THE FLORA FADDY FURRY DANCE DAY

Every May an ancient pre-Christian Spring ritual is performed in the streets of Helston in Cornwall, south-west England. Throughout the Flora Day, the population perform the Furry (or Faddy) Dance in long procession through the banks, shops, houses and streets, all decorated with greenery and flowers, following the town silver and brass band as they endlessly repeat their unique, mesmerising tune from 7am to about 7pm when the final dance ends.
These celebrations form the most ancient and certainly the biggest ritual dance still performed in Britain today, recalling the Celtic festival of Beltane with its rituals of purification, fertility, the triumph of Life over Death and the victory of Light over Darkness. In Christian times, the Flora Day also came to mark the Apparition of Archangel St. Michael (the dragon slayer and patron saint of both Helston and Cornwall) who defeated Satan after a furious battle for the possession of the town.

Using only music and image, the film follows the structure of the Flora Day to suggest the spiritual sources of the festival that are to be found deep within all of us, the repetitious dance steps and music which traditionally stimulate collective unconscious emotions and finally overwhelm us in an expression of ritual ecstacy

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Ritual
• Celtic
• Dance
• Cornwall
• England
• Music
• Brass
• band
• life
• death
• light
• darkness
• fertility
• THE
• FLORA
• FADDY
• FURRY
• DANCE
• DA

[zooidpix]

The old 8mm footage was shot by my father about 30 years before the 16mm footage. If you are local to Helston, a copy of the film was donated to the local museum after it was produced in 1989.

[danejans]

@Brythonek how to make yourself look a complete tit on the internet

[harrysor]

@Brythonek I have lived in Cornwall all my life my mum and dad are from Cornwall I AM A TRUE CORNISHMAN i even speak a little Cornish and IT IS IN ENGLAND Cornwall is not a country. It should be i agree but it is not ok.

[Pitcairn2]

@Brythonek

Obviously you missed geography class.

[ghughesarch]

Superb bit of film-making! The use of old stock gives it a slightly eerie, otherworldly feel, then to throw in the caerdroia / maze / city of turns / Troytown images as a memory of the legendary origins of Britain through Brutus of Troy's arrival in the westcountry, and the Maypole as another ritual (circular) dance is just genius.

10* if I could give them!

[mouseybrowny]

Sorry to tell you but Corwall is in England...

I happen to live there.

[ErnestMaples]

What a fantastic film. I'm from Helston and danced the Flora every year during my childhood. I live away now, but try and get back home for Furry Day every year.

Thanks very much for posting.

[Brythonek]

If you say that Cornwall is in England then you are English, so you can't be Cornish. Cornish=Kernewek English=Sowsnek. No true Cornishman would ever say Cornwall were in England nor that he were English.... "retard"

[harrysor]

im cornish and it is m8 im sory lol retard

[Brythonek]

Bugger off.!

[Brythonek]

Helston is in Cornwall.

Cornwall is NOT in England.