Music And Dancing At The 2009 Oxford Folk Festival

A Memory of Oxford.

One of the many items on the Oxford "tourist trail" is a weekend long folk festival which is supported by dozens of morris dancing sides from all over England. This year Whitethorn Morris appeared for the first time and brought a huge side of 12 dancers and almost as many musicians!

The dance events take place mainly in the pedestrianised streets of the city centre and the last "spot" on Sunday afternoon was a massed stand by all the performers in the courtyard of the former prison!  This was something of a surreal experience as the backdrop were rows of barred cell windows and the crowd of spectators sat on stone steps snapping away with cameras!

Whitethorn put on displays of dancing in half a dozen venues during the day but the one I remember most is standing in the middle of the Cornmarket playing my piano accordian with the Whitethorn Band surrounded by many Japanese tourists taking pictures!  

It was a really enjoyable folk festival - not only for the dancers and musicians but also, I am sure, for the many tourists who had crowded around us watching and taking photographs.