Britannia Coco-nut Dancers

The Nutters performing in 2007

The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers or Nutters are a troupe of Lancastrian clog dancers who perform every Easter in Bacup, dancing 7 miles (11 km) across the town.^[1] There are eight dancers and a whipper-in, who controls the proceedings.^[2]

Some say the custom was brought to the area by Moors who settled in Cornwall in the 17th century, became miners and then moved to work in quarries in Lancashire. Similar dances are performed in Provence – the Danse des Coco.^[3] This troupe was formed as the Tunstead Mill Nutters in 1857 when it was one of a group of five which performed in the Rossendale valley. They passed on their tradition to workers at the Britannia Mill in the 1920s. Their dances feature floral hoops or garlands; the musical accompaniment is provided by a concertina or the Stacksteads Silver Band.^[2][4]

Their name refers to the wooden nuts worn at their knees, waists and wrists, which are made from the tops of bobbins.^[5] These are tapped together like castanets as a percussive accompaniment to the dance, the nuts on the hands striking the nuts on the waist or knees in an intricate and dextrous rhythm.^[6] They wear white turbans with blue plumes, dark jerseys and trews, a white baldric, red and white skirts, white hose and black clogs.^[7][8][9]

Their faces are blackened. This is either a reference to the dancers' origin as Barbary pirates or a disguise to ward off evil spirits.^[7]

The main annual performance is on Easter Saturday, but rehearsals take place weekly throughout the year and form a social occasion.^[10] One long-standing member of the troupe was Dick Shufflebottom, whose service of 50 years was celebrated in 2006.^[11]

Reviews

AA Gill, writing in The Sunday Times, described them as bizarrely compelling:^[12]

The dance begins with each Nutter cocking a hand to his ear to listen to something we human folk can’t catch. They then wag a finger at each other, and they’re off, stamping and circling, occasionally holding bent wands covered with red, white and blue rosettes that they weave into simple patterns. It’s not pretty and it’s not clever. It is, simply, awe-inspiringly, astonishingly other. Morris men from southern troupes come and watch in slack-jawed silence. Nothing in the civilised world is quite as elementally bizarre and awkwardly compelling as the Coco-nutters of Bacup.

See also

• Garland dance
• Molly dance
• Saddleworth Morris Men

References

1. ^ Roy Christian (1967), Old English customs, Hastings House, p. 26 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Bacup Britannia Coconut Dancers", A dictionary of English folklore, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 9780192100191 
3. ^ Nigel Allenby Jaffé (1990), Folk dance of Europe, pp. 108–109, ISBN 9780946247141 
4. ^ Kenneth Fields (1998), Lancashire magic & mystery, p. 100, ISBN 9781850586067 
5. ^ Brian Shuel (1985), The National Trust guide to traditional customs of Britain, p. 46, ISBN 9780863500510 
6. ^ The Spectator 246: 49, 1981, "...their intricate coconut routine, beating up a brisk castanet-type rhythm by patting their hands, with discs on their palms, onto the discs on their waists and knees..." 
7. ^ ^{a b} Jeremy Hobson (2007), "Britannia Coconut Dancers", Curious Country Customs, David & Charles, p. 60, ISBN 9780715326589 
8. ^ Suzanne Cassidy (June 4, 1989), "England's Merry Morris Men", The New York Times 
9. ^ T Buckland (1986), "The Tunstead Mill Nutters of Rossendale, Lancashire", Folk Music Journal 5 (2), ISSN 0531-9684, JSTOR 4522204 
10. ^ Theresa Buckland (1994), Dance history, Routledge, p. 54, ISBN 9780415090308 
11. ^ "Fifty Years a Nutter", English dance and song (English Folk Dance and Song Society): 113, 2006 
12. ^ "AA Gill meets the morris dancers", The Sunday Times, August 9, 2009, http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/dance/article6740887.ece 

External links

• The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers of Bacup – official website
• The Most Unusual Dance in England? – from the BBC's Still Folk Dancing... After All These Years
• The Britannia Coco-nut Dancers of Bacup – performing at the Saddleworth Rushcart event in 2009