Background

Dawnswyr Môn was founded in 1980 and is based on Anglesey, an island off the north coast of Wales. Some of the founder members are still dancing and many new members have joined over the years. Members vary from school children to those who have retired, and the members' occupations are just as varied.

Many members are musicians, and the dancing is usually accompanied by harp, violin, flute, accordion, whistle and ‘cello. The dancers and musicians meet weekly to rehearse.

Dawnswyr Môn are busy throughout the year participating in concerts and festivals and entertaining local societies, foreign visitors and at weddings. Audiences are given the chance to take part in the social dances, as well as watching the team performing the more complicated dances. The dances vary in style and format reflecting the Welsh tradition, and include lively fair dances, clog dances (where the dancers make use of the wooden soles of clogs to produce different sounds) and the more graceful courtly dances.

The dancers have visited many countries including Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, England, Norway, Denmark, The Isle of Man, Spain, France and Hungary.

The costumes are based on drawings of traditional costumes from various regions of Wales, worn by Welsh peasants at the end of the eighteenth century . Some of these sketches were drawn by Augusta Hall - Lady Llanofer who took a keen interest in Welsh folk customs and traditions and sought to promote it.

Dawnswyr Môn compete occasionally in the National Eisteddfod, the Gwyl Gerdd Dant and annually in Eisteddfod Môn, and have been successful nationally and locally.

Dawnswyr Môn arrange their own May Festival every other year and dancers from all over Wales join in the dancing on the first Saturday in May. During the festival many Anglesey towns are visited as well as Gwyl Mabsant, Bodedern.

Many of Dawnswyr Môn's members teach children on the island to dance and also arrange a dancing festival for children, where several hundred children in costume, get together to dance.

As when the group was founded, the aim of Dawnswyr Môn is to enjoy and promote Welsh folk dancing locally and further afield.