How to.. Each week, ET entertainments reporter Duncan Hall tries out a new activity. This week, Duncan tries out:
How to.. Molly dancing
I SWORE I would never put on make-up again after a memorable fancy dress party last year.
I spent the night caked in white make-up, black eyeshadow and red lipstick dressed as uber-goth Robert Smith from the Cure (it was a pop music-themed party).
All night I was eating lipstick with my food, and covering everything I touched in face paint.
Little did I know when I went to what I thought would be a fairly innocuous dance group, I would be breaking that rule.
Molly dancing, in its simplest terms, is the Fenland version of Morris dancing. Except there are no bells, no hankies, no sticks, and no ridiculous hats.
Instead, the dancers, who can be male or female, dress up in black and white dresses and black and white face make-up that the members of Kiss might reject as being too gaudy.
Traditionally, the dances were held to celebrate Plough Monday – the second Monday in January – when Plough Witches would go around doing a form of trick or treating on fenland dwellers.
The earliest recorded dances were in the late 1800s, but the molly dance is thought to have originated at least 150 years before that. The tradition died out in the 1930s, but was resurrected about 30 years ago
The Pig Dyke Molly, which is based at Stanground Community Centre, Stanground, Peterborough, was started 12 years ago by boss Tony Forster.
The group meets every Monday night to learn new dances and have a drink afterwards in the Woolpack.
I turned up slightly late, after battling unsuccessfully with Peterborough’s road system to see lines of dancers sporting special Pig’s Dyke T-shirts, taking part in what looked to me like the most complicated and energetic dancing I have ever seen.
Everyone was jumping up and on the move constantly, switching positions and weaving around each other like some mad maypole dance, where somebody had stolen the maypole.
My initial concern was compounded when it was announced, as I had come to do some molly dancing, I had to dress up accordingly.
Out came the make-up, an old black and white dress and a scary fright wig, and, before I knew it, the hideous creation you see before you was born.
The make-up is compulsory for the group’s public performances, but is not normally worn at rehearsals – it would appear I was a lucky exception!
After showing me the basic skipping step, which forms all the group’s dances, Tony and five other dancers took me through the plughole dance.
The room was soon spinning around me as I found myself running around and swinging my partner, Serena Day, around in time with the music.
All the music we danced to had been composed by Pig Dyker Robin Griggs, and was played by a trio comprising Robin on the melodeon, Dave Parker on the tuba and Chris Kempton on the double-ended drum.
By the end of the first practice run I could feel the make-up streaming off my face and my heart beating fast. But, it was lots of fun.
The dances, which have all been devised by the group, looked complicated, but were really quite simple once you broke them down. I only collided with a couple of people in the whole night, and they were very understanding.
And the atmosphere was great. Not everyone was on the floor at once, but you could tell by the wide smiles that everyone was enjoying themselves.
Tony said the drink at the nearby pub was an important part of the regular meeting as it gave people a chance to catch up.
He said: “The original molly dances when written down were like ordinary country dances that people would do at other times of the year. Now people have developed their own dances. We have about 10 we have created.”
The Pig’s Dyke Molly, named after a drainage ditch between Stanground sluice and Yaxley, are performing this weekend at the Handmade celebration of skills at Sacrewell Farm and Country Centre, as well as the Woolpack’s conker festival on Sunday, October 3.