S District Court Third Circuit that opened up the Mummers Parade to women, minorities, and new entrants.
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The hamlet of Oasby has been classed as a conservation area and dwellings in Heydour parish are listed by the local authority as "of interest". The parish hamlets cooperate on events such as an annual art exhibition, a fête and scarecrow competition, and groups of Mummers, musicians and Morris dancers. An annual pantomime is held in Aisby village hall. The parish church holds a carol concert on the Sunday before Christmas.
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H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 363-4, 383. These rhymes seem to have come from a variety of sources, including traditional riddles, proverbs, ballads, lines of Mummers' plays, drinking songs, historical events, and, it has been suggested, ancient pagan rituals. Roughly half of the current body recognised 'traditional' English rhymes were known by the mid-18th century.
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H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 363–4. These rhymes seem to have come from a variety of sources, including traditional riddles, proverbs, ballads, lines of mummers' plays, drinking songs, historical events, and, it has been suggested, ancient pagan rituals. Roughly half of the current body of recognised "traditional" English rhymes were known by the mid-eighteenth century.
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Modern scholarship suggests a date for the play's origin c. 1590. Individual critics have considered The Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney (one of whose characters is named Musidorus) as a source for the play, and have studied its relationship to pastoral and folktale forms, and to traditional mummers' plays, Medieval theatre and chivalric romances, and the Italian Commedia dell'arte.Logan and Smith, pp. 229–30. Mucedorus is an early romantic comedy.
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In 1968, Polunin started the pantomime theater, Licidei (Russian for "mummers" or literally "people who make faces"). In 1981, his first very successful television performance took place on the New Year's Eve program Goluboy Ogonyok (Голубой огонёк). It was a part of his now famous Asisyai- revue. In 1982, in Leningrad he organized a mime parade in which more than 800 mime artists from the Soviet Union took part.
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Theatre (or theater) (Greek "theatron", θέατρον) is the branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes such forms as opera, ballet, mime, kabuki, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera, mummers' plays, and pantomime.
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Some regional variants of the mummers play, performed around All Souls' Day in Cheshire, included a non-speaking character called the "Wild Horse", made from a horse's skull mounted on a short pole. The horse was played by a man, hidden under a cloth attached to the pole, who bent forward to rest the pole on the ground. He could usually snap the horse's jaws loudly to frighten onlookers.Hole, Christina (1978).
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In return, the mummers drum her praises, but Sadiku claims that Lakunle was the real benefactor. Then they dance the Baroka story, showing him at his prime and his eventual downfall. Lakunle is pleased by the parts where they mock Baroka. Sadiku mentions that she used to be known as Sadiku of the duiker's feet because she could twist and untwist her waist with the smoothness of a water snake.
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The battle of light with dark is commonly played out in traditional folk dance and mummers plays across Britain such as Calan Mai in Wales, Mazey Day in Cornwall, and Jack in the Green traditions in England that typically include a ritual battle in some form. Some adherents of Modern Paganism consider the two counterparts as dual aspects of the male Earth deity waging for the favor of the Goddess.
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The lyrics are about "if there was a Jesus, if there was a Buddha, if there was a whatever great holy leader you'd like to name, there's nothing supernatural about them. They are merely men." It contains a reference to Jimmy Swaggart in the lyric. "Cynical Days" was described by a CMJ New Music Monthly reviewer as Moulding "finding his symmetrical vocal/bass compositional counterpart recalling Mummers more disjointed approach".
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The mummers carry wooden swords and perform revelries. The scene in the novel is illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). In the course of the evening, the fool's antics cause a fight to break out, but Mervyn restores order. Three bowls of gin punch are disposed of, and at eleven o'clock the young men make the necessary arrangements to see the young ladies safely home across the fields.
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A string band is an old-time music or jazz ensemble made up mainly or solely of string instruments. String bands were popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and are among the forerunners of modern country music and bluegrass. While being active countrywide, in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs they are a huge part of its musical culture and traditions, appearing, among others, in the yearly Mummers Parade.
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In Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and some other parts of the East Midlands of England, mummers' plays were performed, on or around Plough Monday in early January, by teams known variously as Plough Stots, Plough Jags, Plough Jacks, Plough Bullocks or Plough Witches. In North Lincolnshire, large teams of elaborately costumed mummers, often having some of the characters duplicated, paraded through the village streets, sometimes splitting up into smaller groups to enter houses and perform extracts from their traditional play. Photographs of teams from Scunthorpe, Burringham, Scotter, Burton-upon-Stather and elsewhere showed double gangs with two hobby horses. They were of the sieve type, made by hanging the wooden frame of a large sieve, with a small wooden horse's head and horsehair tail attached, around the performer's waist, However, in an unusual variation, the "rider" was then disguised by wearing a horse-cloth which covered his head and body to the knees, so that he appeared to be a horse riding a horse.
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At the end of the Late Middle Ages, professional actors began to appear in England and Europe. Richard III and Henry VII both maintained small companies of professional actors. Their plays were performed in the Great Hall of a nobleman's residence, often with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a "screen" at the other for the actors. Also important were Mummers' plays, performed during the Christmas season, and court masques.
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There is a Sheffield version where the Tup is killed and then brought back to life by the Doctor. This is the main play performed by the Northstow Mummers based in Cambridge. An Owd 'Oss play (Old Horse), another dramatised folksong in Yorkshire, was also known from roughly the same area, in the late 19thThe Old Horse, Sheffield District, Yorkshire, 1888 and early 20th centuries,The Old Horse: Christmas Play from Notts. [1902] around Christmas.
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Theatre or theater (from Greek theatron (θέατρον); from theasthai, "behold") is the branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle – indeed, any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes such forms as opera, ballet, mime, kabuki, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera and mummers' plays.
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His character was maintained during the late 18th and into the 19th century by the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers plays. Until Victorian times, Father Christmas was concerned with adult feasting and merry-making. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents, nocturnal visits, stockings, chimneys or reindeer. But as later Victorian Christmases developed into child-centric family festivals, Father Christmas became a bringer of gifts.
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His clothes become dirty and torn as he walks through the tunnel, but he is not otherwise injured. He emerges into bright sunlight beside a nearby river, and decides to walk back overland to the castle. Along the way, he is distracted by mummers who are traveling to the castle to perform at the upcoming wedding. Then Perival hears the alarm bells from the castle and a crier announcing the death of the king.
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January 1, 1901 introduced the very first Mummers Day parade which has become a staple of Philadelphia culture. Jazz and gospel gained popularity at the grassroots level due primarily to the Great Migration of the early 1900s. One such place for Jazz and Blues music was the Uptown Theater, built in 1927. By the 1950s Broad Street residential areas had been replaced with skyscrapers as well as the newly developed Penn Center.
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Santarelli was the head coach of the St. John Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic School girls basketball team, taking the school to the state championship. The couple started dating in 2015. Kenney first made his relationship with Santarelli public when she accompanied him to Iceland as part of a cultural exchange to mark the first-ever direct flights between Reykjavik and Philadelphia in 2017. Kenney was an annual participant in Philadelphia's Mummers Parade.
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His character was maintained during the late 18th and into the 19th century by the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers plays. Until Victorian times, Father Christmas was concerned with adult feasting and merry-making. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents, nocturnal visits, stockings or chimneys. But as later Victorian Christmases developed into child-centric family festivals, Father Christmas became a bringer of gifts.
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At dusk, the shop-keepers packed up, and the huzz and buzz of tradesmen and eager shoppers bargaining over the prices of goods would be given over to dervishes, mummers, jugglers, puppet-players, acrobats and prostitutes.Savory, Roger; Iran Under the Safavids; pp. 158–9 Every now and then the square would be cleared off for public ceremonies and festivities. One such occasion would be the annual event of Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
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His political career began in 1884 when he observed the Mummers parade on New Year's Day and realized that such marches could be employed in political campaigns. The Vare brothers started a family business hauling ash and garbage in South Philadelphia. In 1890 he started construction contracting with his two older brothers. Vare Brothers contracting worked on excavating, paving and municipal contracts for the city of Philadelphia that totaled $7 million between 1909 and 1912.
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Platt decided to become a comedian at the age of 15. He bought a ukulele and performed at local concert parties where he was billed as "George Formby the second", in homage to his idol. He joined the Army in 1942 and was posted to North Africa where he appeared in a concert party, "The Forest Mummers". His flair for comedy performances eventually won him a transfer to CSE, the Combined Services Entertainment unit.
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There are various national and regional folk activities, participated in to this day, such as Morris dancing, Maypole dancing, Rapper sword in the North East, Long Sword dance in Yorkshire, Mummers Plays, bottle-kicking in Leicestershire, and cheese-rolling at Cooper's Hill.. There is no official national costume, but a few are well established such as the Pearly Kings and Queens associated with cockneys, the Royal Guard, the Morris costume and Beefeaters.
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At the end of the Late Middle Ages, professional actors began to appear in England and Europe. Richard III and Henry VII both maintained small companies of professional actors. Their plays were performed in the Great Hall of a nobleman's residence, often with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a "screen" at the other for the actors. Also important were Mummers' plays, performed during the Christmas season, and court masques.
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"I got a fortune cookie that said 'Art is your fate, don't debate.' That next January, I was enrolled in an art school in San Francisco." She began frequenting the Mabuhay Gardens, a popular nightclub, to see local alternative rock groups like The Nuns, the Mutants, Crime, and the Avengers. She also formed the Mummers and Poppers, a punk parody band that covered 1960s tunes with guitarist Peter Woods, Charles Hagan and drummer Jay Derrah, .
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In the Autumn of 1917 a number of young hurlers got together after a mummers ball in Forrestalstown and they decided that there should be a club formed and entered a team in the 1918 championship and this club was to be known as Cloughbawn. While we already had a club in existence in the top end of the parish known as Killegney, it did not cater for the whole of the parish.
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The ballad was collected by Francis J. Child (Child 10) and is also listed in the Roud Folk Song Index. "Fair Rosamund" is about Rosamund Clifford, a mistress of King Henry II of England. "The Greatham Calling on Song" is from the mummers play which is performed in Greatham, County Durham every Boxing Day.Album sleeve notes "Raven Girl" is a traditional folk song with an additional verse written by Ester Watson of Hexham, Northumberland.
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In a typical Russian village, kapustiki (a variety word of kapustniki) dancing activities followed a night of games and songs. Spring was a popular time for these. Often good-humored and sentimental, the games ranged from “bride and groom” games to “Zavivat Berezku”, which involved curling the branches of a birch tree (Russia's national tree) to attract a boyfriend. There were bonfires and mummers wearing animal masks to add to the festivities.
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In the new regime (which lasted from 1649 to 1653) the arts suffered. In England and the rest of the British Isles Oliver Cromwell's rule temporarily banned all theatre, festivals, jesters, mummers plays and frivolities. The ban was lifted when the monarchy was restored with Charles II. The Drury Lane theatre was favorite of King Charles. In contrast to the metaphysical poets was John Milton's Paradise Lost, an epic religious poem in blank verse.
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Neither the star play nor the costumes have however anything to do with the Plough Monday mummers in England as suggested by Kathleen Stokker 2000, p. 109. In the crowd there may also be shepherds with long shirts and sticks and some angels with white shirts and wings. The Star singers walk about from house to house "singing at the doors, with a star on a pole".Laurits Bødker 1965, p. 288.
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The city draws thousands every year around May–June to the Western Maryland Blues Fest, which showcases blues artists from around the country. The Augustoberfest celebrates Hagerstown's German heritage. And the annual Alsatia Mummers' Halloween Parade happens to be the largest nighttime parade on the East Coast. Fairgrounds Park features recreational facilities such as the Hagerstown Ice & Sports Complex and hosts various events throughout the year like the annual Hagerstown Hispanic Festival held in mid-September.
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In 1418 a law was passed forbidding "mumming, plays, interludes or any other disguisings with any feigned beards, painted visors, deformed or coloured visages in any wise, upon pain of imprisonment". Many mummers and guisers, however, have no facial disguise at all. Mumming was a way of raising money and the play was taken round the big houses. Most Southern English versions end with the entrance of "Little Johnny Jack his wife and family on his back".
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Ellington Morris \- Maidenhead's Morris Dance side are based in Pinkneys Green. Formed in 1972 the side practices throughout the winter at the Scout hut and perform their traditional Mummers play on Boxing day followed by dancing out from May 1 at pubs, fetes and events in the area throughout the summer. The side dances traditional Cotswold dances together with their own Ellington tradition which continues to show that traditional morris is alive and thriving within this rural community.
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The Revels, an eclectic mix of medieval and modern music and dance (primarily English in basis), involves the audience and the community in a continuation of pagan and older Christian traditions. Revels shows, now spread over the USA and the world, draw on local talent. Morris dancing, mummers, bagpipers and large choruses of men, women and children celebrate the turning of the Winter Solstice in a cheerful fashion. Throughout his adult life, Langstaff was a dedicated music educator.
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This name alludes to several legends, including those found in Irish mythology, linking episodes in the life of Jesus to the wren. People dress up in old clothes, wear straw hats and travel from door to door with fake wrens (previously real wrens were killed) and they dance, sing and play music. This tradition is less common than it was a couple of generations ago. Depending on which region of the country, they are called "wrenboys" and mummers.
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A mummers play, dating from 1780, has been linked to Islip. Mummery continued in Islip until at least 1894 with a play depicting a girl called Molly who fell ill with toothache only to find, on extraction, that a nail was causing her the pain. There is another play featuring Fat Jack, a comic servant. The Shakespearean scholar and collector of English nursery rhymes and fairy tales James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps lived in Islip in the 1840s.
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In 1914 pharmacy student Joseph A. Ferko asked the owner of Fralinger's Drugs to sponsor a string band in the Mummers parade. The request was granted, and Ferko led the "Fralinger String Band" for several years, placing third in their 1915 attempt but winning in 1920. The "Ferko String Band" had its beginnings in 1922. Ferko left the Fralinger pharmacy in 1921 to open his own establishment. He led the "North Philadelphia String Band" for the 1922 parade, but later that year founded his own band, co-founded by Walter Butterworth and Charles Keegan. Ferko first won the string-band division in 1927 with an entry entitled "Cards." The 1929 incarnation not only won the event, but it was estimated that its parade float was the largest ever up to that point. In addition to the Mummers Parade, Ferko also has a long history of performing in various parades and special occasions within the United States, Canada, as well as places far away as France and Hong Kong.
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Mascarille commiserates with Leander about Lelio's deception, but also suggests that Celia is a woman of loose morals in an attempt to turn Leander against her. Upon hearing what Mascarille has said, Lelio does not realize it is a trick. He confronts the servant in front of Leander and accidentally exposes the lies Mascarille has told. Ergaste informs Mascarille that Leander plans to take a group to Trufaldin disguised as female mummers who want Celia to join them for the evening.
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Wren Day, also known as Wren's Day, Day of the Wren, or Hunt the Wren Day (), is celebrated on 26 December, St. Stephen's Day in a number of countries across Europe. The tradition consists of "hunting" a fake wren and putting it on top of a decorated pole. Then the crowds of mummers, or strawboys, celebrate the wren (also pronounced wran) by dressing up in masks, straw suits, and colourful motley clothing. They form music bands and parade through towns and villages.
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There was another fire in 1922, when the building was extensively damaged.Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador] Subsequently "the building was used for both union meetings and local activities including speeches and bingo".Canada's Historic Places The Resource Foundation for the Arts was founded by The Mummers Troupe who helped purchase, renovate and develop the LSPU Hall as a downtown St. John's performance centre. The RFA started leasing the building in 1975 and bought in 1976,Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador; RCA Theatre.
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The Brommtopp is a musical instrument consisting of a large drum covered by a skin, and a horse's hair whip that is rubbed with wax to make a droning rumbling sound. The instrument was commonly used by Mennonite mummers on New Year's Eve, men who often dressed as women and paraded around town performing the instrument in exchange for alcohol, dessert or other gifts. It was popularly used in Manitoba's West Reserve from the 1870s until the 1950s, and is occasionally performed today.
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The song "Aaro Nee Aaro" in the film is alleged to be plagiarised from Loreena McKennitt's "Caravanserai" of the album An Ancient Muse. The track also uses major hooks from Loreena's famous track "The Mummers' Dance". Loreena McKennit filed a plagiarism suit against composer Deepak Dev and the makers of Urumi in Delhi High Court. On 21 September 2011, Justice Manmohan Singh passed an order on a copyright infringement claim preventing the makers from releasing the soundtrack in English, Hindi, and Tamil.
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Another character wears a rather voluminous, tattered, long, dark dress with pale sleeves (or a pale blouse under it) and a top hat. Busily brushing the ground with a besom broom, "she" is reminiscent of the character Besom Bet who appears in some mummers plays or the Winster morris Witch. The last two characters, on the outer edges of the group, are playing rough music on bladder fiddles. One has his face disguised with a simple (cloth?) mask and wears a peaked cap.
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Richard III and Henry VII both maintained small companies of professional actors. Their plays were performed in the great hall of a nobleman's residence, often with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a "screen" at the other for the actors. Also important were Mummers' plays, performed during the Christmas season, and court masques. These masques were especially popular during the reign of Henry VIII who had a house of revels built and an office of revels established in 1545.
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In 2007, folklorists Maureen Power and Evelyn Osborne documented the playing of a "silly stick" by Melvin Combden, Seldom-Come-By, Fogo Island. In the early 2000s, communities started to organize ugly stick making workshops. One early community-organized workshop was held in Trepassey, as part of a Come-Home-Year celebration. Yvonne Fontaine was the then Coordinator for the Southern Avalon Development Association: The Mummers Festival, established in 2009, regularly includes ugly stick making workshops, often featuring Trepassey-based maker Wayne Cave.
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The guild whose feast day it was would hold a solemn procession and celebrate mass in the church. They would then provide entertainment such as mummers or miracle plays and food for the poor of their community. The Guild of St John put out casks of ale: 'fyve hockepottes or drinkinges in v stretes or places, namelye, market strete one, nethergate strete kepte another, challice strete a third, higherowe a fourth, and Chilton strete alwayes kepte the fifte'.Hatton op. cit.
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The most common character in the troupe was the butcher, who wore a leather apron, knife, and steel. Other recurring characters were the old man and the old woman—the latter played by a man in women's clothing, sometimes carrying a broom—and figures referred to as Beelzebub and Little Devil Doubt. These were characters likely adopted from established Mummers plays. Some troupes included a boy or old man who carried a bowl in which to mime the catching of Old Tup's blood.
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Theatre is the branch of performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience, using a combination of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound, and spectacle. Any one or more of these elements is performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style of plays, theater takes such forms as plays, musicals, opera, ballet, illusion, mime, classical Indian dance, kabuki, mummers' plays, improvisational theatre, comedy, pantomime, and non- conventional or contemporary forms like postmodern theatre, postdramatic theatre, or performance art.
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Everything changes when the two find the Théâtre des Vampires, a group of vampire mummers disguising themselves as humans playing vampires in a theatre onstage for a mortal audience. Claudia is repulsed by these vampires and what she considers to be their cheap theatrics. Santiago, a prominent figure among the vampire coven, suspects Claudia and Louis of killing their maker, which is strictly against the rules of the vampire lifestyle. Eventually, Claudia and Louis meet Armand, a charming and handsome vampire who Louis becomes enchanted by.
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The Courir de Mardi Gras ( ) is a traditional Mardi Gras event held in many Cajun and Creole communities of French Louisiana on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Courir de Mardi Gras is Louisiana French for "Fat Tuesday Run". This rural Mardi Gras celebration is based on early begging rituals, similar to those still celebrated by mummers, wassailers, and celebrants of Halloween. As Mardi Gras is the celebration of the final day before Lent, celebrants drink and eat heavily, dressing in specialized costumes, ostensibly to protect their identities.
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In the city's 5th district in North Philadelphia, another incumbent, Eugene J. Sullivan, was defeated by Raymond Pace Alexander, a local attorney and African American civil rights leader. In the 6th district, covering Kensington and Frankford, plumbers' union official Michael J. Towey won over William J. Glowacz. In the 7th, James Hugh Joseph Tate defeated Joseph A. Ferko, a local Mummers string band leader. Insurance broker Charles M. Finley defeated incumbent councilman William A. Kelley in the 9th district, which covered Oak Lane, Olney, and Logan.
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The Mummers Parade is held each New Year's Day in Philadelphia. Local clubs (usually called "New Years Associations") compete in one of five categories (Comics, Wench Brigades, Fancies, String bands, and Fancy Brigades). They prepare elaborate costumes, performance routines, and movable scenery, which take months to complete. This is done in clubhousesmany of which are on or near 2nd Street (called "Two Street" by some local residents) in the Pennsport neighborhood of the city's South Philadelphia sectionwhich also serve as social gathering places for members.
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Festival Players performs in their small 50-seat venue (The Studio Theatre) in the village of Wellington. There is a number of thriving community theatre groups in Prince Edward County. Prince Edward Community Theatre is a group specializing in plays ranging from the comedic to the deeply emotional, based mainly at Mount Tabor Playhouse in Milford. The Marysburgh Mummers is another group specializing more in children's shows and lighter materials for adults, prioritizing actors who have not yet had a chance to "tread the boards".
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Originally created in the same way as a mast horse or hooden horse, the Derby Tup (ram) represented a male sheep. It took part in a dramatised version of the Derby Ram folksong, which was performed in northern Derbyshire and around Sheffield during the Christmas season by teams of boys. It is "killed" by a butcher and its "blood" is collected in a large bowl. In some versions it is brought back to life by a quack doctor, like a character in the Mummers play.
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Duchêne started to act at the age of 14. She studied French and Spanish at Trinity College, Cambridge in the 1980s, where she became a member of the Footlights theatre group, writing and performing her own material.Mini Bio at IMDb She also acted with the Cambridge Mummers, appearing in such plays as Measure For Measure (as Isabella) in Cambridge and the Edinburgh Fringe. In the 1980s she joined the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, appearing in the premiere productions of Losing Venice and The White Rose.
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This feast may represent a Christian adaptation of the pagan feast, Cervulus, integrating it with the donkey in the nativity story. from Chapter XIII: Masking, the Mummers’ Play, the Feast of Fools, and the Boy Bishop, "Mr. Chambers's theory is that the ass was a descendant of the cervulus or hobby-buck who figures so largely in ecclesiastical condemnations of Kalends customs." In connection with the Biblical stories, the celebration was first celebrated in the 11th century, inspired by the pseudo-Augustinian "Sermo contra Judaeos" c.
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During the Civil War era, the weathervane gained its characteristic bullet hole from a Confederate sharpshooter, who won a bet after shooting it from a full city block away. In 1935, the original was retired to the Museum of the Washington County Historical Society, later to be moved to its present display in the Jonathan Hager House. An exact replica has replaced it atop City Hall. The weathervane has been depicted in the city's annual Mummers Day Parade by Charles Harry Rittenhouse, Sr. sporting the necessary accoutrements of a German mercenary soldier.
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In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged from enactments of the liturgy. Mystery plays were presented in the porches of cathedrals or by strolling players on feast days. Miracle and mystery plays, along with morality plays (or "interludes"), later evolved into more elaborate forms of drama, such as was seen on the Elizabethan stages. Another form of medieval theatre was the mummers' plays, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood.
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The three Winster hobby horses and other performers, c. 1870 The photograph (right) taken at Winster Hall, Derbyshire, in about 1870 (probably by or for Llewellynn Jewitt (1816–1886), who lived at the house between 1868 and 1880) shows a possibly unique midwinter custom involving three hobby horses. (The picture appears to have been taken in winter, as the climbing plants on the wall are leafless.) Eight or nine performers are involved; all (bar one?) have facial disguise. It has been claimed to be the oldest known photograph of a group of mummers or guisers.
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"Beelzebub and them that are with him shoot arrows" from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) mumming play St George and the Dragon by the St Albans Mummers, 2015 Beelzebub or Beelzebul ( or ; Baʿal Zəvûv) is a name derived from a Philistine god, formerly worshipped in Ekron, and later adopted by some Abrahamic religions as a major demon. The name Beelzebub is associated with the Canaanite god Baal. In theological sources, predominantly Christian, Beelzebub is another name for Satan. He is known in demonology as one of the seven princes of Hell.
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It is unclear what influenced Badkin in his design, perhaps a similar instrument called a bumbass (boombas, boomba, or boom bass) also known as a stump fiddle (or stumpf fiddle). Perry manufactured pogo cellos in Brooklyn and Far Rockaway, New York and in New Jersey. The pogo cello was sold across the United States for decades as a musical instrument for children, but many adults also bought them for themselves. Pogo cellos have been seen in marching bands in Iowa and in the Mummers' parade in Philadelphia, PA on New Year's Day.
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Much of South Philadelphia's Irish population is located in the eastern part of the South Philadelphia, specifically Pennsport and Whitman. Pennsport, which is also locally referred to as "Two Street", is arguably the most well known Irish neighborhood in South Philadelphia. Pennsport is also home to many of the city's Mummers clubs, where some are known for their Irish American themes. Other Irish neighborhoods are located in the northwestern area of South Philadelphia, including Grays Ferry, Devil's Pocket and areas of Girard Estate, Southwest Center City and Schuylkill.
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This Act also forbade the worship and representation of saints and masses for the dead. Public holidays (holy days) on which a guild would provide food for the poor and entertainment such as mummers or miracle plays all stopped at the same time, along with feast day markets. The annual market at Wentford, a noted regional event held on the Feast of Nativity of the Virgin Mary (8 September) disappeared. This suppression and its effect on the social and religious life is described as the Stripping of the Altars.
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He has been active in the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, and was the artist for the mural in honor of poet and teacher Sonia Sanchez near Temple University. His mural "Evolving Elements" was displayed at the Philadelphia International Airport through its Exhibitions program. He has also created sets for the Shooting Stars, one of Philadelphia's Mummers Fancy Brigades. The Shooting Stars used Dupree's sets when they won first place in 2008, with the theme "India Land of the Tiger", and 2009, with "Mythic Knights, Defenders of the Realm".
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This version can be found on Let It Begin Now: Music from the Spiral Dance. Maddy Prior, writing in the liner notes to the Steeleye Span retrospective Spanning the Years, drily characterises the song's countercultural appeal, in describing one 1970s performance: > 5 nights at the LA Forum with Jethro Tull. We were opening our set at the > time with the Lyke Wake Dirge, a grim piece of music from Yorkshire > concerning pergatory [sic] and we all dressed in dramatic mummers ribbons > with tall hats. The effect was stunning.
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Mirrors and other shiny objects were believed to deflect the evil eye. Traditional English "Plough Jags" (performers of a regional variant of the mummers play) sometimes decorated their costumes (particularly their hats) with shiny items, to the extent of borrowing silver plate for the purpose. "Witch balls" are shiny blown glass ornaments, like Christmas baubles, that were hung in windows. Geto-Dacian apotropaic eyes on the Helmet of Iron Gates (4th century BCE) Items and symbols such as crosses, crucifixes, silver bullets, wild roses and garlic were believed to ward off or destroy vampires.
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The festival grew in size and importance during 2004 to 2008, including performances of traditional Punch and Judy shows, English folk dance Mummers Players, Morris dancers, English folk music, etc. The Royal Society of St George asked to contribute in the 2006 event, which was covered by BBC Radio 3. In early 2009, Mayor of London Boris Johnson led a campaign to encourage the public celebration of St George's Day. The event was first officially held in 2010, announced as "the first Pageant of St George in 425 years".
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In 2010, Leigh Waite, a local Blue Badge Tourist Guide with an interest in baking, was given a recipe by a local historian David McGrory. Leigh tried out the recipe, producing them to sell during the annual Heritage Open Weekend event in the city. In August 2012, the Coventry God Cake was officially re-launched at a celebration event at Coventry Transport Museum attended by the Lord Mayor and guests, including the Coventry Mummers. The term God cake is derived from the triangles created in country lanes where three lanes meet.
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A. H. Bullen's 1904 facsimile of Newbery's 1791 edition of Mother Goose's Melody(on-line) These rhymes seem to have come from a variety of sources, including traditional riddles, proverbs, ballads, lines of Mummers' plays, drinking songs, historical events, and, it has been suggested, ancient pagan rituals. One example of a nursery rhyme in the form a riddle is "As I was going to St Ives", which dates to 1730.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 376–7.
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The teams of Irish mummers known as Wrenboys who perform on Saint Stephen's Day (26 December) in pubs and private houses have been known to include a white hobby horse (Láir Bhán – c.f. Laare Vane, above) of the tourney type, and this has survived into the present century, at Dunquin in County Kerry for example.Dreoilín Dhún Chaoin / Dunquin Wren 2006 At Ballycotton, in Co. Cork, a Láir bhán led a procession of horn- blowing youths at Halloween who collected money "in the name of Muck Olla" (a legendary giant boar).Hole, Christina (1978).
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The artists he employed included actors, song and dance teams, magicians, ballet dancers, mummers and comedians like the Great Little Titch. He also hired international acts such as The Brothers LaFayette (American tight rope walkers) and Professor Howard (an American illusionist). By the early 1880s, Williams' show had many of the same trappings as a theatrical touring company. The show’s crew in Manchester at the time of the 1881 census consisted of a number of actors, actresses, comedians, musicians and comic singers, as well as a set decorator and a dramatic author.
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David Parry was an enthusiast for mumming and brought a dragon's costume to the mix. At festival performances, the members may present English Mummers Plays, Morris Dancing or Scottish country dancing. The Vancouver Folk Music Festival documented a reviewer who claimed that Friends of Fiddler's Green were among the best British bands touring North America Although they are not typically a touring band, they have also performed in the United States. In the folklore of folk music, they are known as the inspiration for the Stan Rogers' song, Barrett's Privateers.
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Sarven found success back in ECW, billed once again as Al Snow. Sarven developed a new character gimmick after reading about abnormal psychology and finding a mannequin head on the street near the ECW Arena during a Mummers Day parade. He got the idea to portray an individual with a schizophrenic disorder using the head as a prop for projection. In this role, Sarven received a lot of fan and management support for his J.O.B. Squad storyline, which promoted him as being driven insane by his years as a jobber for the WWF.
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At the end of January thousands of "kukeri" participants from different regions of Bulgaria, as well as from all around the world gather in Pernik for the three-day event. Kukeri is a pagan Bulgarian tradition of Thracian origins – in ancient times the old Thracians held the Kukeri (Mummers’) Ritual Games in honour of god Dionysus. The Kukeri games are performed by men only, dressed in colourful hand-made costumes and wearing scary masks. Each has also a leather belt around the waist with huge copper bells (chanove) attached to it.
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A hobby horse is not always a riding-stick like the child's toy; larger hobby horses feature in some traditional seasonal customs (such as Mummers Plays and the Morris dance in England). They vary in size from a costume for one person to large frameworks carried by nine people. In The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, the characters' hobby-horses, or particular obsessions, are discussed in detail. Here, Uncle Toby's obsession with the military leads him and Trim - who gets caught up in Toby's enthusiasm - to begin acting out military actions.
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Broadly comic performances, the most common type features a doctor who has a magic potion able to resuscitate the vanquished character. Early scholars of folk drama, influenced by James Frazer's The Golden Bough, tended to view these plays as descendants of pre-Christian fertility ritual, but modern researchers have subjected this interpretation to criticism. The Doctor brings St George back to life in a 2015 production by the St Albans Mummers. The characters may be introduced in a series of short speeches (usually in rhyming couplets) or they may introduce themselves in the course of the play's action.
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At this time the British circulating libraries, such as Mudie's Select Library, controlled the market for fiction and the public, who paid fees to borrow their books, expected them to guarantee the morality of the novels available.Frazier (2000), pp. 48–49. His next book, a novel in the realist style, A Mummers Wife (1885) was also regarded as unsuitable by Mudie's and W H Smith refused to stock it on their news-stalls. Despite this, during its first year of publication the book was in its fourteenth edition mainly due to the publicity stirred up by its opponents.
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Mardi Gras celebrants wearing capuchons A capuchon is a cone-shaped ceremonial hat worn during the Mardi Gras celebration in the Cajun areas of southern Louisiana, known as the Courir de Mardi Gras. The rural celebration is based on early begging rituals, similar to those still celebrated by mummers, wassailers and celebrants of Halloween. As Mardi Gras is the celebration of the final day before Lent, celebrants drink and eat heavily, but dress in costume, ostensibly to protect their identities. Many of the traditional costumes are derivatives of the costumes worn in early rural France during the same celebration.
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Roman theatre excavated at Verulamium Theatre was introduced from Europe to what is now the United Kingdom by the Romans and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose (an example has been excavated at Verulamium). By the medieval period theatre had developed with the mummers' plays, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re- telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality.
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According to musician Ronan Nolan, former editor of Irish Music magazine, the bodhrán evolved in the mid-19th century from the tambourine, which can be heard on some Irish music recordings dating back to the 1920s and viewed in a pre-Famine painting. However, in remote parts of the south-west, the "poor man's tambourine" – made from farm implements and without the cymbals – was in popular use among mummers, or wren boys. A large oil painting on canvas by Daniel Maclise (1806–1870) depicts a large Halloween house party in which a bodhrán features clearly. That painting, produced c.
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In the mid 19th century, guisers (mummers) were evidently common in Derbyshire in the week between Christmas and New Year, as can be seen from the notes below, which record around a dozen visits to Winster Hall in the four days 26–30 December 1867. The village of Winster also has a long-established morris dance tradition. Although the first documentary evidence of morris dancing in Winster dates only from 1863, it seems to have been well established by then. The famous pioneering folklorist Cecil Sharp visited the village in 1908 and noted five dances, including The Processional and The Gallop.
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Marah saw Serge and Dave alter their sound and musical direction. Marah featured Mummers Parade influenced banjos combined with standard rock music instruments to create a highly eclectic Roots Rock sound that drew comparisons to early Bruce Springsteen. Marah recorded two albums together: Let's Cut The Crap & Hook Up Later on Tonight, released on Black Dog Records in 1998, and Kids in Philly, released on Steve Earle's now-defunct E-Squared Records in 2000. Both critically acclaimed records were recorded and produced by the band and recording engineer/producer Paul Smith above an auto repair garage (Frank's Auto Body) in south Philadelphia.
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The Philadelphia Céilí Group is a prominent local organization that promotes Irish music, and runs a festival, which the Group claims is among the oldest continuous Irish traditional festivals in the United States. Not too far from the city is the annual Concerts Under the Stars summer festival in Upper Merrion township. Perhaps the most famous annual musical event in Philadelphia is the Mummers Parade, a New Year's Day celebration that features outrageous costumes, old- time string bands and other entertainment. The tradition dates to the mid-17th century, when Finnish and Swedish settlers in Philadelphia celebrated holidays by shooting muskets.
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A plough being pulled through the streets of Whittlesey as part of the Whittlesey Straw Bear Festival procession. Ploughs were traditionally taken around by Plough Monday mummers and molly dancers in parts of Eastern England and in some places were used as a threat: if householders refused to donate to the participants their front path would be ploughed up. Twelfth Night gathering in Harrison Ainsworth's Mervyn Clitheroe (1858), illustrated by Phiz, depicting the northern Fool Plough dance. The day traditionally saw the resumption of work after the Christmas period in some areas, particularly in northern England and East England.
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Pennsport is a neighborhood in the South Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Pennsport is home to a large working-class Irish American population and is home to many of the organizations ("clubs") which are located on 2nd Street (known locally as "Two Street") that perform in Philadelphia's annual Mummers Parade on New Year's Day. It was also the site of a controversial push for casinos along the Philadelphia waterfront. Philly.com article on casino proposals Philadelphia Weekly article on resident response to the casinos Foxwoods Casino was proposed for Christopher Columbus Boulevard at Reed Street.
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Valli Valli Valli Valli, born Valli KnustNational Film Gallery (11 February 1882 - 4 November 1927), was a musical comedy actress and silent film performer born in Berlin, Germany. She was descended from an old English family and lived most of her life in England. Her brother was a captain in the Royal Fusiliers, who fought for the British in France in World War I. Her sisters Lulu (1887–1964) and Ida were both actresses, who used the stage names Lulu Valli and Ida Valli.Profile at Stage Beauty site Her brother-in-law, Philip Curtiss (Ida's husband), wrote Mummers in Mufti in 1921.
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There have to be seven characters as seven was thought to be a magic number. They include Old Father Christmas (the presenter of the play), King William who slays Little Man John who is resurrected by Dr Finnix (Phoenix, a rebirth theme). There's also Tenpenny Nit, Beelzebub who carries a club and a money pan and Saucy Jack who talks about some of his children dying—there are many references in mummers' plays about social hardship. The Paper Boys have to belong to families that have lived in Marshfield for generations and they must have the Marshfield accent.
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Tensions continued between Tilley and Stevens and other founding members of the Players, who wished to continue taking the youthful lead male roles despite being far too old. In 1918, Evans moved away from Dorchester. Following his departure, Thomas Henry Tilley took over the lead adapting and producing for the Players, like his predecessor collaborating with Hardy over many of the productions, and in 1923 adapting the Mummers play from Return of the Native to be performed alongside Hardy’s new play The Queen of Cornwall. He seems to have had an easier relationship with Hardy, who sometimes clashed with Evans.
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As the violence erupts at Stonehenge, the people of Cirbury turn on each other, tearing apart the village constables. Kane Sawyer arrives, having given in to his destiny at last, and Charmagne Peters emerges from the cattle truck, also under the spell of her ancestor. They are both descendants of Emily Sawyer's child, the child of the Ragman; and the fruit of their union will inherit a great levelled land where all are equal. Yates and his men arrive and try to gun down the mummers, but their bullets have no effect, for the players are already dead.
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Pearson was born in Hawford, Claines, Worcestershire, to a family with a large number of members in Holy Orders. His parents were Thomas Henry Gibbons Pearson, a farmer, and the former Amy Mary Constance Biggs. He was a great-great-great nephew of the statistician and polymath Francis Galton, whom he described in Modern Men and Mummers. After the family moved to Bedford in 1896, he was educated there at Orkney House Preparatory School for five years, a period he later described as the only unhappy episode in his life, for the compulsive flogging beloved of its headmaster.
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Shakespeare, William, Twelfth Night, 5.1. The morality play Like Will to Like, by Shakespeare's contemporary Ulpian Fulwell, contains a character named Tom Tosspot, who remarks that :"If any poore man have in a whole week earned a grote, :He shal spend it in one houre in tossing the pot".. Tosspot is also a character in the traditional British Pace Egg play or Mummers play. In the Pace Egging Song which accompanies the play the verse for "Old Tosspot" is; And the last that comes in is Old Tosspot you see. He's a valiant old man, in every degree.
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Late in the 1990s, McKennitt created No Journey's End, a half-hour documentary, for American television in which she discussed the influences behind her music. No Journey's End contained excerpts from several songs from the albums Parallel Dreams, The Visit, and The Mask and Mirror It also shows live performances of the songs "The Lady of Shalott", "Santiago", and "The Dark Night of the Soul". It was later released on DVD and VHS, the former also containing music videos for "The Mummers' Dance" and "The Bonny Swans." A bonus copy of the DVD was included with the 2004 remastered versions of McKennitt's CDs.
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"Mummering" is a Newfoundland custom that dates back to the time of the earliest settlers who came from England and Ireland. It shares common antecedents with the Mummers Play tradition, but in its current form is primarily a house-visiting tradition. Sometime during the Twelve Days of Christmas, usually on the night of the "Old Twelfth" (17 January; equivalent to 6 January in the old Julian calendar), people would disguise themselves with old articles of clothing and visit the homes of their friends and neighbours. They would at times cover their faces with a hood, scarf, mask or pillowcase to keep their identity hidden.
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Members of the Irish Cultural Revival took a great interest in the art of the seanchaí, and through them the stories that they told were written down, published, and distributed to a global audience. At events such as mummers' festival in New Inn, County Galway, and the All- Ireland Fleadh Ceoil storytellers who preserve the stories and oratory style of the seanchaithe continue to display their art and compete for awards. Eddie Lenihan is one notable modern-day seanchaí, based in County Clare. Actor Eamon Kelly was well known for his portrayals of the traditional seanachaí, and ran several series of one-man shows in Dublin's Abbey Theatre.
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Stoner was born in Midland, Texas and lived in El Paso, Texas and Gulfport, Mississippi before her family settled in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. After attending twelve years of Catholic school, she left for West Chester University, where she met the woman she would marry 20 years later. Stoner put herself through college at Temple University by working as an artists’ model, a paid medical experimentee, a waitress at a Greek diner, a house cleaner, a biscuit maker, and a book store manager. While in Philadelphia, she started Shrink-Wrap literary and art journal with her boyfriend, was published several times, and played in a band who practiced secretly at the Mummers Museum.
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Philadelphia last played in the 2010 NHL Winter Classic against the Boston Bruins at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. The Bruins won that game in overtime by a score of 2–1 on a goal scored by Marco Sturm. This was the first time that the Winter Classic was not played on New Year's Day, which fell on a Sunday in 2012. If the Winter Classic was held on New Year's Day, it would have conflicted with the final game of the National Football League season (in which the Philadelphia Eagles hosted the Washington Redskins at nearby Lincoln Financial Field), and the annual Mummers Parade in downtown Philadelphia.
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In his book, Regional Theatre: the Revolutionary Stage, Joseph Wesley Zeigler identifies it as one of six theatres which were the foundations of the Regional Theatre Movement.Zeigler, Joseph Wesley, Regional Theatre: the Revolutionary Stage, New York: Da Capo Press, 1977, pp. 24-61, Note: founding theatres cited by Zeigler are Alley Theatre, Houston (1947), Mummers Theatre, Oklahoma City (1949), Arena Stage, Washington DC (1950), Actor's Workshop, San Francisco (1952), Milwaukee Repertory Company (1954), Front Theatre, Memphis (1954), and Charles Playhouse (1957) In 1995, Sugre sold the Charles Playhouse to Jon B. Platt, who operated the Colonial Theatre. In 1998, Platt sold his Boston theatres to SFX Entertainment (now Live Nation).
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Collins Auditorium, theater at Rose Hill and home to the philosophy department Clubs and organizations for undergraduate and graduate students number over 130 at the Rose Hill campus and 50 at Lincoln Center. Fordham College at Rose Hill has a long history of college theater, and the entire university maintains a number of theater groups at both Lincoln Center and Rose Hill (e.g. the Mimes and Mummers, Fordham Experimental Theater, the Theatrical Outreach Group, Splinter Group). There are also choirs (University Choir, Schola Cantorum, Gloria Dei Choir) and a cappella groups spanning both campuses (Fordham Ramblers, Satin Dolls, b-Sides, Hot Notes, F-sharps).
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This style is practiced mainly by a number of college marching bands, primarily in academically elite or liberal arts schools such as the Ivy League colleges (excepting Cornell University; the Cornell Big Red Marching Band performs in the corps style seen in more traditional bands); Rice University Marching Owl Band (known by its acronym, The MOB); Stanford; Villanova; William & Mary; Humboldt State Marching Lumberjacks; and DePauw University. Besides school scatter bands, there are other traditional arenas for similar comic treatments of outdoor marching music, such as mummers parades, the pre-Rose-Parade parody known as The Doo Dah Parade, Chinatown parades, Mardi Gras parades, etc.
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Early commentators tended to dismiss Jonson's masque as a piece of holiday fluff, often noting that the work is less a true masque and more of a mummers' show. Modern critics have looked beneath its surface to detect serious political, social, and cultural implications. Jonson's text, in promoting a traditional Christmas, was taking a position favored by King James I and opposed to the contemporary culture of the merchants of the City of London and especially that of the Puritans, who were overtly hostile to the traditional holiday. The text of the masque shows an abundant and rather biting satire aimed at the anti-Christmas forces in Jacobean society.
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Bland was one of eight children born in Flushing, New York, to a free family. His father was one of the first African Americans to graduate college (Oberlin College, 1845). Beginning with an $8 banjo purchased by his father, he began performing professionally by age 14. Bland was educated in Washington, DC and graduated from Howard University in 1873. He wrote over 700 songs, including "In the Morning in the Bright Light" (1879), "In the Evening by the Moonlight" (1879), "Oh! Dem Golden Slippers" (1879) (the theme song for the long-running Philadelphia Mummers Parade), "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane" (1880) and "De Golden Wedding" (1880).
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In addition to the Bahamian Goombay tradition, Gombey is similar to some other Afro-Caribbean styles and celebrations (such as the Mummers). In Bermuda, Gombeys are seen more as dancers than musicians, with ritualised costumes, accoutrements and steps, whereas in the West Indies the term applies to a musical tradition, not normally accompanied by dance. Afro-Caribbeans came to Bermuda primarily from former Spanish colonies as free, but indentured, servants in the Seventeenth Century ('til the terms of indenture were raised from seven to ninety-nine years as a discouragement). Most of these arrived as Spanish-speaking Catholics, but acculturated to become English-speaking Protestants.
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DNA was the pseudonym taken by two English electronic music producers Nick Batt and Neal Slateford, best known for releasing a remix of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" in 1990. As well as "Tom's Diner", the duo remixed another second Suzanne Vega track, "Rusted Pipe", and a radio mix of "Rosemary" in 2000. After a brief lull, DNA reappeared with a mix of the Loreena McKennitt track "The Mummers' Dance", which reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart in 1997. Batt has worked extensively with Goldfrapp on Felt Mountain, Black Cherry, and Supernature; he also received an Ivor Novello Award for co-writing "Strict Machine" from Black Cherry.
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In 1975 he set up 'Tom Fool's Theatre of Tom Foolery', which started as a troupe of 'mummers', before worked closely with the Footsbarn theatre. In 1976 he was involved with a series of 'monster-raising' exploits, which brought him extensive media coverage, particularly when he started 'invoking' the monsters with the help of a coven of nude witches. His attempts to 'raise' Morgawr the Cornish sea monster, were covered by BBC TV, Fortean Times, local newspapers, and appeared in national newspapers such as the Reveille and News of the World. At around the same time he reported on sightings of the 'Owlman' of Mawnan.
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The music video for the song (which uses the shorter single version), directed by Tim Pope, is notable for its English folk revival imagery, featuring Morris dancers, Mummers, Punch and Judy and a maypole. It was filmed in the village of West Kington, in Wiltshire, England. Ivan Doroschuk is the only member of the band actually to perform in the video. Doroschuk, and others in the video, can be seen repeatedly forming an "S" sign by jerking both arms into a stiff pose, one arm in an upward curve and the other in a downward curve, apparently referring to the first letter in "safety".
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Sompting is also known for its mummers play, performed by the Sompting Village Morris dancers. In 2005, a small group got together and started the Sompting Festival, which was held for the first time over the weekend 2–4 June 2006, as one of the launch events for the Adur festival. Since then this has developed into the annual Sompting Beer & Music Festival held on Sompting Recreation Ground, West Street, Sompting. It incorporates the Sompting Village Hall Open Weekend, and the Somptin' Old exhibition – a fascinating history of Sompting in pictures set up by former Sompting Parish Councillor Mike Prince, which attracts interest from all over the world.
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Christmas in Ottawa, Canada In the Canadian provinces where English is the predominant language, Christmas traditions are largely similar to those of the United States, with some lingering influences from the United Kingdom and newer traditions brought by immigrants from other European countries. Mince pies, plum pudding, and Christmas cake are traditionally served as Christmas dinner desserts, following the traditional meal of roast turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and winter vegetables. Christmas table crackers are not uncommon and, in some parts of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, Christmas traditions include mummers. North American influences on Christmas are evident in the hanging of stockings on Christmas Eve, to be filled by Santa Claus.
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The first Tour of West Germany took place in the summer of 1957, after one of the founders of the Society became the unintended recipient of a letter addressed to the Cambridge Mummers, inviting them to record Hamlet for German radio. Following a little moonlighting the Pembroke Players secured the tour for themselves instead, playing at venues in Bielefeld, Essen, Düsseldorf and Cologne. The tour was recorded in its entirety for Nord West Deustche Rundfunk and was conducted under the auspices of 'Die Bruecke', a spin-off of the British Council. Many other tours have been run since; the most recent being The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde in 2005.
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After spending some time on the studio side learning to engineer and produce, he lived in Malaysia for a period, returning to obtain his master's degree. He rejoined The Strawbs in 1998 for their 30th anniversary concert at Chiswick House and played on subsequent tours in the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Rod also works with his jazz group 'Ming Hat' and with Mark Horwood (The Mummers) and bassist Matt Gray in the fusion group E.V.A. Rod and Yardbirds guitarist Top Topham are working on a blues-jazz Hammond organ trio project. From 2005 to 2007 he mentored and taught Curt Lawrence, ex-Last Letter Read, who went on tour with MC Lars in England.
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In 1880, seven undergraduates of Balliol published 40 quatrains of doggerel lampooning various members of the college under the title The Masque of B–ll––l, now better known as The Balliol Masque, in a format that came to be called the "Balliol rhyme".The Balliol College Annual Record, 2002, p. 30. The college authorities suppressed the publication fiercely. The verses were inspired by the conventions of traditional mummers' plays (at their peak of popularity in the late 19th century), in which the dialogue took the form of simple verses, and in which characters introduced themselves on first entrance with some such formula as: "Here comes I a Turkish Knight / Come from the Turkish land to fight".
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After travelling with Edward Cave to Somerset, the Ooser went missing around 1897. Since then, various folklorists and historians have debated the origins of the head, which has possible connections to the horned costumes sometimes worn by participants in English Mummers plays. The folklorists Frederick Thomas Elworthy and H. S. L. Dewar believed that the head was a representation of the Devil and thus was designed to intimidate people into behaving according to the local community's moral system. Conversely, the folklorist Margaret Murray suggested that it represented a pre-Christian god of fertility whose worship survived in Dorset into the modern period, although more recent scholarship has been highly sceptical of this interpretation.
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Dewar also recorded the villagers' claims that the Ooser was brought to the door of a tallet in order to scare the local children, and that it was also used to scare adults on some occasions. Knight came across the claim that it was once used to frighten a stable hand, who jumped through a window to escape it, and in doing so "so injured himself that his life was despaired of". Dewar further drew comparisons with the horned masks sometimes worn during Mummers plays. He noted that in a case of a group of Christmas Wassailers at Kingscote, Gloucestershire, a man was "dressed in a sack, his head in a real bull's face, head and horns complete".
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Graduates of the program have gone on to work with a variety of organizations including Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, MUNFLA, City of St. John's, Wooden Boat Museum of NL, Them Days Archive, the Mummers Festival, Folk Arts Society of NL, The Town of Deer Lake, and The Rooms. Other jurisdictions have followed the public folklore work of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. Heritage Saskatchewan hired Memorial University folklore graduate Kristin Catherwood in a role inspired by and mirroring Newfoundland and Labrador's intangible cultural heritage position. She has engaged in various public folklore projects, including work on communities in periods of economic transition, Prairie barns, and farm life during COVID-19.
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Since the end of the Second World War, the hooden horse's use has been revived in Whitstable, where it is often brought out for the Jack in the Green festival each May, and is owned by a group called the Ancient Order of Hoodeners. Since 1981, the Tonbridge Mummers and Hoodeners have made use of a horse, incorporating it into a play specially written for the purpose by Doel and Nick Miller. An annual conference of hoodeners was also established; initially meeting at the Marsh Gate Inn near Herne Bay, it subsequently moved to Simple Simon's in Canterbury. A member of the St. Nicholas-at-Wade hoodeners, Ben Jones, established a website devoted to the tradition.
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Morton is bedecked as Master of Merry Disports, while Scrooby, vested as English priest, wears a chaplet of vine leaves on his head and a garland over one shoulder; he is Abbot of Misrule. Lackland enters behind them; he is May Lord; he wears white, with a rainbow scarf across his breast and a small dress sword at his side. Prence is his comic train-bearer, and he is attended by the Nine Worthies. Every form of traditional English reveller is present, including nymphs, satyrs, dwarfs, fauns, mummers, shepherds and shepherdesses, Morris dancers, sword dancers, green men, wild men, jugglers, tumblers, minstrels, archers, and mountebanks; there are even an ape, a hobby horse and a dancing bear.
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The cattle truck has driven over the moors to Princetown, drawing the attention of the local slacker Nick, his lover Sin Yen, and their friends Jimmy and Rod. Four players emerge from the back of the cattle truck, musicians like a cross between punks and wandering mummers—and their songs are raw musical wounds of violence and hatred which sweep the crowd into a frenzy. A riot breaks out in the prison, and the cons at the work farm turn on their guards, dragging them in front of the cattle truck and brutally slaughtering them. Nobody lifts a finger to stop them, and the village constable is trampled and killed as the audience riots in celebration of the deaths.
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170 Zeigler identifies the Charles Playhouse as one of six theatres which were the foundations of the Regional Theatre Movement.Zeigler, "Acorns: Theatres before 1960", pp. 24-61, Note: founding theatres cited by Zeigler are Alley Theatre, Houston (1947), Mummers Theatre, Oklahoma City (1949), Arena Stage, Washington DC (1950), Actor's Workshop, San Francisco (1952), Milwaukee Repertory Company (1954), Front Theatre, Memphis (1954), and Charles Playhouse (1957) He described the humble beginnings of the movement's leaders and their theatres: "Zelda Fichandler (Arena Stage, Washington, DC) in a beer factory, Michael Murray (Charles Playhouse, Boston) above a fish market, or Jules Irving and Herbert Blau (the Actor's Workshop, San Francisco) behind a judo academy."Zeigler, p.
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Soon, the Polish population increased massively, which produced rowhomes with their notable marble steps, and creation of Saint Adalbert Church, which was built in Polish Cathedral style. Today, there are a number of restaurants and stores in the area of Richmond Street and Allegheny Avenue that cater to the Polish-American community. The Krakus Market on Richmond Street offers a large selection of Polish and Eastern European foods, including a variety of kiebasy, Polish canned goods, Polish newspapers and various types of Polish pastries, such as Babka, Chrusciki and Paczki. Philadelphia’s award-winning Polish American String Band which marches in the Mummers Parade down Broad Street on New Year’s Day, sometimes marches and struts through the neighborhood, as on Port Richmond’s Memorial Day celebration.
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The Winster Guisers are a group who perform a traditional mummers play in and around the village of Winster, Derbyshire, UK, during the Christmas season. Their performance is based on a photograph taken c. 1870 outside Winster Hall showing an unidentified set of performers about whom little is known for certain.Cawte, EC, Ritual Animal Disguise, p122, London, DS Brewer for the Folklore Society (1978) The Winster Guisers' play is not local to the area, but is a revival (dating from 1980)Winster Guisers; Winster village website Accessed 24 Nov 2011 of a Cheshire play,Guizing; Biggin by Hartington Guizers' webpage Accessed 24 Nov 2011 chosen because it features a hobby horse similar to the one in the centre of the old photograph.
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In 1867 Jewitt recorded several visits to Winster Hall by groups of traditional performers (some being children, others men): 'guisers', 'mummers', the 'hobby horse' and 'Snap Dragon'. Jewitt differentiates between 'Snap Dragon' and 'Hobby Horse(s)' but does not describe how they were made, or how they differed, but implies that they did not always go out together. If Sharp is correct and Snap Dragon was made from a horse's skull, the photograph may show one such "conjoined" team of guisers. Jewitt also seems to have seen several different hobby horses and two different Snap Dragons (the Winster one and another) during these four days, as it is unlikely he would have paid the same team twice in two days.
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Hays, R. & McGee, C.; Joyce, S. & Newlyn, E. eds. (1999) Records of Early English Drama; Dorset & Cornwall Toronto: U.P. During the Twelve Days of Christmas between 1466-67, the household accounts of the Arundells of Lanherne, Mawgan-in-Pydar, record expenditures to buy white bonnets for minstrels, cloth and bells for Morris dancers, as well as materials for costumes for the "disgysing" (mummers or guise dancers), an activity which involved music and dancing. Then followed a long period of contention which included the Cornish Rebellion of 1497, the 1549 Prayer Book Rebellion, the Persecution of Recusants, the Poor Laws, and the English Civil War and Commonwealth (1642–1660). The consequences of these events disadvantaged many gentry who had previously employed their own minstrels or patronised itinerant performers.
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In May 2006, VWML Online was launched which hosts a number of the library's indexes to manuscript collections, together with its index to mummers' plays and the Roud Folk Song and Broadside Indexes, the largest of their kind in the English language. The online material has been extended with the addition of a catalogue of the collection of books bequeathed by eminent folk music scholar Leslie Shepard. It is planned to extend this catalogue with the other available electronic media in the archive before converting the existing card catalogues. The archives of six of the UK's most prominent folk song collectors are also available on-line as the "Take 6 archive" including both their indexes and over 22,000 images of collected material including over 5,000 songs.
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Cornwall has a folk music tradition that has survived into the present and is well known for its unusual folk survivals such as Mummers Plays, the Furry Dance in Helston played by the famous Helston Town Band, and Obby Oss in Padstow. Newlyn is home to a food and music festival that hosts live music, cooking demonstrations, and displays of locally caught fish. As in other former mining districts of Britain, male voice choirs and brass bands, such as Brass on the Grass concerts during the summer at Constantine, are still very popular in Cornwall. Cornwall also has around 40 brass bands, including the six-times National Champions of Great Britain, Camborne Youth Band, and the bands of Lanner and St Dennis.
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By 1988, there was, according to former Fringe Administrator Michael Dale, a feeling that "smaller venues may lose out, but this case may be overstated... The episode of the super-venues, the Assembly Rooms in particular, has some way to go yet". Student shows continued to thrive with the National Student Theatre Company, National Youth Music Theatre, Cambridge Mummers, Oxford Theatre Group and Bradford University producing well-received new work. Among professional companies, the Almeida Theatre, ATC, Cheek By Jowl, Cherub, Cliff Hanger, Entertainment Machine, Hull Truck, Kick Theatre, Lumiere and Son, Medieval Players and Trickster were regulars. In 1983, the Fringe joined with the International Festival, Edinburgh Tattoo and the Film Festival to promote Edinburgh as 'The Festival City' for the first time.
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The Mummers' play was originally adapted by Marjorie for presentation by students and faculty of the H.B. Studio, a theatre school in New York City as a holiday gift to their families and friends.Saint George and the dragon at Christmas tide (anonymous) adapted by Marjorie Sigley in Swortzell, L. (eds) The twelve plays of Christmas The play begins as men of the village arrive in the local tavern to be cast in an amateur production of St. George and the Dragon. Silliness reigns as the participants are cast in their roles for a variety of reasons—none of which have anything to do with talent. The second act is the performance of the play, granting "real" actors an opportunity to play wonderfully broad and physical comedy.
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Small groups of up to twenty mummers, their faces blackened, went door to door, shooting and shouting, and adapting the English Mummer's play by replacing the character of "King George" with that of "General Washington." Through the 19th century, large groups of disguised (often in blackface) working class young men roamed the streets on New Year's Day, organizing "riotous" processions, firing weapons into the air, and demanding free drinks in taverns, and generally challenging middle and upper-class notions of order and decorum. An 1808 law decreed that "masquerades" and "masquerade halls" were "common nuisances" and that anyone participating would be subject to a fine and imprisonment. It was apparently never successfully enforced and was repealed in 1859.Marion, John Francis (January 1981). Smithsonian.
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The play was not entirely forgotten however. Then, in 1931, the Reverend Alford, vicar of Marshfield, heard his gardener mumbling the words 'Room, room, a gallant room, I say' and discovered that this line was part of a mummers' play. The vicar's sister Violet Alford, a leading folklorist, encouraged the survivors of the troupe and some new members, including Tom Robinson (whose place was later taken by his brother), to revive the tradition. There was some dispute between Miss Alford and the elderly villagers as to how the play should actually be performed, and the resulting revival was a compromise which differs in several respects from other versions: St George has apparently become King William and Father Christmas appears as an extra character.
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As recorded from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, hoodening was a tradition performed at Christmas time by groups of farm labourers. They would form into teams to accompany the hooden horse on its travels around the local area, and although the makeup of such groups varied, they typically included an individual to carry the horse, a leader, a man in female clothing known as a "Mollie", and several musicians. The team would then carry the hooden horse to local houses and shops, where they would expect payment for their appearance. Although this practice is extinct, in the present the hooden horse is incorporated into various Kentish Mummers plays and Morris dances that take place at different times of the year.
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In the late 1910s, such businessmen in Ephrata as Harry Singer, Dutch Butcher, Charles Yeager, and I.G. Sprecher decided to hold a celebration in honor of World War I veterans. Mr. Singer was in charge of the group, and in 1918, he paid for the erection of a memorial to World War I veterans. The aforementioned group of men, along with other businessmen, created and funded the first Ephrata Fair. In 1922, what is now known as the Ephrata Fair was officially called the Ephrata Farmer’s Day Fair. In the 1920s, the celebration was extended to three days and welcomed the addition of a Mummers Parade. The Ephrata Farmer’s Day Fair was held in October from the year of its conception to the 1940s.
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Theatrical forms known in Spenser's time such as the Masque and the Mummers' Play are incorporated into the poem in ways which twist tradition and turn it to political propaganda in the service of Queen Elizabeth I. The earliest work considered an opera in the sense the work is usually understood dates from around 1597. It is Dafne, (now lost) written by Jacopo Peri for an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata". 17th century is considered as the greatest era of Spanish and French literature where it is called Siglo de Oro and Grand Siècle respectively. The most famous authors beside playwrights include Jean de La Fontaine and Charles Perrault known primarily for their fables.
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The cleaning woman gleefully repeats the old tale to Kane and the Doctor; history or legend, it's said that Emily died in poverty, disowned by her father for being with child. The whole tale is in the library, in a book which should have been burned long ago. Kane knows the book she means; it terrified him as a child, searing images of horror into his mind and never letting go. He flees back to the library, where the book is still waiting for him; it tells the same tale Charmagne is seeing unfold in the back of the cattle truck, a tale of the magistrate's son and the mayor's daughter, who made love by the standing stones while penniless mummers huddled in the grass nearby.
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For example, spring footage of the Phillies, NASCAR, CART and DIRT starts on March 21, while footage of the Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia Flyers, and 76ers starts on September 23, and footage of the Mummers Parade with other winter scenes is shown from December 21 to March 21. Although "Move Closer to Your World" is strongly associated with the Action News format, many stations that have used the "Action News" name actually chose to use other pieces of music for their newscasts. Notably, a handful of stations continued to use Tom Sellers' original theme into the 1980s, with WBNG-TV in Binghamton, New York using the theme for its Action News broadcast as late as 1993. Conversely, stations that use "Move Closer to Your World" do not necessarily use the "Action News" name or format.
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There were often additional characters, such as a doctor, who took part in a short play before the dance, similar to a Mummers play. The Tommy was either dressed up formally, with waistcoat, tailcoat and top hat, or in a grotesque garb of animal hides; occasionally, the Tommy was dressed in women's clothing, like the Betty. Much is made of their role and clothing in the context of pagan fertility rituals; it is certainly probable that the characters and play are older than the sword dance itself, which would appear to have been appended to the older play tradition found all over England. In the modern dance, the Tommy introduces the dancers, usually with a traditional calling-on song, and then provides a running commentary and/or jokes to entertain the audience.
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The Mimes and Mummers, the oldest entirely student-run club at Fordham University and among the oldest college theater groups in the United States, was founded in 1855 as the Saint John's Dramatic Society. The Mimes put on two musicals, a drama, and a comedy each year – all non-student-written shows – as well as workshops designed to help students at Fordham learn about theater. The club receives from the school a budget which allows the hiring of professional directors, music directors, and choreographers but the shows are student produced, with all elements of technical design run by the club's executive board. In 1905, with the construction of Collins Hall, Fordham University became the first place on the East Coast of the United States to have a theater in the round.
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Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man (2006), an album of seasonal songs on which they were joined by vocal trio The Devil's Interval (Jim Causley, Lauren McCormick & Emily Portman) was widely considered both a belated follow-up and an addendum to The Watersons' Frost & Fire (1965). The group had already re-established The Watersons' tradition of performing a pre-Christmas tour under the Frost & Fire banner and by December 2006 this had been expanded to include a Mummers Play, brass section and a more significant contribution from The Devil's Interval. Van Eyken had announced his intention to leave the group to concentrate on his solo career prior to the December 2006 tour and his eventual final show was a Waterson Family special performance on 12 May 2007 London's Royal Albert Hall.
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N3RD Street (also N3rd Street, N3RD St, Nerd Street) is a nickname for a segment of North 3rd Street in Philadelphia, between Market Street and Girard Avenue (spanning across the neighborhoods of Old City and Northern Liberties), and its surrounding community that is home to a concentration of "nerdy" companies and spaces; "N3RD" is a double entendre as both leet for "nerd" and reflecting the "N. 3rd St." of postal addresses. An official resolution recognizing N3RD Street was written by Indy Hall founder Alex Hillman and adopted by Philadelphia's city council on March 20, 2014. Starting April 10, 2014, the city installed special street signs along the corridor denoting its nickname, similar to the neighborhood-specific signs on the Avenue of the Arts, Avenue of Technology, Mummers Row, Fabric Row, French Quarter, Chinatown, and the Gayborhood.
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Of all the counties in England, it is Sussex that appears to have drawn the greatest attention from folk song collectors over a period of some 130 years. This was due to a flourishing tradition of folk dance, mummers plays (known in Sussex as Tipteers' or Tipteerers' plays) and folk song, but also in part because of the rural nature of the county in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and yet its relatively close proximity to London. Passed on through oral tradition, many of Sussex's traditional songs may not have changed significantly for centuries, with their origins perhaps dating as far back as the time of the South Saxons. Writing in 1752, John Burton commented on the "sharp pitch" and "goatish noise" of the Sussexians, which William Henry Hudson thought still held true when writing nearly 150 years later.
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In Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, Charles Herbert Mayo noted that "no recollection of its ever being made use of is retained", although thought that "it may plausibly be conjectured" that the Ooser was used in "village revels, and at similar times of rustic entertainment". The following year, the curator of the Dorset County Museum, Henry Joseph Moule, published a note in the same journal relating that their childhood nurse, who was from the village of Cerne Abbas, had talked about the head, and had referred to it as the "Wurser". Moule added that it was "surely" used in Mummers plays performed at Christmas time. Dewar, after subsequent research, reported the recollections of K. G. Knight—a member of the Melbury Estate staff—that inhabitants of Melbury Osmond associated the head with a folk custom known as "Skimity Riding" or "Rough Music".
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Charles Dickens' 1843 A Christmas Carol briefly mentions Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present visiting a children's Twelfth Night party. In Chapter 6 of Harrison Ainsworth's 1858 novel Mervyn Clitheroe, the eponymous hero is elected King of festivities at the Twelfth Night celebrations held in Tom Shakeshaft's barn, by receiving the slice of plum cake containing the bean; his companion Cissy obtains the pea and becomes queen, and they are seated together in a high corner to view the proceedings. The distribution has been rigged to prevent another person gaining the role. The festivities include country dances, and the introduction of a "Fool Plough", a plough decked with ribands brought into the barn by a dozen mummers together with a grotesque "Old Bessie" (played by a man) and a Fool dressed in animal skins with a fool's hat.
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Building on Emily Lyle's outstanding work, Brian Hayward researched the geographical distribution of the play in Scotland, and published "Galoshins; the Scottish folk play" which includes several maps showing the locations where each version was performed. These are or were largely across the Central Belt of Scotland, with a strange and unexplained "outlier" at Ballater in Aberdeenshire. Inspired by both these writers, and by folk play workshops at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, the Meadows Mummers are an all-female troupe who perform at local festivals and have recently (September 2019) returned from performing at the Scots Music School in Barga, Italy. Details about this group can be found on (1) the Scottish Museums and Galleries website, under the sub-heading "theatre", as "Galoshins; tradition with a difference", and (2) in an article for Memoria Imateria, (issue 2) on Intangible Cultural Heritage, under the title "Rescuing Galoshins".
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Mummers plays were performed in Philadelphia in the 18th century as part of a wide variety of working-class street celebrations around Christmas. By the early 19th century, it coalesced with two other New Year customs, shooting firearms, and the Pennsylvania German custom of "belsnickling" (adults in masks questioning children about whether they had been good during the previous year). Through the 19th century, large groups of disguised (often in blackface) working class young men roamed the streets on New Year's Day, organizing "riotous" processions, firing weapons into the air, and demanding free drinks in taverns, and generally challenging middle and upper-class notions of order and decorum. Unable to suppress the custom, by the 1880s the city government began to pursue a policy of co-option, requiring participants to join organized groups with designated leaders who had to apply for permits and were responsible for their groups actions.
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The subtitle of the play (and of the earlier story) is "A Prayer for the Wild of Heart That are Kept in Cages"; though that phrase conveys the seriousness of the playwright's chosen topic, its treatment, particularly the elements not present in the original story (such as the Mummers play-within-a-play and the swan-on-a-lake scenes), lighten the tone with elements of fantasy. Williams scholar Allean Hale, in his introduction to a 2000 New Directions Publishers edition of the play (), commented on similarities the play shares with the 1923 expressionist play The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice. Both plays show the robotic typing of office workers, both have a scene of divine intervention and another set by a lake, and both make use of generically named characters (Rice's male lead is "Mr. Zero"; Williams' female lead is "Girl"; Rice has Messrs.
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The parade traveled northward on Broad Street in Philadelphia for decades until the 1995 parade when the parade was moved to Market Street due to construction work on Broad Street (notably the "Avenue of the Arts" between Washington Avenue and Philadelphia City Hall). After construction was completed, the parade returned to Broad Street from 1996 to 1999. For various reasons, the parade was moved again to Market Street in 2000. In 2004, the parade was moved back to Broad Street. In 1997, the Fancy Brigades were moved to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, allowing for larger sets, but limiting audience size. In 2011, the Fancy Brigades returned to the parade. Each year, thousands of people participate in the parade, many wearing elaborate costumes costing tens of thousands of dollars to make and weighing well over 100 pounds. $395,000 in prizes is awarded to the various winners."If You Go: Mummers Parade 2008".
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The phrase parade of horribles originally referred to a literal parade of people wearing comic and grotesque costumes, rather like the Philadelphia Mummers Parade. It was a traditional feature of Fourth of July parades in parts of the United States in the 19th century, and "Horribles Parades" continue to be part of the Independence Day celebration in several New England communities. A 1926 newspaper article about July the Fourth celebrations in the White Mountains of New Hampshire notes: > Old-time celebrations are to be held tomorrow at Littleton, Lancaster, > Colebrook, and Conway, with all the usual features of street parades of > horribles and grotesques, brass bands, decorated automobiles and vehicles, > exhibitions by fire departments, basket picnics in convenient groves... Founded in 1926, the Ancient and Horribles Parade in Chepachet, Rhode Island continues this tradition. Other rural New England towns, such as Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and Mendon, Massachusetts, still hold annual Horribles Parades.
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They first offered classes in dance to children through adults, until forming the Children's Troupe in 1980, a performing company whose members were between six and 19 years of age. The Troupe created original works, often in collaborations with adult guest artists, including choreographer and writer Remy Charlip, playwright and actor Ken Grantham, composers Ed Bogas, Randy Craig, Meredith Monk, Carman Moore and Keith Terry, landscape architect John Roberts, and writer Ishmael Reed. Until 1992, with help from local foundation and government grants, these works were performed in schools, museums, theaters, libraries, parks, shopping malls, senior centers, and community arts centers and festivals. The works incorporated movement (folk dance, modern dance, ballet, and social dance forms) and theater forms (from traditional forms like Mummers Plays, shadow plays, mime, puppetry, and scripts to cutting-edge performance art techniques), their repertoire including Horse Ballet, whose dance score adhered to the style of equestrian pageants popular in the palace courts of 17th-century Europe.
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Contrary to the guilds, clubs do not have taxes. Characters can join any number of clubs as long as they fill the requirements each has (for example, the "Dancers of the Veil", the "Nisse Ohtar" and the "Ladies Club" require the character to be female, the "Mummers of Sybarus" and the "Gentlemen Club" to be male, the "Rich Men Club" to pay a determined amount of money upon joining, the "Prestigious Knights Club" to be good aligned, the "Wise People" to be over 100 days old, the "Equestrians of Bree" to rent a horse, the "Ancients" to have belonged to the Mystics, an old and already removed guild from the game, the "Beggars" to be a relatively inexperienced character, the "Shields of Minas Morgul" to be evil aligned and support the Minas Morgul cause, and the "Old Fogeys" to be hobbit, dwarf or human). Some clubs have free entrance, like the "Storytellers". Clubs increase the amount of "emotes" and actions the character can display.
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In addition, there has been an increase in recent years of immigrants from Russia, Mexico and Central American nations such as Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Today, many vendors that work alongside the Italian-Americans at the Italian Market are of Asian descent and Mexican or Central American descent, and Vietnamese, Thai, Mexican, and Central American restaurants are interspersed with historic Italian restaurants in the Market area. The recent revitalization of Center City Philadelphia and the subsequent gentrification of adjacent neighborhoods has also led to dramatic rises in prices of housing in the neighborhoods of historic Queen Village, Bella Vista, and some other northern parts of South Philadelphia, leading to an influx of young urban professionals in those more northern neighborhoods. Many of the community clubs that create the annual Mummers Parade every New Year's Day have traditionally been from South Philadelphia, especially those located on the largely Irish Americans S. 2nd Street ("Two Street") in the Pennsport neighborhood.
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Behind it are two men in threatening postures, one is waving a long stick like the handle of a brush or rake, the other probably a besom broom (blurred). Two more men wearing military-looking jackets, buttoned to the neck, and white trousers stand astride small hobbyhorses of an apparently unique design: a cylindrical body, "about three inches diameter and two feet long", held between the rider's legs (supported at the front by a cord or narrow strap around the rider's neck), with a flat, curved wooden neck and a small, stylised head with snapping jaws (apart from their mouths, the horses look almost like simple rocking horses with the legs removed). The horsemen are masked in light-coloured cloth. Another character wears a rather voluminous, tattered, long, dark dress; busily brushing the ground with a besom broom, "she" is reminiscent of the character Besom Bet who appears in some mummers plays.
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The book (Juhuri:"Гюльбоор") "Gyulboor" includes poetry about the fate of Gyulboor Davydov, a woman of Mountain Jew descent and a hero of the Socialist Labour Order. A major work of Avshalumov was the historical novel (Juhuri:"Занбирор") "Sister-in-law" and (Juhuri:"Кук гудил") "Son of mummers", 1974, which both spoke about the village life of Mountain Jews as well as in the town of Derbent during the first few years after Russian Revolution. Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia (EJE) commented on these works: Alongside those who admired his talent, Avshalumov had strong criticism as well. Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia (EJE) commented: He has written four plays, including the first Tat musical comedy (Juhuri:"Кишди хьомоли") "Sash childlessness" and the historical drama (Russian:"Толмач имама Шамиля") "The interpreter of Imam Shamil," the play (Juhuri:"Шими Дербенди") "Shimi Derbendi," and "Love is in danger." Later they were put on the stage of the Kumyk’s (1966) and Lezgian’s (1987) theaters.
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A few members of the Holy Rollers N.Y.B. in the 2008 parade presenting their theme "Our Hearts are Wild for Diamonds" A few members of the Aqua String Band in the 2005 parade presenting their theme "Just Plain Dead" A "fancy" mummer in the 2005 parade Golden Sunrise Fancy Club members participate in the 2007 parade The parade traces back to mid-17th-century roots, blending elements from Swedish, Finnish, Irish, English, German, and other European heritages, as well as African heritage.. Philadelphia Department of Recreation. The parade is related to the Mummers Play tradition from Britain and Ireland. Revivals of this tradition are still celebrated annually in South Gloucestershire, England on Boxing Day along with other locations in England and in parts of Ireland on St. Stephen's Day and also in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador around Christmas. Swedes and Finns, the first European colonists in the Philadelphia area, brought the custom of visiting neighbors on "Second Day Christmas" (December 26) with them to Tinicum.
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The ordinary > official givers of the church-ale were two wardens who, after collecting > subscriptions in money or kind from every one of their fairly well-to-do > parishioners, provided a revel that not infrequently passed the wake in > costliness and diversity of amusements. The board, at which everyone > received a welcome who could pay for his entertainment, was loaded with good > cheer; and after the feasters had eaten and drunk to contentment, if not to > excess, they took part in sport on the turf of the churchyard, or on the > sward of the village green. The athletes of the parish distinguished > themselves in wrestling, boxing, quoit throwing; the children cheered the > mummers and the morris dancers; and round a maypole decorated with ribbons, > the lads and lasses plied their nimble feet to the music of the fifes, > bagpipes, drums and fiddles. When they had wearied themselves by exercise, > the revellers returned to the replenished board; and not seldom the feast, > designed to begin and end in a day, was protracted into a demoralising > debauch of a week's or even a month's duration.
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For most of its early history from the 1600s and up until the mid to late 1800s, the vast majority of Philadelphia's population was Protestant and composed mainly of Protestant Anglo-Saxon English Americans (many of whom were Quakers or of Quaker descent). The city also contained significant populations of free Blacks, Welsh Americans (including a great number of Welsh Quakers, such as in the Welsh Tract), Scottish Americans, Ulster Scots Americans, and Pennsylvania Dutch people (most notably the German Mennonites and German Quakers that founded Germantown), as well as the Protestant Swedish, Finnish, and Dutch American families that had originally arrived in the Philadelphia area to live in the colony of New Sweden (later taken over by the Dutch colony of New Netherlands before being absorbed into the British colonies.) The roots of the Mummers Parade can be traced back to a blend of the traditions of these ethnic groups in Philadelphia during this period, though the celebration would evolve and be altered by the traditions of subsequent immigrant groups.
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Meanwhile, Leicester was preparing to entertain the queen at Kenilworth, where she had commanded that Amy should be introduced to her, and Varney was, accordingly, despatched with a letter begging the countess to appear at the revels pretending to be Varney's bride. Having indignantly refused to do so, and having recovered from the effects of a cordial which had been prepared for her by the astrologer Alasco, she escaped, with the help of her maid, from Cumnor, and started for Kenilworth, escorted by Wayland Smith. Travelling thither as brother and sister, they joined a party of mummers, and then, to avoid the crowd of people thronging the principal approaches, proceeded by circuitous by-paths to the castle. Having, with Dickie Sludge's help, passed into the courtyard, they were shown into a room, where Amy was waiting while her attendant carried a note to the earl, when she was startled by the entrance of Tressilian, whom she entreated not to interfere until after the expiration of twenty-four hours.
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Many of the tales and pseudo-histories make up part of the wider Matter of Britain, a collection of shared British folklore. Some folk figures are based on semi-historical or historical people whose stories have been passed down the centuries; Lady Godiva for instance was said to have ridden naked on horseback through Coventry, Hereward the Wake was a heroic English figure resisting the Norman invasion, Herne the Hunter is an equestrian ghost associated with Windsor Forest and Great Park (whose tale bears the common European folkloric motif of the Wild Hunt) and Mother Shipton is the archetypal witch.. The chivalrous bandit, such as Dick Turpin, is a recurring character. There are various still surviving national and regional folk activities, such as Morris dancing, Maypole dancing, Rapper sword in the North East, Long Sword dance in Yorkshire, Mummers Plays, bottle-kicking in Leicestershire, and cheese-rolling at Cooper's Hill.. There is no official national costume, but a few costumes are well established, such as the Pearly Kings and Queens associated with cockneys, the Royal Guard, the Morris costume and Beefeaters. The utopian vision of a traditional England is sometimes referred to as Merry England.
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The Hardy Players (1908–1928) was an amateur theatrical company, based in Dorchester, Dorset. The group holds a unique place in literary history, due to its close relationship with the novelist Thomas Hardy, who adapted his novels for live performance in collaboration with the group, in some cases making significant changes to the story, such as changing the ending of The Trumpet Major, truncating Return of the Native and making many other changes to the text to better fit dramatisation. Indeed, Hardy wrote his play The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall specifically to be performed by the Hardy Players.. The Hardy Players premiered many of Hardy’s novels on stage. The notes and amendments that Hardy made to the novels for the adaptations, and his reasons for doing so, are of potential interest to anyone who studies Hardy as a literary figure.. The Hardy Players’ situation, as Dorset natives, was of great significance to Hardy. As Norman Atkins put it: “This was the true Hardy, portrayed by people who lived and breathed the atmosphere of Egdon Heath and Wessex”.. Hardy’s novels and short stories are filled with examples of folklore – customs, songs, superstitions, witches and mummers plays.
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Runners cross the starting line during the 44th annual St. Patrick's Road Race, 2019 Many of Holyoke's Irish cultural events center around the Holyoke St Patrick's Day Parade; leading up to it there are several events, including the Grand Colleen Pageant, typically held the first Saturday in January, of which five young women are selected who go on to the Grand Colleen Ball, at which one is crowned as the parade's Grand Colleen based on presentation and questions related to their Irish heritage. Other events include the Grand Marshal Reception, held the second Friday of January, a reception at The Student Prince in Springfield with participants of the parade such as the Mummers bands and Holyoke Caledonian Pipe Band, and two road runs. Since 2014, every September the Parade Committee has held the Halfway 5K Run, marking the six months before the next parade, and the better-known 10k, the Holyoke St. Patrick's Day Road Race. Hosted annually the day before the parade since 1975, it has been called by Olympian John Treacy "a miniature Boston", had a record 6,800 contestants complete the course in 2014, and was placed among the best St. Patrick's runs in the nation by Runner's World in 2019.
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