Margaret Morris: Inspirations
by Anna Carlisle
As of July 2022, we must announce that plans for a 2023 touring production of Margaret Morris: Inspirations will not be going ahead as planned.
We have spent four years researching the life and work of the twentieth-century movement pioneer Margaret Morris and meeting a lot of wonderful new friends along the way, many of them expert practitioners. Sadly, however, our application to national funding bodies to support a touring production in 2023 have not borne the necessary fruit!
Anna Carlisle wishes to thank all those who so enthusiastically and generously assisted with the research and development of the production. She would particularly like to thank:
Gail Borrows Gillian Goldberger Helen Gould Jacqueline Harper Ruth Jeayes Sara Lockwood
Kay Morrison Ilyana Nedkova Agnes Ness Janice Parker Wendy Timmons Barbara West
Please see below for footage and images of our very rewarding development workshops and events: at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh on November 8th 2019 ; at Dance Base, Edinburgh on November 9th 2019; and at Hebden Bridge Town Hall on March 7th 2020.
And remaining undaunted, we are able to offer you a chance to hear the play that resulted from our years of hard work. The reading – by professional actors - will be accompanied by an exhibition of photographs and film spanning the extraordinary 70 years of movement work of Margaret Morris, and information about the organization (Margaret Morris Movement International) that continues to teach her methods all over the world.
So please do come to the following exciting event:
Some background on Margaret Morris:
Margaret Morris founded her famous movement method – MMM – 112 years ago: in 1910 at the age of 19 – with its origins in the six key classical Greek poses. MMM evolved – throughout the decades of the early twentieth century and over the period of two World Wars – into a comprehensive recreational, therapeutic, athletic and creative system of movement and exercise for all ages.
Margaret Morris’ early start in the world of professional dance was facilitated by her encounter with Raymond Duncan (brother of Isadora) and her connection with the novelist and playwright John Galsworthy. Subsequently, Margaret established annual MMM summer schools in both Britain and the south of France, set up a series of permanent schools in London, Paris and key British cities for the teaching of dance, music and painting, and implemented a significant teacher-training programme – all with the support, encouragement and artistic input from her life partner the Scottish ‘Colourist’ painter J D Fergusson.
Morris’ work outside her own schools encompassed demonstrating in hospitals and rehabilitation centres; instructing athletes and military trainees; giving mobility to disabled children; and offering exercise regimes to neo-natal and post-maternity women. Although the intervention of the second World War led to the closure of most of her schools, her annual summer schools continued with barely a year missed – right up to 2019 – and, post-War, she established the Celtic Ballet Company (and later the Scottish National Ballet) which toured to the US and Europe.
Margaret Morris’ training of dance and movement teachers continues to this day, with the Margaret Morris Movement International continuing to be a vital organisation, drawing together teachers and participants of all ages and from a wide range of countries, meeting annually at the MMMI summer school in the south of England.
Margaret Morris’ chief legacy was a system of movement practicable and achievable by people of all ages and most abilities. She left us with an enjoyable way of exploring and building trust in our body’s potential and the poetry of its movements, to enhance the quality of our daily lives and extend our capacities into older age.
Margaret’s life story combines ambition, passion, conflict and gigantic personal achievement. Her ‘suffragette’ instincts, cultivated in her girlhood by her mother, stood her in fine stead. She was a feisty, formidable and flamboyant character who gave scant attention to any contemporary obstacles to her march through life. On the career and collaborative levels, she was a force to be reckoned with. On matters of the heart, she was convention-breaking. On the matter of dance and movement, she was emphatic: that the beauty of glowing good health and perfect co-ordination could be experienced by everyone, despite their different abilities.
Introducing MMM: day workshop in Hebden Bridge, March 7th 2020
‘If there were an MMM class here, I would come.’ ‘I arrived in pain, and I leave pain-free. Thank you.’ ‘Loved it. Thank you!!’
‘Will recommend it for others.’ ‘Thanks for bringing it here.’
On 7th March 2020 Heroica conducted a very successful day workshop - Introducing MMM - at the Hebden Bridge Town Hall. Generously funded by the Hebden Royd Town Council, the Bearder Charity and the Clifton Foundation, we were able to offer to local and regional people, nearly all new to the Margaret Morris Method, two workshop sessions led by national expert MMM teachers.
Gail Borrows (from Marlow, Bucks.) and Sara Lockwood (from Dumfries & Galloway who teaches also in Edinburgh), both members of MMMI, taught and demonstrated the movement method to music, and then opened the sessions up to group improvisation. The morning session was specially tailored to elderly and less able people, offering them a simple, sometimes seated, set of movements to music; while the afternoon session – targeted specifically at local teachers of movement and therapy activities (e.g. yoga) but also for any members of the public who wished to attend – extended the morning’s basic work to offer a more intense and advanced level of MMM.
Introducing MMM was chiefly designed for all of us – Heroica, teachers, activity leaders and participants - to assess the potential benefit of embracing MMM within current movement practices, and to launch the idea of introducing MMM classes in Hebden Royd as a major contributor to local people’s health and well-being. It was a free event, involving 24 participants coming from as far away as York and Sheffield but mostly local Hebden Royd residents. The majority were female and over 60 years of age, but both men and young adult age-groups were represented. Only a handful had ever done MMM before, even though at least six who came were dance specialists or movement and therapeutic activity practitioners.
And in the middle of the day, for everyone’s enjoyment and motivation, Sara Lockwood gave a special solo demonstration to music of the beauty and skill of the Margaret Morris Movement system. To see Youtube film footage by Geoff Tansey of the demonstration, click the arrow on the screen below:
Gail and Sara were awe-inspiring: they elicited participants’ senses of enjoyment and achievement and helped people feel the inherent benefits of the MMM system. In the group Q&A session and open discussion which ended the day’s activities, participants expressed their sincere appreciation for the day’s expert and gentle tuition, and most declared themselves converts to the MMM cause!
We from Heroica found the day to be an invaluable exploration of ways to include practical, participatory MMM within our proposed theatre project Margaret Morris: The Honest Artist by Anna Carlisle, scheduled for 2021 or -22. Workshop participants got positively excited at the prospect of being involved in performances. They themselves suggested attending a daytime workshop as a ‘rehearsal’, then forming a ‘flash mob’ at an evening performance on the same date – becoming both the corps of dancers required for the scenes and encouragers to the audience to get out of (or stay in) their seats and become involved in the movement at those points of the play. And it was all our participants’ own idea! There was no dampening their collective enthusiasm!
Heroica would like to thank everyone involved in mounting, leading and attending this event and for helping to make it such a successful day. And coming as it did just prior to the Covid-19 national lockdown, what an active, healthy and sociable day to remember!
‘Where are the Women?’ at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
AND a day workshop in Edinburgh on Margaret Morris: The Honest Artist
In November 2019, Anna Carlisle (Angie Cairns) and Alexandra Mathie were invited by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh (via our long-time colleague Grainne Rice) to give a presentation, along with a range of other women speakers, at their ‘Friday Night Mixer Evening’ – entitled ‘Where are the Women?’.
To a warmly responsive audience of about 150, we presented an outline of our project in development, Margaret Morris: The Honest Artist, and we read a couple of excerpts from the working script. Sara Lockwood complemented and followed up our presentation with a beautiful and inspiring MMM demonstration, to music. Once again – as in 2015 when we last appeared at this event – it was a privilege to be part of a line-up of such creative and innovative women artists.
On the following day (November 9th) and with the help of development funding grant received from rag [Random Arts Giving] who previously supported Joan Eardley: A Private View), we conducted a one-day development workshop on Margaret Morris: The Honest Artist at The Augustine United Church and DanceBase, Edinburgh. We were joined by actors Molly Innes, Simon Donaldson, Carol Ann Crawford, Robin Laing and Fiona Macneil, MMM expert Sara Lockwood, dance historian Agnes Ness and two of our assistants originally from Hebden Bridge, Rachel and Christine Tansey, and we conducted
· a closed script reading and movement workshop
· a public movement and music session - led by Sara Lockwood, involving actors and audience, and
· a reading of sections of the current playscript Margaret Morris: The Honest Artist, followed by audience Q&A and discussion.
The day’s event was productive and useful. Following the afternoon’s script reading and MMM demonstration, we received interesting, helpful and supportive feedback from the group who attended as audience (including a Margaret Morris biographer and a Perth-based venue manager).
(In addition, in early November 2019, Heroica conducted an informal playscript reading at Hebden Bridge Town Hall, inviting participation by three actors: Charlotte West-Oram, Rachel Austin and Oliver Devoti. This was a useful and successful day.)