Costume
The men's side of the Hong Kong Morris have always worn white trousers and shirts. Their baldricks, red and yellow with green highlights, are decorated with a badge representing a Chinese dragon behind a rapper sword knot. All three colours, but particularly red, are also considered lucky in Chinese tradition, and drew attention away from the men's white shirts and trousers. White is the colour worn at funerals in China, and is considered inauspicious. This costume was lightly modified in 1984.
The Hong Kong Morris colour palette (red, yellow and green) influenced the costume of the Vancouver Morris Men, one of Canada's most illustrious morris sides. Graham Baldwin, one of the earliest members of the Hong Kong Morris, founded the Vancouver Morris Men in 1982, and chose the same colours for the costume of the Vancouver side.
The costume of the Hong Kong Morris women's side has undergone a number of changes over the years, and proposals for further change continue to generate lively discussion at annual general meetings. The first women's costume consisted of a white blouse and a skirt available in a choice of three colours (light green, russet brown and pink). In 1984 this early costume was replaced with a uniform costume designed by Annette Frizell, consisting of a red skirt, a white blouse and a green waistcoat. At present many of the women dancers continue to wear the costume introduced in 1984, though some dancers prefer a modified open-neck version of the 1984-model white blouse. Other dancers wear the same costume as the men.
The sticks used by the side in its dances are wrapped in tape in three broad bands of colour: red, white and green. The green end of the stick is always held uppermost, so that any blood shed in an incautious stick clash is disguised by dripping onto the lower red band.
Many morris sides include one or more members dressed as animals, typically horses. The Hong Kong Morris has its own hobby horse named Horace, normally represented by Martin Samson.
Read more about this topic: Hong Kong Morris
Famous quotes containing the word costume:
“Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to a deed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“His hair has the long jesuschrist look. He is wearing the costume clothes. But most of all, he now has a very tolerant and therefore withering attitude toward all those who are still struggling in the old activist political ways ... while he, with the help of psychedelic chemicals, is exploring the infinite regions of human consciousness.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“My neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table; but I am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)