The Chinewrde Morris Miners (Kenilworth Carnival, 2016)

A group of Morris dancing Miners, after a busy early morning mining for Maurice’s made their weary way to the Kenilworth Carnival procession.

So - this year, how did the Chinewrde Carnival Collective do it?

Step 1:
As usual, we got a group of silly people together (and 1 bossy one)

Step 2:
We met up, had some tea and biscuits and started to come up with some ideas, and then…


…2 of us got confused and misinterpreted each other while the rest of the group were talking about ideas.

Louise thought that Jac was talking about Miners who were Morris dancing, and Jac thought Louise was talking about Morris Miners (the cars) or was it the other way around? Anyway, we started laughing and the idea was born…

The Chinewrde Morris Miners – preparations were under way! 

Step 3:
We downloaded a form from http://www.kenilworthcarnival.org.uk/carnival-day-events/

And filled it in, and conducted a risk assessment


Step 4:
We had a few meetings / socials / ‘rehearsals’ (a-hem – one rehearsal, oops!) and we had lots of FUN

Step 5:
We collected outfits, builder’s hats, and made some props and costumes

(oh and had more FUN)

Step 6:

We prepared for walking – well we thought about preparing (oops)

Step 7:
Friday evening – we finished our costumes, finished our props and had our chippy tea 

Step 8:
THE DAY

We got up ridiculously early

Had our bacon sandwiches!

The whole time, feeling as though we have all the time in the world… oooh I want ketchup on mine!!

Some of the group attached the dead canaries to the car, and worked on getting the sound system in place.

Then it was all hands to the decks as we realised that we were not at all ready, haven’t rehearsed our dance routine for the judging and OMG we had to move it!

So, we got into our costumes, had our make-up applied and then…

…everybody ran around screaming at each other in a blind panic because we didn’t think we would get to the Brays in time – AAAARRRRGH! It’s far too early!

Why can’t it be 2pm like it used to be!!!!!

And then, calmly we got to the Brays performing as we ‘danced’ past the judges in all our glory….

A-hem, the judges were late so that was a wasted routine!

Then the judges Came round to us and we performed effortlessly and perfectly and then it started to dawn on us that we probably should have rehearsed a bit more because actually Morris dancing is a lot harder than it looks – oops! (Luckily, since we are professionals I don’t think it showed!

FOR IT was CARNIVAL DAY, CARNIVAL DAY C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C- CARNIVAL DAY!!

Oh, yeah – we won the cup too!

Kenilworth Carnival, 2015

‘Still’

Carnival Day 2015: Saturday July 4^th

Firstly, we are never usually this late with our post about the day; however we had a fair share of difficulty in 2015. The main issue was that we were informed (rather late in the day) that the lorry could not be parked outside our base on the Friday evening.

Result: we pulled out of the Carnival for the first time in years. We are a small collective of family and Friends and we cannot put that lorry together on the carnival morning, it’s just not possible. Yes, we have many ideas on our list and we could have done a walking entry instead – but we had already spent money and finished a couple of costumes… besides, STILL was THE idea for 2015.

Thank goodness for the Carnival Committee, Peter Cox (KC sponsor) and The Guantlet pub

http://www.thegauntletkenilworth.co.uk/, who started supporting us right away with possible solutions, it meant that we were on hold, our costumes and our props were on hold while everything was planned and double checked to ensure we had a ‘base’ for the Friday evening to park the lorry and a base to start from on the Saturday.

Between them they saved the day for us, and we had 2 weeks to get ready. 2 weeks to finish our costumes (which take 4-6 weeks to make!!) and 2 weeks to make a Mickey Mouse! Thank goodness for that heat wave!

 

But we got there… in fact we pushed ourselves so fast and so far, we blinked and kind of missed the whole thing, we really have no memory of this year’s carnival and very few photos – hence why we have been so quiet - we got back home on the day thinking ‘did that just happen?’ Which is a shame as it was a really good idea, and such a fun thing to do… and we were so looking forward to it until the lorry thing happened.
 

Anyway, here we go:

The Chinewrde Carnival Collective entered Kenilworth Carnival 2015, as ‘Still’.

On the day there was a delivery of public statues to the carnival on the back of an articulated lorry, exhibited there were the following statues:

 

The statue of liberty (Louise)

 

Shakespeare (Craig)

 

Nerfertiti (Carole)

 

Chaplin (Ley)

 

The Unknown Soldier (Sara)

 

 

Nelson (Jac)

 

Athena (Jules)

 

Florence Nightingale (Veronica); Poseidon (Dennis); Disney (Abba); Angel of the North (Gra) & Christ the Redeemer (Rhys)

 

And something really strange happened to them whenever dance music was heard!

So, its 2016… we have some ideas (we also have confirmation that the Gauntlet will support us again – so if you’re hungry get yourself down there for a lovely meal!) and we will see you in July.