2 weeks Ago
It has to be one of the most surreal sights and traditions of Lancashire. A group of Morris dancers with "blacked up" faces performing their day long dance through Bacup. Members of the Britannia Coconut Dancers made their way around the town on Easter Saturday beginning at the Old Travellers Rest at 9am.
They danced and enthralled locals, stopping at some "famous" landmarks, making their to Irwell Terrace before stopping for lunch. The group then split into two teams of four and dance their way to pub locations, finishing at the Glen Service Station in Waterfoot at 7pm and finally hanging up their clogs for another year. The Easter Saturday event aimed to raise funds for Rossendale Hospice this year.
The troupe are joined by the Stacksteads Band who play continuously during the route of some seven miles. The event attracts visitors from across the region with shoppers and fascinated onlookers following the team on their arduous route. The group insist "blacking up" is part of a clog-dancing tradition dating back more than 150 years and nothing to do with ethnicity.
The group are joined by a band and cover a distance of seven miles (Image: Phil Taylor) According to the group the popular story is firmly held that the dance and the costume were brought to Rossendale Valley by Cornish tin-miners after their industry depleted. The group say: "The Cornish miners took their skills to many parts the world and came to the nearby Whitworth quarries. "Mining stone and coal at the turn of the nineteenth century was the largest industry in this part of Lancashire with over 3,000 men and boys involved at its peak.
‘The migrating tin miners who settled in the area are thought to have taught the dances in Rawtenstall and Whitworth including an original Tunstead mill group. ‘There were also other teams of coconut and garland dancers prevalent in Lancashire in the 19th Century- Whitworth, Shawclough, Cloughfold, Waterfoot, Lee-mill, to name but a few, the “Britannia Team” formed in the village of ‘Britannia’ are the surviving team." The costume is said to represent "a Moorish Pirate; the hat is of a turban style" and each dancer has a set of "five nuts" similar to castanets and a white kilt with three horizontal red stripes completes the curious costume.
Despite the appeal, the event has not been without controversy and they split from the Joint Morris Organisation, the umbrella group which represents the country’s 800 dancing "sides". The body felt the "full face black or other skin tone make-up is a practice that has the potential to cause deep hurt"..
