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Bacup & Rochdale Coconut Dances

by Traditional Graffiti

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The Bacup Coconut Dance
The Bacup tune is from the Lancashire Bacup Britannia Morris Men’s (AKA ‘the Nutters’) current repertoire. Dancing out at Easter, The Bacup Men have professed origins for the dance dating from Moorish pirates, or alternatively they will allude to coal-mining origins. Their blackened faces being a reflection of those ideas with hints of ritual disguise. However, there is no record of the Bacup men dancing before the latter half of the 1800’s. Recent expert research has uncovered a more likely origin for the costume and dance (independent of the annual dancing tradition) in travelling circus performances by the Chiarini family during the mid 19th century, where an ‘exotic entertainment’ depicted wild African tribesmen for the more insular and less-knowledgeable audiences of that time. Newspaper reports of the day record the locals in Halifax imitating these popular dances on street corners after watching the circus performances. It would suggest that the face-blacking rather than being ritual disguise, does arise from ‘black face’, and maybe is out of step with contemporary values; and more importantly, the local community. That said, long may ‘the Nutters’ dance!

The Rochdale Coconut Dance
The second coconut tune supports the ‘circus’ origin theory in Traditional Graffiti’s treatment of it. The Rochdale ‘nutters’ Morris no longer exists, but their wonderful rollicking tune lives-on. The A music mirrors a tune used by church coconut dancers in the Spanish Balearic Islands; Els Moretons from Manacor. The dance is performed by children, and retains the coconut clapping of wooden discs attached to hands, waist (and knees, as at Bacup). The Chiarini Family had performed in Europe and Lancashire in the 19th century, so the origin theory is further supported.

credits

released November 15, 2022
Ian 'The Pump' Macintosh - Melodeon
Nigel 'Muddy' Walters - Mandolins
Clive 'Brassman' McFarland - Guitar & Brass
John 'Red Tips' Milce - Drum & Whistle

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Traditional Graffiti Sydney, Australia

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