Molly dance

Molly dancing is a form of English Morris dance from East Anglia, traditionally performed by out-of-work ploughboys over the winter. It was especially associated with Boxing Day and Plough Monday. Cross-dressing was a characteristic feature of the dance: at least one, and in some accounts as many as half, of the men performing the dance dressed in women's clothing. First attested in the 1820s, the tradition continued in a few villages into the 1930s; by 1940 it had died out entirely.

Molly dance was largely ignored by folk dance collectors, who did not consider it worthy of study; they collected only a handful of dances before the practice died out. From the 1970s, there was a revival of interest in Molly dancing. In 1977 two Cambridgeshire teams resumed dancing on Plough Monday and many other dance teams have since included Molly dance in their repertoire, of which the Kent-based Seven Champions have been particularly influential.