Beginning in 1976, when the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers performed on the Mall in Washington, DC for the U S. Bicentennial celebration, Dr. Tony Barrand and his students have documented English and North American groups performing the Morris, Sword, and Clog dances in public venues.

An Englishman based at Boston University, Dr. Barrand’s archive includes morris, sword, and clog dancing which flourished in England in the middle-19th century, was maintained in a few locations to the present day, and underwent a revival of interest in the early- to middle-20th century with attention paid by a variety of collectors both professional and amateur.

By the 1970’s, separate teams numbering in the hundreds could be found in Britain and North America and in parts of the British Commonwealth such as Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia.