TRUE / FOLK : EFDSS Artist in Residence

The Foggy Dew at Swiss Cottage Gallery: Installation Shots

2010-02-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

2010-02-15T08:52:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

New Exhibition: The Foggy Dew at Swiss Cottage Gallery

2010-02-15T08:51:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

The Foggy Dew
New works by Matthew Cowan feat. artifacts from the archives of the English Folk Dance and Song Society
Private View 25th February 6pm – 8pm

performance on PV evening by Matthew Cowan, Laurel Swift and Libby Chamberlain

Exhibition opens 26th February - 8th April 2010

Swiss Cottage Gallery
Swiss Cottage Library
88 Avenue Road, London NW3 3HA

Swiss Cottage Gallery is pleased to showcase artwork by Matthew Cowan, the 2009 English Folk Dance and Song Society Artist in Residence at Cecil Sharp House, alongside selected items from the archives of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Exhibited are costumes, disguises and artefacts representing a history of folk dance, ritual and performance, which have been collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from around England. Some artefacts on display show
traces of the performances they have been through; this very visible residue alludes to the occasion and importance of live performance in the folk realm.

The spectrum of folk performance owes a debt to Cecil Sharp (1859-1924), England's most important folk song and dance collector, for his work in recording what he saw and heard. This exhibition picks up on the work by Cecil Sharp keeping a flickering light aglow; the nature of folk is that it needs to be performed to remain alive. This ‘current day’ inhabitance of ritual and folk performance is by no means unusual as successive generations of singers, dancers and
performers remain true to a set of traditional folk values whilst introducing a contemporary discourse.

Contemporary artworks are placed directly alongside objects from the archives in a deliberate linking and exploration of the discourse and re-investment into and between folk history and the current contemporaneous existence of the real and imagined folk realm. We would like to question the nature of traditions themselves and how we view and realise their re-enactment wondering when and if the re-enactment becomes an enactment. The costume works and the video performances are very much in the vein of ‘folk’ but also look toward wider issues of strangeness, joy, ritual disguise and the performance of the everyday.

Swiss Cottage Gallery would like to give special thanks to both Matthew Cowan and to the EFDSS for their support
and help with this exhibition.

For opening times please see Swiss Cottage Library website www.camden.gov.uk/swisscottagelibrary
For EFDSS details www.efdss.org

'to Lubberland' performance at the private view, Kennedy Hall, 10 December 2009

2009-12-14T04:10:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

As far as anyone can remember, this was the first occaision that a Bouncy Castle has been installed in Kennedy Hall. The performance was primarily about using the inflatable castle to perform a morris jig. My work with Morris Dancing often stems from the fact that I was taught that to Morris Dance well, it should appear that you are not touching the ground.

To this end, a bouncy castle is fit for purpose.

'to Lubberland': Exhibition Notes

2009-12-11T08:29:00.001-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

‘To Lubberland’
Matthew Cowan
Cecil Sharp House
11 December 2009 – 31 March 2010

“Lubberland” is an English word for the medieval fantasy land of Cockaigne. ‘to Lubberland’ by Matthew Cowan, raises a glass to Cockaigne, and its enduring influence in the folk idiom. Its place in folk consciousness can be traced through imagery and ritual in folk ballads, dances and mummers plays. As good an opening as any to this strange land of inversion is the question put to the quack doctor of the English Mummer’s play every Christmas. To which a classic answer begins:

I've travelled through Itty Titty, where there is neither house, land, nor city; wooden churches, leather bells, and black-puddings for bell-ropes... Bellerby Sword Dance Play, 1879

This introduction to the strange land is repeated throughout many mummers plays in seeming nonsensical recollections by quack doctors. As the basis for these vivid fragments Cockaigne is a medieval destination of luxury and pleasure, a descendant of the topsy turvy Roman celebrations of Saturnalia, the festivals of Misrule, and in turn a rich visual ancestor of the social inversion in folk ritual such as mummers plays and ritual dance today. Cockaigne is a land of the inverse, where all the restrictions of society are reversed – beggars and debters are pronounced kings and princes, sexual liberty is open and encouraged, and food is plentiful, animals even pleading to be eaten. It serves both as an severe illogical ideal and a extreme opposite to the restrictions of the reality of medieval life.

The works in this show serve to map a path to Lubberland, exploring the underlying theme of 'inverted place' and its fantastic promise of luxury, whilst referring to the cynical observation first noted in the 1820s that London is itself a version of Cockaigne. The set of four images ‘Cockaigne in London Town’, named after the Elgar concert overture of 1901, refers again to the paradoxical travels of the quack doctor of the mummers plays, through contemporary photographs of London streets.

Collages made from Victorian depictions of mummers in the Illustrated London News have the mummers and dancers rotated and turned on their heads. With the title ‘Holy Fools’, they deal with the hyper-romantic portrayals of both folk audiences and folk performers in the engravings, and hint at an audience’s need to develop a romantic history or ritualistic tradition to contextualise what they are watching.

‘Euphoric Clashes’ is a specially created new piece in neon and a trolley full of Morris Dancing sticks. These words are an anagram of the “Cecil Sharp House” sign that adorns the outside of the English Folk Dance and Song Society building. It acts as an alternative designation for Cecil Sharp House, revealing a spiritual joy observed in the stick clashing of morris dancers.Other pieces in the exhibition are linked by their backwardness, their invertedness, and the fact that food is in such plentiful supply in the land of Lubberland that even the very buildings are constructed from it.

The animated video “lumps of plum pudding and pieces of pie” tells a sorry tale of gluttony and force feeding in a literal take on the solo morris jig. ‘Where Does This Noble Doctor Come From?’ is a map of the world turned upside-down re-outlining the quack doctor’s travel anecdote, with the addition of talking pigs and pancake thatching.

The exhibition continues until 31 March 2010.

Bruegel the Elder, Peter. The Land of Cockaigne. 1567:

Pleij, Herman. Dreaming of Cockaigne. Trans. Diane Webb. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

Cockaigne to Diddy Wah Diddy : Fabulous Geographies and Geographic Fabulations Minton J. Folklore vol 102:i, 1991

Matthew Cowan is a New Zealand born artist who has been working in the UK since 2001. His practice delves into traditional British and European customs. His works are photographs, videos, installations and performances, which play with the inherent strangeness of the continued popularity of long established folk customs in a modern world. Recent shows have been in London, Newcastle upon Tyne, Poland and New York. During 2009 he has been Artist in Residence at Cecil Sharp House, the headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

www.matthewcowan.net

New Work: 'Lumps of Plum Pudding & Pieces of Pie'

2009-12-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Lumps of Plum Pudding & Pieces of Pie from Matthew Cowan on Vimeo.

2009-12-04T03:03:00.002-08:00

'To Lubberland' a new exhibition by Matthew Cowan

2009-12-04T03:03:00.001-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------
'To Lubberland' - a new exhibition by Matthew Cowan to open at the home of Folk

Exhibition dates:

11 December 2009 - 31 March 2010

Private view and performance with inflatable castle: Thursday 10 December 6.30pm at Cecil Sharp House.

Matthew Cowan has been the artist in residence at Cecil Sharp House, London throughout 2009. As an artist and curator he has been involved in directing and developing the visual arts at Cecil Sharp House (home of EFDSS), and over seventy artists have been involved in exhibitions and live art events during the year. The upcoming solo exhibition, 'To Lubberland' presents works he has made during this time.

This new work draws on the underlying influence of the medieval fantasy-land 'Cockaigne' in the folk consciousness. Topsy-turvy travelogues by quack doctors, plum pudding force feeding by overbearing mothers, and a new take in neon based quite literally on Cecil Sharp House itself, all contribute to this new show. The works serve to literally map a path to Lubberland, exploring the underlying theme of 'inverted place' and its fantastic promise of luxury, whilst referring to the observation first noted in the 1820s that London is itself a version of Cockaigne.

The exhibtion includes a specially created new piece in neon, an anagram of Cecil Sharp House that nods towards the joy of Morris Dancing.

The private view on 10 December 6.30 - 8.30 will host a performance by the artist, involving a Morris Dance and an inflatable Bouncy Castle set up especially in Kennedy Hall.

The show contains a new video piece based on the Cotswold Morris jig, "lumps of plum pudding" from the village of Bledington, made up of hundreds of still images. The film is a literal and contemporary take on the dance, which has an accompyanying song - a sorry tale of lies, plum pudding and death.

The exhibition will continue until 31 March 2010.

The exhibition will be on show at Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Road, London NW1 7AY

www.efdss.org tel: 0207 485 2206

Davey Graham Concert

2009-11-26T15:57:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

I have been helping out Stewart Morgan with the organisation of an exhibition at the Davey Graham concert. The exhibition in Storrow, in the basement at Cecil Sharp House showcases some of the record covers from his early career, and together with a number of quotes from his contemporaries paints a picture of his contribution to folk music.

Also on display is his guitar, which will be auctioned off soon.

Davey Graham Concert

2009-11-14T10:46:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Davy Graham:
A Life in Celebration
Saturday 28 November, 2 - 11pm
http://www.efdss.org/news.htm#davygraham

Martin Carthy and friends: Doors 2pm – 5pm
Evening concert: Doors 7pm – 11pm

The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) is honored to host a day of events celebrating the life of Davy Graham, ‘probably England's greatest guitarist’
(Paul Simon).

Davy Graham: A Life in Celebration brings together such luminaries of the folk and blues world as Martin Carthy, Ralph McTell, Wizz Jones and Sam Carter, with many more very special guests to be confirmed.

Davy Graham (1940 – 2008), through a unique and eclectic mixture of folk, blues, jazz, Middle Eastern sounds, and Indian ragas, was one of the most influential figures in the 1960s folk music revival in Britain. Probably best-known for his acoustic instrumental ‘Anji’, Graham inspired many practitioners (and imitators) of the finger style acoustic guitar. Indeed, his influence on musicians such as Bert Jansch, Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Ray Davies (The Kinks), Johnny Marr (The Smiths) and Graham Coxon (Blur), to name but a few, highlight the huge debt the British music scene owes to his music.

Mumchance and Guise Procession

2009-11-06T04:08:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Mumchance and Guise Procession & Performances at Cecil Sharp House

2009-11-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Gery Georgieva's "Autoethnography; Doing My Own Little Thing"

Woody's Traditional One Man Band

Megan Broadmeadow's one woman many charactered Mummers Performance:

Terry Frisch's Fool, distributing Soul Cakes to the audience:

Matthew Cowan's Morris Bellman peforming on the summit of Primrose Hill:

Mumchance and Guise | Procession & Performance

2009-10-23T03:52:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Saturday 31 October, from 4.15pm, free

This Procession and Performance is part of the archives and artefacts exhibition, 'Mumchance and Guise' at Cecil Sharp House. The event will begin at sunset (between 4.30 and 5pm) with a twilight procession of disguised performers and musicians from nearby Primrose Hill. The eclectic group will make the short walk to Cecil Sharp House, Trefusis Hall where a series of performances will take place.

Come in disguise and join the procession or simply watch the procession and following performances at Trefusis Hall. Artists from the exhibition at Cecil Sharp House will showcase a series of performances that tap into the dark underbelly of folk customs and disguise, using essential folk elements in presenting new performances by contemporary artists from the UK and Europe.

Meet in your own disguise at 4.15pm at the top of Primrose Hill

2009-10-21T04:54:00.000-07:00

Apple Day

2009-10-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Join EFDSS and BBC Radio 3's Late Junction presenter Verity Sharp in a day of music, dancing, storytelling, crafts, games and all things appley as we celebrate Apple Day 2009.

Family Afternoon, 2-5pm
£6 adults, £4 conc.

Dance your socks off, listen to stories, sing apple songs, join in craft workshops, play apple games and eat apples. An afternoon for all ages with the Black Pig Band, story teller Debs Newbold, artist Matthew Cowan and singer Sam Lee.

Evening Performance, 8-11pm
£12 adv.

The days events culminate to performances from Anglo-Australian super-trio Kerr Fagan Harbron and groundbreaking English string quartet Methera as they team up for a virtuoso evening of music.

Apple Day

2009-10-21T03:42:00.001-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Above is the completed 'Apple Pie house' that was started for the Apple Day curated by Verity Sharp at Cecil Sharp House, and finished a few days later. It is made from over 200 packets of Sainsbury's own apple pies, some pancakes, some wire, and some cardboard.

I think I might have ruined my future enjoyment of Apple Pies for quite some time.

SHARE craft workshops

2009-10-18T04:52:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday 21 October
SHARE craft workshops
3-6pm, Free

Working in partnership with MLA and the Design Museum, the EFDSS is hosting an afternoon of drop in workshops designed to encourage a better awareness of the varied craft skills behind some of the sensitive artefacts from the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library's archive which are currently on display in the Mumchance & Guise exhibition at Cecil Sharp House.

Over 10 craft practitioners will be on hand to share their skills and techniques including basketry, beading, paper craft and felt stitching. Also, join visual artist in residence Matthew Cowan in the making of traditional paper mummers' costumes. Use this opportunity to make your own 'disguise' for the Mumchance & Guise performance event at Cecil Sharp House on Halloween.

2009-09-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

New Exhibition: Mumchance and Guise

2009-09-12T03:52:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

mumchance & guise

Friday 25 September - Saturday 28 November

Open: Monday to Friday (and some Saturdays) 10am to 6pm

Admission free

A new exhibition showcasing artifacts from the English Folk Dance and Song Society archives alongside new works by contemporary artists.

The performance of folk dance and ritual inevitably involves costumes and forms of disguise. This camouflage enshrouds folk performers and transforms them, removing them from everyday existence, separating performer and community.

Most folk costumes are precious, unique, hand-made and purpose built objects. This new exhibtion at Cecil Sharp House draws together some amazing costume artifacts from the EFDSS archives and shows them alongside costumes and performance works from contemporary artists whose work is concerned with tradition and folk ritual.

Included in the show are a selection of dolls which depict folk and dancing costumes from both English and European traditions. Some of these have been donated from visiting folk dancers, and some were made especially for EFDSS.

The works by contemporary artists have all been involved in performances, and they all bear traces of their ritual use. These costumes, and the performances they are involved in are very much ‘folk’ but all have at least an added extremity to them that highlights the strangeness and the joy of ritual disguise and performance.

Artists:
Megan Broadmeadow
Matthew Cowan
Tim Johnson
Michelle Bloom
Gery Georgieva

www.efdss.org

Where Does This Noble Doctor Come From?

2009-08-26T02:39:00.001-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

In the mummers play recorded at Longborough in 1923 the doctor lines are very special.
In his speech, the doctor outlines the following journey:

"I went down a long lane, a short lane, a narrow lane, a wide lane, and I come to a house built with apple dumplings and thatched with pancakes."

The doctor is of course refering to the topsy turvy world often alluded to in Mummers Plays. He goes on to mention maids, dogs, hedges and blood - all inversions of sense and order.

A very special street that I lived just around the corner from for many years in Tynemouth, but never dared venture down is Back Front Street.

2009-08-26T02:21:00.000-07:00

New Work: Exotic England, A Morris Tour by Bus. Cecil Sharp House

2009-08-14T04:24:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

James Johnson Perkins & Sarah Foque: New Work at Cecil Sharp House

2009-08-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Saint George and the Dragon

2009-07-26T15:56:00.001-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Open Studio

2009-07-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------
I am over half way through my residency at Cecil Sharp House.
As part of the opening of the new work by James Johnson-Perkins and Sarah Foque, I had an open studio for a couple of days to showcase the work that I have been developing.

There are some sculptures and wall based pieces. My favourite is the sculpture that I have made from a broken set of practice Abbots Bromley Horn Dance horns.

At the moment all roadsigns are pointing to Cockaigne. Its both a low road and a high road to travel.

James Johnson-Perkins and Sarah Foqué: New Work

2009-07-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Sarah Foqué & James Johnson-Perkins: New Work
10 July – 29 August 2009
Open: 10 – 6pm, Tuesday – Saturday

private view: 6pm, Thursday 9th July
Cecil Sharp House
2 Regents Park Road
Camden
London
NW1 7AY

nearest tube: Camden Town

The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) are pleased to present
an exhibition of new site specific work from artists Sarah Foqué and
James Johnson-Perkins.

Through vividly coloured materials, both artists will respond to the
Cecil Sharp House building, the home of the EFDSS, as a starting point
for work as they attempt to directly interact with its community and
interior.

Responding to a site's history and the movement of people through it,
Sarah Foqué creates installations with straight bands of colour.
Drawing on histories of philosophy and anthropology, Foqué focuses on
the mapping and exploration of space and boundaries. Typically using
coloured tape as a material to visualise her understanding of the
space she is working in, Foqué will create a fluid portrait of the
space and its activities, alluding to traditional dance figures.

James Johnson-Perkins utilises references to popular culture of the
1980s to create works of play and nostalgia. His installation,
spanning all four storeys of the building stairwell, will attempt to
build the tallest structure ever made from Mega-Bloks. This
construction will represent an absurd May Pole in the centre of the
building, at odds with the surrounding architecture.

Artist-in-residence Matthew Cowan will be holding a free open studio
event during the private view and on Friday 10 July, 10am - 5pm.

http://efdss.org/news.htm#artistsnewwork

a Hawk and a Hacksaw

2009-06-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

I saw Hack and a Hacksaw play in Kennedy Hall last night. I was sharing my space with them for a bit in the afternoon. The sound was not the best, but it did mean that they decided to forgo the PA system and play in the dark in the middle of the room for quite a while.

Everyone gathered round them like a fight in a playground.

Also, it was my first time seeing a trumpet violin played.

The House: Architecture

2009-06-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

As an 'artist in residence' it seems pretty important to be thinking about the building that you are resident in. Cecil Sharp House has a resonance that stretched around the world to me in Auckland, when Morris Dance was first revealing itself to me, and I visited it first in the 1990s.

The headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song society sounded like a repository of unrivalled and strange folk knowledge. The Vaughn Williams Memorial Library and Archives certainly fulfull this promise even if the main library room itself, which initially took control of Sharp's personal library has long since overflowed upstairs and downstairs into other archive spaces. The building itself is much more than a house for the library and a dancing hall however.

This year I have an opportunity to spend more time in 'the House' and think about how people use its spaces. Its pretty apparent from spending a few months working here that the building means a lot of different things to a lot of different communities. A good proportion of the rooms and halls are in constant use, hired out to users as practice halls, exam venues, a theatre school, salsa dance venue, a vintage clothes fair and a variety of choir practice spaces.

This gives the building a feeling that it is owned by much more than just the folk community, with up to a thousand people coming through the doors each week. This leads me to think about the existence of 'folk' in cities and how the EFDSS work as a folk art centre. I guess the history of the building is at the core of an urban folk locus in London, and has been since its inception. Even though the actual location of 'folk' occuring could be anywhere from a city pub to playground to a country fete, the focus for the drawing together of the national character of folk - especially the vital role that the archives and library play in this, is at the essence of what Cecil Sharp House is about.

A book by Brenda Godrich, 'the Building of Cecil Sharp House' details the history of the building.

The images in the book show the building before it was bombed during the Second World War, and the subsequent rebuilding work. (Though it must have been a tragic event at the time, having only just been finished, I understand the logic of the Luftwaffe in their targetting of Cecil Sharp House. To the Nazi era German army the folk repository must have seemed like a pretty important target.) Its a great shame that the building today doesn't reflect the simple grandeur of the original. Its obvious from the strange backwards and sideways facing entraceway, and extra walls inserted in the foyer area, that the last half century has seen a number of unconcerted and half hearted alterations.

Thankfully in the last month one such alteration - an annoying an unnecessary steel security gate is going to be removed. It will restore visual access to the impressive central staircase and at least open up the lobby area. It will remove any obstacles to hanging artwork in this space too.

As Cecil Sharp House means so much to so many people, I am becoming interested in how they actually use the building. I'm currently working with some artists who are going to create new work that will directly relate to people's use of the space, and its site.

Folky, Folkie lecture at Cecil Sharp House

2009-05-17T16:04:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday I gave a talk as part of a series of lectures at Cecil Sharp House called 'What the Folk?', as the artist in residence. I chose to talk about my work in terms of the insider/outsider poles that seem to define the folk world and making art that deals with folk.

I guess the definitions I am working with are:

FOLKIE: a person who defines themselves as a lover of folk music and culture. In particular they are likely to attend folk festivals and events, and have a rigourous definition of what 'folk' means to them, and what it should mean to others.

FOLKY: contemporary artwork of the kind that references folk motifs, folkore, folk tradations and costumes, but is definitely not Folk Art itself.

It was a talk to an audience richly knowledgable on folk topics but not so much on contemporary art and artists. I got asked questions like

'why do you feel the need to change traditions as part of your work'

and

'is folk art?'.

These are pretty big questions that an artist could spend a whole career trying to answer. My instinctive answers though didn't take that long, and I feel like perhaps because I am coming from an insider's perspective (as a folk practicioner) I have a bit more licence to alter certain aspects of folk traditions or imagery for the purposes of making an artistic statement. The answer to the second question would really depend on context, and in answering it I retreated to the contextual corner. As more and more artists work with folk thematically and directly in their work it seems less like a question about whether or not it is art, but why there is such a move to re-examine it in artworks.

'What the Folk?' lecture at Cecil Sharp House

2009-05-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Saturday 16 May / Saturday 30 May
What the Folk? Lectures
1pm, £5, Free to enrolled Saturday Workshop Students

The What the Folk? Lecture series continues with EFDSS artist-in-residence Matthew Cowan on Saturday 16 May. Folky, Folkie will provide fascinating insight into his art practice, debate of folks relationship to the art world and enlightenment to the current exhibition at the house, Flash Company.

British Film Institute

2009-05-08T05:15:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Last night I went to the British Film Institute on the South Bank.

Jigs & Rituals: British Folklore on Film
Mysterious, eerie, colourful and rousing – the folk customs of the British Isles are all these things and more. The films presented tonight, in part drawn from a recent donation to the BFI from the English Folk Dance and Song Society, offer a range of approaches to documenting these dances and traditions. Highlights include Oss Oss Wee Oss (1952) a beautiful and evocative documentary about a 'sexy, savage springtime rite' (made by blues song-hunter Alan Lomax), a newly restored early sound film of folk musician Sam Bennett (1926) and the 'what-the-butler-saw' type Kinoras of Cecil Sharp and George Butterworth dancing over 100 years ago and accompanied tonight by a traditional fiddle player.

The BFI were showing some films that EFDSS have recently donated to them. These included some very old restored footage of Sam Bennett of Ilmington dancing Morris jigs and playing fiddle for a girls Morris team.

There was a live fiddle player playing along to some of the dances which included footage of old staid Cecil Sharp himself dancing. Some of these had been restored to digital from Kinora cards.

The footage of Sam Bennett looked to me like a man dancing in an extremely casual way. An untrained eye might have even mistaken his dancing for a parody of a morris jig, with hankies and knees all over the place. I loved it.

Sam Bennett

Flash Company Private View

2009-04-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

Images from the Prviate View at Cecil Sharp House, 29th April 2009.
Sam Lee singing Flash Company, and the Hammersmith Morris Men performing jigs.

Exotic England: Tour By Bus

2009-04-26T02:41:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------
The handbook of Morris Dances by Lionel Bacon is practically a bible for morris dancers, and in my time has settled numourous disputes and disagreements on style, stepping and figures.

The book lists the traditions of the dances collected by Cecil Sharp and presents them alphabetically, by the names of the places where they were recorded. The dances have come to have been known by these placenames.

I am also especially fond of the dance notation that Mr Bacon employs. It is an improvement on Cecil Sharp's and has a humour all of its own.

Here is a googlemap of these villages should anyone wish to drive through them all.

View Cotswold Morris Villages by Destination in a larger map

Click here to view the finished painting

Flash Company. A Handkerchief Show at Cecil Sharp House

2009-04-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

A Handkerchief Show at Cecil Sharp House

Continuing a visual arts programme under the curation of artist-in-residence Matthew Cowan, the English Folk Dance and Song Society is pleased to present Flash Company, A Handkerchief Show at Cecil Sharp House.This exhibition is a group show of new work by a diverse range of contemporary artists from the UK, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, U.S.A and Japan taking as a starting point a humble white handkerchief. Artists working in a wide range of media have been invited to take part, and all have been sent a single handkerchief with which to work. The resulting works will be hung at Cecil Sharp House, the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

Looking beyond their prime role in the dancing kit of Morris dancers, handkerchiefs have a rich history in the framework of society. From high fashion to perfect manners and sexual politics, the handkerchief has played its part as an essential accessory. The show takes its name from the folk song of the same name, a jaunty tale of handkerchiefs and ruin.The finished works will be hung in Cecil Sharp House throughout May and June, and entry to the show is free.
30 April – 28 June (Tues - Sat, 10am - 6pm)

Click HERE for the full exhibition website.

Artists Participating in the show:

Lawrence Abu-Hamdan, David Beech, Mike Berners-Winters, Catherine Bertola, Bishi & Giles Pearson, Michelle Bloom, Gwen Brinton, Gail Burton, Maurice Carlin, Ele Carpenter, Billy Childish, Emma Cowan, Matthew Cowan, Michael Davies, Alec Finlay, David Foggo, Sarah Foque, Mami Fujita, Jon Garlick, Rachael Gorchov, James Johnson-Perkins, Paul Hearn/Lustrous Chemistry, Zuzana Lola Hruskova, Lee Hunter, Kathryn Johnson, Alan Kane, Maiko Kobayashi, Serena Korda, Sonya Lacey, John Lawrence, Sam Lee, Caterina Lewis, Hayley Lock, Peter Locke, Cathy Lomax, Anna Maltz, Hannah Maybank, David McKeren, Pete McPartlan, Erin O'Connor, David Owen, Hyungji Park, Michal Pashtan & Matthew Green, Clare Qualmann, Nic Rawling, Adam Rompel, Marianne Shorten, Helen Smith, Rose Smith, John Stark, Keara Stewart, Matt Stokes, Maggie Tran, Clare Undy, Graeme Walker, Clare Wilson

Private View: 29 April, 6pm
Cecil Sharp House
2 Regents Park Road
LONDON
NW1 7AY
www.efdss.org

Master Your Own Mummers Disguise!

2009-04-08T01:54:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

I'm running a workshop at Chalk Farm Library on making Mummer's costumes on 17th April with Debs Newbold. We are going to make complete head to foot disguises from copies of the Camden New Journal.

There will also be chocolate.

from the Love Spray Series

2009-03-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

----------------------------------------------------------

I have finished my submission for the Flash Company exhibition. Its part of a series that I am working on, inspired by a can of LOVE SPRAY that I bought in New York a few years ago.

The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain

2009-02-20T14:29:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------
The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain have their office next door to the room that I am working in at Cecil Sharp House. They have been very kind in letting me borrow an internet connection from them recently, and I got a chance to see them play live in Kennedy Hall last night.
They are true masters of adapting wild variations of hip tunes for their 'ukes'. Perhaps though their most endearing quality is the incongruous size of their instruments. Ukeleles look absurd in the hands of large grown men and women.

Their audience is particularly loyal and it was obvious most people there were not in their audience for the first time.

Rock and Roll.

Handkerchief Show: Flash Company

2009-02-17T06:29:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

I have decided that the first show that I curate at Cecil Sharp House will be a Handkerchief Show. I am still sorting out the details of what this will involve, but I am interested in approaching a wide range of artists to make work on a single blank handkerchief.

With the help of Peta in the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library, I have been researching references to handkerchiefs in folk song, and unsurprisingly, given its rich symbolism there are a lot of references. Perhaps the most well known though is the Song Flash Company, with its reference to a Yellow Handkerchief: "take this yellow handkerchief in rememberance of me..."

So there is the title for the show. Perhaps the tale of ruin and poverty caused by high living and abandon is an apt metaphor for the artists of our time. We'll see.

Making Folk [into] Art in Cecil Sharp House

2009-02-02T05:14:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

I like to describe my art practice as lying between the positions of an outsider (in the UK) and an insider (in the folk world). I mention this on the statement at the beginning of my website:

"Matthew Cowan’s practice is in the realm of traditional British and European customs. His works are photographs, videos, installations and performances, which play with the inherent strangeness of the continued popularity of long established folk customs in a modern world.

These works can be viewed as mock folk performances in themselves, playing with the elements of folk rituals that give people a link to the past. In particular, the English have peculiar relationship with their folk traditions that is part uneasiness about their past, and part fascination with spectacle and long established ritual.

In investigating the celebration and performance of folk traditions, a primary theme is the presence of humour and subversion of the usual social order. This comical reversal is a key to understanding the point of people’s enjoyment of folk and ritual traditions."

It is a strange feeling then to arrive to begin an artist in residence program at somewhere like the English Folk Dance and Song Society, and find that the works that I have been making in the recent past feel very different when I place them in this building. It is fairly obvious to me straight away that my position is as a contemporary artist, who works with the ideas and concepts of 'folk' traditions - rather than as a folk performer who presents his work as art. I notice this as I bring sculptures like the Four Hobby Horses of the Apocalypse and begin to hang them in my studio. They look as if they belong in this building, and that is the alarming thing to me. I have always enjoyed how out of context these objects, which look like Folk objects, appear in a contemporary art setting. When they are at the English Folk Dance and Song Society, their absurdity disappears.

I was not expecting this to happen!

2009-01-15T06:31:00.000-08:00

----------------------------------------------------------

An Artist in Residence at Cecil Sharp House

2009-01-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

This is the beginning of an archive of activity during my residency at Cecil Sharp House, the headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society during 2009. I am working as artist in residence and will be working on curating and education projects as well as using the House as a base for my practice over the coming year. Hopefully I will find some space in the busy building to make some new work, and make use of the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library. I'm hoping to as expand my folk expertise too, and meet some of the wide and varied communities that use Cecil Sharp house.

Cecil Sharp House has always had an exotic air to me, and since I first arrived at the library for a research visit during a short trip from New Zealand in 1999, it has seemed like a dazzling archive of folk knowledge and material. The library still has a familiar smell to it, and is obviously overcrowded with amazing volumes of folk tunes and folklore from around the world. The building itself is from another age, an age where grand national and dare I say it political ideas of what folk culture itself was are different from what we know it to be today. Having recently returned from an arts residency project in Poland, where I saw first hand the centrally funded folk arts institutes and organisations that operate on a regional basis, I am hoping to get a better feel for how things work in England over the course of the coming months.

At this stage its almost too much to process and find a place to begin as an artist. I like to think of myself as an agent from the Antipodes sent on behalf of the Morris and Sword dancers of Aotearoa, and I will duly report back on my findings and work in these pages over throughout the year.

Matthew Cowan
January 2009