Black Swan Border Morris dance our own interpretation of Border Morris, which originates from the Welsh/English borders. We have chosen dances written by other teams, traditional dances and some that we have written ourselves and 'modified' or adapted them to suit our style and tempo.

We are a mixed gender side that dances in a fast and energetic manner to make our performances vibrant and entertaining. We endeavour to keep to the spirit of Morris by being welcoming and respectful whilst being aware that we wish to keep to a good standard.

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Black Swan was started in 2013 with the support of Box Hill Bedlam Morris and Moonshine Border Morris (Isle of Wight). Black Swan do not have a closed time for practice or performances; we practice on the vast majority of Mondays throughout the year, and dance from January to December. Our dance out calendar starts in January with several wassails, and will continue until the Monday before Christmas when we will have our traditional Yule dance at our home pub, The Hope in Carshalton.

 

Over the years we have danced with local community groups (e.g. Brownies and Scouts), at old peoples homes, societies and organisations, with other local Morris sides and at larger events including folk festivals, days of dance and calendar events. Some of the highlights include dancing at the British Museum, Our annual visit to Hastings Jack in the Green, dancing in Trafalgar Square at the Joint Morris Organisations day of dance, and many other high profile events.

That said, some of our favourite events are often very small events, for a members family event, or outside an elderly relatives house; people that matter to us personally.

 

Black Swan organise our own wassail in January, and our Carshalton day of dance at the end of the summer.

We are proud of our roots in Carshalton; Our name was chosen to remember that Black Swans which in the past were bred in Hackbridge (very local to us), and our purple colours were selected to recall the long local history of Lavender growing. We were proud to dance at the Carshalton lavender open day in 2023, and are hoping to make this an annual event.

 

If you have an event that you would like Black Swan to dance at, please get in touch via our contacts page.

Black Swan will take applications from prospective new dancers in October each year; please watch out for notifications of our try out sessions where you can find out more about what it takes to become a Black Swan dancer.

We would be happy to hear from prospective musicians at any time of the year, either via our contacts page or at an event.

 

Black Swan are proud to be supporting The Royal Marsden as our chosen charity this year, and we will be collecting for them at various events during the year.

 

We look forward to entertaining you throughout the year - please keep an eye on our events page for details of where and when we will be out.

 

Colin

The Squire