Abstract: Maypole dances have been a part of many countries’ traditions for centuries, as such, they appear in a range of media. This paper examines maypole dance’s portrayal in film and TV, with a particular focus on how the dances were used and what impact that may have on the wider public’s perception of the custom. For many, on-screen depictions are an introduction to traditions and dances they have not experienced in real life. As such, these depictions have the potential to shape their audience’s understanding of the dance, its function in society, and how to engage with the dance should they encounter it in real life. This has real world ramifications affecting the future of maypole dances, dance participation and transmission to future practitioners.

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Many countries’ maypole traditions have been adapted for screen, with varying degrees of accuracy, resulting in maypole traditions being recontextualized, mistaken, or compounded, even cross-culturally, by those creating the media and audiences alike. Midsommar and The Wicker Man in particular have had massive influences on the public’s perception of maypole dances – with many associating the dance with threat due to their use in the film.

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The various connotative uses of maypole dances, and maypole traditions more widely, are well established in media. Most obviously this can be seen in the divide between maypoles dances’ portrayal as quaint, pleasant and fun or threatening, creepy, horror. This paper explores this dichotomy in use and examines how these categories align with maypole dances’ framing as either a Christian or Pagan practice.

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This paper will be presented at the Early Dance Circle Biennial Conference 2026: European Early Dance: Creators, Creations and the Role of the Performer in May 2026.​

Abstract: The image of a maypole, surrounded by dancers weaving a pattern with long ribbons, is iconic to modern English expectations of maypole dances. This was not always the case, however, and the inclusion of handheld ribbons radically refocused the dance for dancers and audience members alike. The evolution of ribbons from a passive decorative feature to an expected component of modern maypole dance repertoire suggests a choreographic reprioritisation.

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This paper explores the connection between maypole dance’s reframing as a display dance and the predominance of ribboned dances - to the detriment of past ribbonless repertoire. The how, why, and when of ribbons’ active inclusion in maypole dances has been only briefly explored in academia, though their inclusion represents a massive alteration in the technique, practice, and experience of the dance. 

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Though the maypole has long been at the centre of maypole dances physically, the inclusion of ribbons as a significant element decentred the maypole conceptually. Focusing on maypole dance’s evolution from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, the results of ribbon’s inclusion are detailed and analysed with a particular focus on choreography, experience and intent.

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Presented at the 27th Annual Oxford Dance Symposium on the 23rd of April 2025.​

Summary: This lecture will explore the reconstruction of historic maypole dancing, and its associated traditions, with a focus on seventeenth century England. It will define maypole dances and discuss how a lack of research in this area has affected modern ideas of the dance. Primarily the lecture will detail the process of reconstructing this historical dance, and its associated paraphernalia, weaving together an image of what maypole dances looked like in the 1600s. Locating maypole traditions within seventeenth century culture, this lecture will also consider how dancers may have experienced these practices, and how that fed into the relationship dancers had with maypole traditions. To close the lecture will discuss the differences between modern and seventeenth century maypole dances, explore some of maypole dancing’s general history, and highlight its many forms and contexts both in England and beyond.

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Presented to the Early Dance Circle as their 2025 Annual Speaker on the 28th of February 2025. 

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​A recording of this talk can be found here.​

Project Title: Maypole Dance as Microcosm.

 

S​ummary: Bryony will present a talk outlining how the Ivor Guest Research Grant impacted her research by funding a research trip to archives in London. The research trip supported by this grant aimed to gather and analyse the histories and genealogies of maypole dancing by visiting major archives which contained non-digital sources integral to her research. As well as influencing her wider research, this trip’s impact on her PhD will be explored and key sources will be highlighted. In particular, the grant's influence on the direction of her thesis (Maypole Dancing as Microcosm: Performing Politics, Moralities and Identities in Seventeenth-Century England) will be explored, as will this study’s potential wider impact.  

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Presented to The Society for Dance Research on the 6th of November 2024. 

Abstract: Maypole dancing has long been a significant part of the English folk dancing landscape. This paper details and discusses the development of maypole dancing in England with a specific focus on key periods in the form’s history when it was revived, reimagined and/or refashioned to suit changing tastes and values. After decades of repression, maypole dancing experienced a significant revival due in part to the restoration of the monarchy in the 17th century, however, there is very little research examining why the people of the mid-1600s felt this dance was worth reviving. Though aspects of the dance have changed there is a consistency in intention – regarding nostalgia, an imagined past, and hopeful future.

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Presented at the Folk Dance: Grappling with Tradition conference in November 2023.

My talk covers the benefits, in relation to both teaching and creativity, of encouraging students to choose their own topics when making scenographically-led performance. In this context scenographically-led performance is defined as a performance where either a specific design element is the primary means of expression or where a performance could not succeed without a specifically created design element. This talk addresses both costume-led and set-led performance.

 

In conjunction with brief-led design exercises, giving students the freedom to pick their own topic has proven to increase their engagement and led to passion driven performances. This method also allows students to act as designer-directors – refining their own artistic approach via subjects in which they are passionate/interested.

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Presented at the Prague Quadrennial June 2019