Anne Dicks was 67 when she took part in her first morris dance. While a group of people skipped, spun and whooped their way across her local village hall in Malvern in 2019, Dicks sat with the band and played a melody for them to move to on her saxophone. “Everyone was elated and the energy was infectious,” she says. “It was a raucous introduction and a real spectacle.”
It was a special performance, not just because it was Dicks’ first time playing the centuries-old folk music, but because all of the dancers in the troupe were visually impaired. While Dicks herself doesn’t have a visual impairment, she had become involved with the community four years earlier.
Having recently retired from her three-decade-long career as a classics teacher, she was spending her newfound free time with her black labrador puppy, Sasha. “One day, I took Sasha to the pet shop and she became great friends with another black lab who looked almost identical to her,” she says. “That dog, Nikita, was there with a group of Guide Dogs fundraisers. I got chatting to them and once they told me I could take Sasha to fundraising meetings if I signed up to help, I gave them my details.”
Dicks was soon enlisted and had Sasha certified as an ambassador dog. While raising money, she became close with fellow volunteer Shirley and her guide dog Taylor. “We spent a lot of time together and I started going with Shirley to a peer support group called Sight Concern. At one meeting, the organiser told us that she was a morris dancer,” she says. “She was advocating it as a good way to get outside and keep active, so she taught us some basic moves.”
Those initial steps were more than just exercise for Shirley, who found the experience so thrilling that she soon decided to form her own troupe for other visually impaired people. As Dicks had taken up the saxophone in her 50s after her daughter left home for university, Shirley tasked her to help form the band.
Every Friday afternoon the troupe, named So Xsighted, met for rehearsals at the village hall. After their debut performance at a neighbouring pub in 2019, they became the only partially sighted morris dancing side in the country. “You can’t imagine how isolating it can be to lose your sight and how it can slow you down when you often have to rely on others,” Dicks says. “That’s why morris dancing became so joyful for our members because once they learned the moves, they were free to move fast.”
The troupe began with eight dancers and has since grown to a membership of over 20, including four guide dogs. They perform the Border style of morris, which typically features clashing sticks, and include hi-vis strips of fabric in their shredded “tatter jacket” costumes to ensure members are visible to each other. They often come up with choreography to suit the spatial abilities of their dancers and put their own spin on folk tunes to match. A current favourite is an adaptation of the Oompa Loompa song from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
While all the dancers are visually impaired, half of the band is sighted. It includes fiddle, flute and drums, as well as Dicks’ sax. “It’s such an entertaining style of music to play because it isn’t really about tone, it’s about keeping rhythm and volume,” Dicks says. “When you’re standing on the Malvern hills in a gale, you can’t stop if you make a mistake – you have to keep that force going.”
So Xsighted spent Boxing Day 2023 out on the Malvern hills regaling walkers with their routines, while they have also performed at folk festivals, care homes and children’s fairs, each time raising funds for Guide Dogs as well as local charities. To date they have raised more than £10,000. “We’ll dance for pretty much anyone who asks us,” Dicks laughs. “It’s amazing for our visually impaired members, who are often on the receiving end of care, to be able to give back. We’re attracting new people all the time.”
Their newest member has no sight at all and is involved in two dances. “Being part of the group gives people so much confidence since we all support each other,” Dicks says. “We now practise in the grounds of Malvern Priory and we make such a happy noise that people are always coming in to see what’s happening.”
Dicks, now 71, has also been inspired to take up a new instrument, the accordion-style melodeon, and has been promoted to bandleader. With new songs to be learned and their calendar already filling up with performances for 2024, So Xsighted are showing no signs of slowing down. “I can’t believe my luck that I found this community,” Dicks says. “It’s given me a new perspective on life and a gratefulness for what I have. Above all, we’re just enjoying ourselves and helping other people – it’s exhilarating.”
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