Addicted to DANCING

Two women share the great joy they get through the power of dance

- KATE CHAPMAN

'I hope future generations continue the tradition'

Kerry Fletcher, 60, is the co-artistic director of Folk Dance Remixed. She lives in Maidstone, Kent with her partner Chris, 58.

I've been Morris dancing since I was a teenager. 'It's amazing - I love the feeling of using your whole body, connecting with the dance and the music, I tell my friends. 'It's such good fun!' My mother, Dixie Lee, used to run a folk club in Whitstable in the 1970s. It was going well, but she noticed the Morris dancers were all older men and didn't think this looked great. She thought women could do it just as well, and encouraged their wives and partners to start a side [a Morris team].

My big sister Jo, now 65, was a founding member of Oyster Morris during the 1970s and I joined when I was 16. I led a double life; I couldn't let my friends know what I was doing, as it wasn't very cool back then. I was a disco dancer on Saturday nights and a Morris dancer come Sunday mornings!

I carried on Morris dancing when I moved to London. I enjoy other forms of ceilidh, folk dancing and social dancing, and incorporate that into my work as a folk-dance educator.

In 2010, I co-founded Folk Dance Remixed, with Natasha Khamjani, where we fuse old with new, making obvious the links between different traditions of dance, and we get more younger people involved.

Morris dancing is going through a real resurgence, and we want to make it relevant to younger people. We teach all kinds of folk dancing and run Ceilidh Jams and workshops, such as Street Dance the Maypole, which really get people up and moving.