Who are the Foggy Bottom Morris Men?

The Foggy Bottom Morris Men perform morris dance at festivals, private events, street-corners, and drinking establishments. As you can see in our photos, we are a fine bunch of fellows who know how to have fun - wouldn't you like to be one of us?

What is morris dancing, you ask? It is a lively English folk dance, invigorated by clashing sticks, flashing handkerchiefs, and jangling bells, performed to the beat of toe-tapping live music from a concertina, accordion, and sometimes a fiddle and a drum. We perform what are known as Cotswold morris dances (from villages in the beautiful English Cotswold region near Oxford), as well as wild-looking Border Morris dances, sword dances, and (in the Winter Holiday season) a mummer's play.

See our FAQ page for more information

It is our goal to keep this energetic and fun tradition going by introducing it to the next generations. With a little advance notice, we are available to explain, demonstrate and engage any audience in this unique dance form. Beyond our regular public venues, we have also recently performed/taught at:

  • the Takoma Park (MD) Library for their winter holiday celebration;
  • Fort Hunt Elementary School (VA) as part of an after-school English culture unit where we had a large number of excited fourth through sixth graders up and dancing; and
  • at Walt Whitman High School in Montgomery County, MD during their Shakespeare Festival where we taught about fifty teenagers a dance!
  • at a private May Merriment celebration in 2010 in Cleveland Park!

Team Songs

We are a singing team, and enjoy belting out a variety of songs from sea shanties to ballads to our own creations. It would be pointless to list all the songs we sing, but we list here a compendium of the lyrics to songs written by or about the Foggy Bottom Morris Men.

All songs are copyrighted as noted, and can be reprinted or recorded with permission only. Singing them at pubs, though, is just fine.

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