“Morfa Rhuddlan” is a dance that you can request.
The dance is performed at Köttinspektionen or if invited to another place.
Duration: 30-40 min
You can ask for this dance during the period 25 jan- 12 feb.
You can request it for yourself and for a group.
Email to: info@kottinspektionen-dans.se if you want to request this dance.
Morfa Rhuddlan
“Let us now have something more serious. Ann let us have the Cynhebrwng”*
Morfa Rhuddlan is a dance that you can request. A lament commemorating the death of Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf, the last Prince of Wales in 1282, a moment of rupture that marked the end of Wales’ independence.
This is a historical folk dance that was described to me as a ‘lost dance’, a dance that did not exist. But there is a record of this dance: an account by an elderly woman Catherine Margretta Thomas who, as a child in the 1890’s, saw this dance being performed. Catherine had a photographic memory and as an old person, was able to still ‘watch’ Morfa Rhuddlan in her mind. The dance was recorded in handwritten descriptions and scores by Catherine’s daughter Ceinwen in the 1960’s.
Morfa Rhuddlan is said to have been a dance that the audience would request when they needed to cry, grieve or be somber. – Siriol Joyner
You can ask for this dance at Köttinspektionen in Uppsala during the period 25 jan- 12 feb. You can request it for yourself and for a group.
Performed by Siriol Joyner, who is in residence at Köttinspektionen January/February 2022.
*Cynhebrwng is ‘funeral’ in Welsh. Morfa Rhuddlan was also sometimes referred to as “Dawns Cynhebrwng Rhuddlan”
Siriol Joyner is an artist working within the field of dance and choreography. She is obsessed with language and its relationship to dance and dancing and the material and political implications of this connection. She is creating movement, text and object works that focus upon the notions of mutation, translation and code-switching. Her interests are informed by her Welsh identity and the minority status of her mother tongue, Cymraeg (Welsh). An interest in site and site specificity is always present in Siriol’s work. In 2021 her solo piece “Listening to-“ was presented by Cullberg, the national and international repertoire contemporary dance company in Sweden and she is currently making a new group work that begins from asking ‘what is a site specific dance?’; ‘what is the dance of this place?’ She holds an MFA in Choreography from Stockholm University of the Arts and a post-graduate qualification from the Royal Academy of Art Stockholm. As well as making her own work, Siriol performs with/for artists such as Mette Edvardsen, Hana Erdman, Ruarí Donovan, Dora Garcia and Alice Mackenzie.