transition| English long sword dance

Joy and Eric Foxley

The English long sword dance is a hilt-and-point sword dance recorded mainly in Yorkshire. It has some similarities to the rapper sword dance of Northumbria, but the character is fundamentally different as it uses rigid metal or wooden swords, rather than the flexible spring steel rappers used by its northern relation.

Although long sword dances are found scattered all over Yorkshire, there are particular concentrations of dances in East Cleveland, the northern part of the North York Moors and around Sheffield.

Long sword dances vary in the way they are performed, with some being slow and militaristic, such as the Grenoside dance, while others are performed with pace and speed,  like the Handsworth dance from near Sheffield. Others have different features including variations of numbers of dancers and distinctive movements. Most traditions use six dancers, but the Flamborough team uses eight. Rapper sword teams have 5 dancers.

Unlike many traditional dances in England, which are mainly performed by revival teams, Long Sword dances are often still performed by their own village teams, such as Grenoside Sword Dancers, the Goathland Plough Stots and Flamborough Sword Dancers. These teams generally maintain the traditions of their dances, such as traditional performances on Boxing Day or Plough Monday.

The term “hilt-and-point” means that the dancers are linked together by the swords, one dancer holding the hilt of the sword and their neighbour holding the point. [They are not real swords! The points are not sharp!] An integral moment of every dance is when the swords are interlinked in a “lock” (as in the pictures) which can be held aloft by the team leader.

For teaching of long and rapper sword dancing contact Joy & Eric Foxley, who can also help with morris and clog dancing, playing for folk dancing, and folk singing.

Based on information from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia.