Morris and the Gentle Art of Fudging

Doug Freeman

In this year’s Hereburgh lecture, I would like to put to the side the motion "Morris Fudging is an Art form".

I looked up Fudge in the OED:

"Fudge; fit together, patch, make up, in a makeshift or dishonest way, cook, fake."

Fit together maybe, but fudgers never fake it.

As Morris dancers, we all have different dancing backgrounds, skills or lack of, and reasons for joining a Morris Side. It could be that you did ballet or tap in your youth; have an interest in folk music; are looking for another social outlet; need some exercise; or just like dressing up and the idea of street entertainment.

There are different approaches to learning a new dance or tradition, for example; concentrating on the stepping and hand movements; learning the dance from the same position in set; focusing on the overall shape of the dance. The fudger though has a different mentality, and although is more interested in the overall shape of the dance, only needs to know one thing to crack a new dance; what foot does the dance end on? Given this single piece of information, it is possible to mentally work backwards through the dance, embellishing the boring bits by tricky and wonderfully improvised stepping, and ending up with an individual, unrestrained and vivid dance style.

It is widely believed that modern jazz has its earliest routes in the Morris and the techniques of those original Morris fudgers. "The music will tell you what to do" of course refers to the musical genius of the fudgers.

The fudger is able to take what are basically boring and repetitive tunes, interpret and improvise, and produce an exceptional avant-garde art form.

Now let’s dismiss some myths about Morris fudgers:

• They cannot dance. Morris is about display and entertaining the audience. Only Morris geeks look at other dancers’ feet.
• Their stepping is random. No it is practised and perfected over many years. The tricky improvisation confuses the non-fudgers into thinking that it is just random stepping.
• Fooling or pranking is a form of fudging. This is an insult to the integrity of the fudger. Do not confuse fudging with: the Kerry side step; the Alan Oh Shit routine; the Ian six-foot stride; dancers that defy gravity, or those that never let light reach the soles of their shoes.

The golden rules of Morris fudging are:

• If you find yourself on the wrong foot at the end of the dance, which should be impossible if you have learnt the dance backwards, timing is of an essence when changing feet. You need to predict that micro second when nobody is looking. Watch Kerry, he can give a master class in this technique.
• Never stop during a dance. This is where the technical dancer often goes wrong; nobody ever looks at them so what is the point of stopping? If you make a mistake, keep going, bluff it out with a smile on your face. Nothing looks worse than a stationary dancer in the set, unless of course she is an 18-year-old Italian.
• If you are not certain of the next figure, start half a beat behind everybody, which will give you a chance to determine what the majority are doing, and then catch up with an elaborate and flamboyant fudge.
• If at practice the side find a particular move difficult, and are talking about putting in a fudge step, don’t get involved. Wait until they have almost worked it out, then just comment that is perfectly straight forward and that a fudge is not necessary, and leave them to struggle with their inability to master the most basic of fudges.

Morris is all about display and entertaining your audience. Morris is about being sociable and should always be fun. Morris is about music and may even keep you fit. Morris is about always trying to give the best possible display no matter how small or inattentive the audience is.

Morris dancers come in different shapes, sizes, styles and ages. A good Morris side has many different types of dancers: those that excel at stepping; those that really express themselves in the dance; those that have rapport with the audience; those that just look like Morris dancers; and those that are fudgers. Morris is about diversity.

Well I think I have made my case for fudging to be a recognised art form, so Fudge On.

[17th February 2001]