Arabian Sword Dances (And other dances!)

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by David R

Fascinating videos , I would love to know more about the context of these, ref. the stuff from the Islamic world. Re the UK, worth remembering that we lost so many young men in WW1 that for a generation the Morris dancing tradition was kept alive by womens teams, and so we may have lost some of the nuances of that form.

we probably lost as many if not more in the flu plague/pandemic shortly after.

many of the silly looking traditions like morris dancing, may pole, hobby horse and such had darker and more martial aspects in the past.

modern living, occupational health and safety regs have had an even more deleterious effect. so have the greenies and animal rights groupies. it was noted in one of the uk videos that there were only 4 longsword dancing teams left in yorkshire out of many hundreds in the past.

(In the Bush dance i really like the swords he and the Saudi King were using. no dancing blades those.)