Isca Morrismen Foreign Adventures - Pisek Articles

After the Palacky Park show, the local newspapers go to town with their pictures and articles

followed by

Caption under photo:
Untiring dancers Isca Morrismen, in civilian clothes quite serious men,
dance in Palacky gardens. On the right is accordeon player Ann Tanner.

Article headed: Street Dancers give pleasure to life
It is presupposed that this dance arrived in Britain as part of a religious ceremony many centuries ago. It's steps and melodies survived many centuries thanks to Victorian folk chroniclers who wrote stories of old dancers. Most of the villages in all of Britain once had a group of dancers with their own dances and costumes. Descendants of these old dancers established an ensemble in 1976 which they called the Isca Morrismen, after the Isca Silurum Roman fortress of the 2nd Augustan Legion which was built on the site of the town of Caerleon in the old county of Gwent in North East Wales.

At the weekend 5 men danced through Pisek clothed in green 3/4 trousers, white shirts, jackets made from strips of material with knitted green caps and with sashes. Brian Cox, George Causley, Les Chittleburgh, Clif Strover and A J Foss, members of the ensemble Isca Morrismen, brought to Pisek not only the national colours of Wales (red, white and green) but many wonderful pieces of tradition. I hope the members will not be angry with me when I tell you that these are not 20 year old young men who inspired the women of Pisek into such admiration and commentary to their men. The result was that everybody was smiling including the untiring dancing men from Wales.

Les Chittleburgh said to us "We are enthusiastic, we meet here very friendly people and everybody is helpful towards us. We really like the town festival"  His words honour the organisers of the festival. The ensemble Isca Morrismen perform at home (in Wales) and in other places in Europe, at the folk clubs, at festive celebrations and at big folk festivals and performances in all Europe, often satisfying the interests of TV and Radio.

Though the traditional accompanying instrument is the violin, we've seen and heard in Pisek that it is also nice with the accordeon. "Originally our dance ensembles were only for men" said Brian Cox talking about accordeon player Ann Tanner, "but women musicians are now no longer an exception amongst the ensembles." The ensemble was dancing everywhere - in the Palacky gardens, in front of the castle and at the Kamenny bridge, where Les Chittleburgh said to me "I love it when old men like me dance a very old dance in very old costume at a very old bridge."

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