Who are our dancers and musicians?    People just like you. Unlike many Morris-dancing sides, we welcome males and females from all backgrounds and ages. Currently, our youngest dancer is 15 and our oldest is, well, young middle-aged!? We all get on really well and have even been on holiday together to Ireland, the Isle of Wight and Jersey – with and without dancing!

But aren’t you all experienced dancers and musicians?    Far from it! Very few, if any of us, had danced or played a folk instrument before we joined HuMP and many fewer knew anything about Morris. What we do all have in common, though, is a willingness to learn and a good sense of humour! We like to put on a good show for our audiences when we dance ‘out’ but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We just like to have fun in good company.

Where do HuMP perform?/What do you do?   Historically, Morris-dancing is very much rooted in the community and HuMP are passionate about keeping up that tradition. As such, a lot of our performances take place around our base in Hurst village, Berkshire (see Where we practise) and out and about in Berkshire and surrounding counties. In a typical dancing season, we perform at anything from local village or church fetes to larger events like the Henley Show, to old folks’ homes and schools! We also go further afield, taking part in a number of major folk festivals outside our region every year at places like Wimborne, Chippenham, Hay-on-Wye etc We quite often teach our dances to any group that wants to have a go; from scout groups to school children to the WI and the Rotary Club, most recently. One of our members also teaches Maypole dancing.

Exciting stuff...

We seem to get invited to do loads of interesting stuff.  Everything from the National Pipe Smoking Championships to Henley Regatta to private parties in stately homes!  Of late, we seem to have become darlings of the broadcast media.  Not boasting or anything but we've appeared on the Beeb a few times now, were on ITV recently, and have been interviewed/recorded for various national and local radio programmes.  All great fun!