How important is 'tradition' to UK morris sides?

The idea of 'tradition' has been important to morris, especially through the revival. How important is the idea of tradition to sides performing now, and how has that changed?

The proportion of sides agreeing that 'preserving tradition as it was originally collected is an important goal of the side' remains steady at around 40 per cent, but has generally fallen over time.

Sides in the Morris Ring place greater importance on preserving tradition, with 59 per cent agreeing with the statement compared to 34 per cent in the Morris Federation and 28 per cent in Open Morris. However, the importance placed on tradition has fallen the fastest over time in the Morris Ring, from 75 per cent in 2014 to 59 per cent in 2023. The proportion has fallen by six and five percentage points respectively in the Morris Federation and Open Morris between 2014 and 2023.

Opinions on the importance of preserving tradition vary considerably between sides and between different styles. Overall, while 39 per cent agree, 31 per cent neither agree nor disagree and 30 per cent disagree.

Mumming and longsword sides place a relatively high importance on preserving tradition. In contrast, Border, Molly and Appalachian sides place the least importance on preserving tradition.  Garland and North West sides are less likely than average to agree that preserving tradition is important, but also less likely than average to disagree, with a high proportion neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

The importance of tradition is also reflected in sides' repertoire, where similar patterns are evident in the extent to which repertoire is 'traditional as collected', 'contemporary' or 'self-written'. Mumming and Cotswold sides have the highest amount of 'traditional' repertoire, whereas Appalachian and Molly have the least. This is largely to be expected because of the amount of collected source material relating to the different styles.

The amount of traditional material in sides' repertoire has remained stable since 2014, at around 58-59 per cent.