Half Moon Sword, and their many guests are performing a sword dance show for a weekend of exciting and crowd-pleasing family entertainment. Sword dancing is a winter celebration practiced in the farming and coal-mining regions of northern England, where the annual visit of the local sword dancers to the village homes was thought to guarantee good luck for the year. The dances are thought to have roots in ancient rituals, traces of which can still be seen in these present-day displays of skill. The Festival will feature both mystical, stately longsword and vigorous rapper sword dancing, with live music on fiddle, accordion, and other instruments. In both types of sword dance, the dancers are linked in a ring by the “swords” they hold in their hands while they work as a team to weave intricate figures and patterns without breaking the circle. Participating Teams Bouwerie Boys Morris Dancers; New York, New York Dapper Rapper; Sudbury, Massachusetts Half Moon Sword; New York, New York Handsome Molly; Princeton, New Jersey Marlboro Morris and Sword; Brattleboro, Vermont Orion Longsword; Boston, Massachusetts Pocketflyers; Sudbury, Massachusetts Sligo Creek Sword; Washington, DC Toronto Women’s Sword; Toronto, Ontario Vineyard Swordfish; Woods Hole, Massachusetts About Half Moon Sword Half Moon Sword is a New York City sword dance team that has been dancing together since 1981. Their skillful dance displays have gained them a reputation here and in England for precision and fresh interpretations of traditional dances. In recent years the team has performed at the Dance America Rapper Tournament in Amherst, Boston, and Baltimore; at the annual New England Folk Festival in Massachusetts, and at the Marlboro Morris Ale in Vermont.
New York City, NY; NYC