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24th May 2020, 12:04 AM | #1 |
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Dance & Weapons
Thanks to Ariel and his shaska topic which gave me the idea for this topic.
First it brought me back to my own pencak silat days. With Pencak Silat each student has to prove his graduation for each degree by fighting against a virtual opponent AND move in sync on Indonesian music. The latter being imperative. Below an example by a friend of mine in NL Followed by 2 exhibition performances from Indonesia as performances are also accompanied by music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_WlJ9D29FQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQTw..._radio=1&t=116 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2wQ..._Iu_7Y&index=3 Back to the shaska: First let me explain about a very interesting traditional dance in the Caucasus : the Lezginka. Interesting because it is not only cross-border but also cross religion and centuries old. You name it ( Dagestan, Chechnya, Ossetia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Cherkess and Georgia), they all dance it It is both slow and fast in which the female stands for grace and purity, hency portrays a swan gliding across the water in her dance movements. Whilst the male is the protector, ruler of the sky and claims the territory and portrays an eagle. Powerfull and fierce. A nice example is this one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEW8bDQTBBg As with all dances it developed / evolved from a wedding dance to an identity dance to show strenght and pride (remember the eagle...) and became a seperate or single male dance as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIkO9E_Wyc0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6sYGTpaacA but the Caucasus has also strong women, so some don't dance like a swan but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUKpJz6Tk6o (poor husband...) or look at this lady at 0:53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhAUnH1tvyQ as for the shaska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvORvTfCDH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CtAH1utQ8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOEmMbiKNrs Last edited by gp; 24th May 2020 at 02:18 AM. |
24th May 2020, 04:58 AM | #2 |
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26th May 2020, 07:46 PM | #3 |
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Moreska is a romantic war dance with swords that spread originally from the Mediterranean countries in the 12th and 13th centuries.
It is supposed that Moreška first came to Korčula (Dalmatia - Croatia) from Spain in the 16th century across the South of Italy and Dubrovnik. Later, through centuries, Moreška disappeared from the Mediterranean with presence only in some parts, still deeply rooted in Korčula, where its today's pattern is that of of an attractive war dance with real swords https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqUa7KxPmyU excerpt from an article "Blackened Faces and a Veiled Woman: The Early Korcula Moreska" By Harris, Max; Feldman, Lada Cale Mock battles between Moors (or Turks) and Christians are one of the most popular features of the folk theatrical repertoire almost anywhere that Spanish culture was once dominant. Beginning, perhaps, in the late thirteenth century, and varying in form from small dances to massive street theater, they are still immensely popular along Spain's Mediterranean coast and throughout much of Latin America. Scholars have tended to pay most attention to the traditions westward travels from Spain to the Americas, where the conquered peoples often insinuated a "hidden transcript" of indigenous resistance into the "public transcript" of European Catholic triumph. But the tradition also traveled eastward to parts of Italy and Germany under Spanish rule and, further, to parts of eastern Europe not ruled by but engaged in trade and diplomatic relations with Spain. One such place in eastern Europe where the tradition still thrives is the medieval walled city of Korcula on the Croatian island of the same name. The island of Korcula sits in the Adriatic Sea, close to the mainland and about equidistant between Split and Dubrovnik. Known to Greek antiquity, because of its thick woods, as Korkyra Melaina (Black Korcula) and to the Romans as Corcyra Nigra, its strategic position on the Adriatic trade route between Europe and the East has meant that the island has been governed by external imperial powers for much of its history. Venice, the most frequent and longstanding of these, ruled the island for a brief period after 1000 and, again, in 1125/29-1180, 1254-1358, and 1420-1797. Korculan attitudes to Venetian rule were ambivalent at best. In the last and longest of these periods, the only realistic alternative to Christian rule by Venice was Muslim rule by the Ottoman Turks. Korculans, according to Vinko Foretic, grudgingly preferred the former, "with all its evils," to the latter. Testimony to an enduring Korculan resentment of Venetian rule can also be found in the still popular legend of the Crnomiri (Black Peace) brothers, reputed to have led an uprising against the first Venetian duke of Korcula, Petar Orseolo, in 1000. The island has a rich heritage of traditional sword dances. Five villages boast kumpanije (companies) whose members perform a linked sword dance, varying slightly from one village to the next. The city of Korcula has two groups that perform a traditional moreska, a mock-combat sword dance in which two sides, variously identified as Whites and Blacks, Christians and Moors, or Turks and Moors, clash swords over the fate of a veiled young woman. The dramatic narrative of the moreska clearly locates the dance in the widespread tradition of mock battles among Muslims and Christians mentioned earlier. The authors of this article have seen the moreska performed on several different occasions: at the opening ceremony of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival; at the opening of Korcula's annual Festival of Sword Dances, organized since 1997 by the island's Tourist Board; and in its traditional setting on 29 July, the feast day of Sveti Todor (St. Theodore). The traditional moreska on the feast day of Sveti Todor used to last a full two hours. To cater to the recent influx of tourists, the dance is now performed some fifty times a year in a shortened version, lasting only half an hour. The longer version, which involved more repetitions of the same dance figures, is no longer staged. Today's moreska begins with a scene in which the Black (Moorish) King drags the chained and veiled Bula (Muslim woman) into the playing area. He pleads his love. She protests her allegiance to the White King, whom she calls by the distinctively Turkish name Osman. The two "armies" follow, each consisting of an equal number of dancers, usually between eight and twelve apiece. After a vaunting exchange between the Black and White Kings, the two sides perform a series of seven figures, in which clashing swords cause frequent sparks to fly. … Last edited by gp; 26th May 2020 at 09:06 PM. |
26th May 2020, 08:06 PM | #4 |
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The Rugova war dance (Albanian: Vallja me shpata e Rugovës or Loja Luftarake e Rugovës; Serbian: Борбена руговска игра) is a traditional Albanian sword dance named after the Rugova region in Kosovo.
Description Rugova dance is considered a relic of the war dances (Albanian: valle luftarake), the remnants of pantomimic dances performed in the re-enactment or preparation of battles. The dance is performed by two male dancers who fight a mock battle for the hand of a girl (a "maiden's dance" It was made internationally famous by the Kosovo Albanian Rugova clans (hailing from Kelmend in Albania). The dance is also found in mountainous Montenegro, where a tribe of shepherds settled in the 18th century. source: wiki https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8shckj-fXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5i4qS0brMw 2 paintings : The Sword Dance (1890) by Paja Jovanović. The Sword Dance (1885) by Jean-Léon Gérôme. |
27th May 2020, 10:24 PM | #5 |
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Have posted this a while back, it's the war dance from Halmahera called Cakalele: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo
Filmed from my wife in beginning of this year. |
22nd June 2020, 12:23 AM | #6 |
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into some romance...? but be warned...."not for the faint-hearted"
The knife dance is a Persian wedding ritual. The bridesmaids swipe the cake knife and the groom has to pay up to get the knife back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiGSNmKKsvY |
30th December 2023, 08:39 PM | #7 | |
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Quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn-WBYV3KLo |
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11th February 2024, 12:05 PM | #8 |
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some Hussar related :
Hussar dance from the Ukraine https://folkways.si.edu/michala-thom...ck/smithsonian Czech Hussar dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbwDLSQpqKU Hungarian Hussar dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG_bAfub49M and as we are celebrating Carnaval where I live, together with our neighbours in Belgium and Germany / North Rhine erea ....a song in its current standard form, a carnival song from Cologne since the 1920s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYxy1PsDJDk also used in the move Paths of Glory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGmuICb8a7Y and last but not least as I do like a good fiddle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEfoBFVu6HY Last edited by gp; 11th February 2024 at 12:21 PM. |
1st June 2024, 06:15 AM | #9 |
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some more interesting dances with spears and shaska's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Gl0z9tT4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_jJQwFdTU&t=92s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8nYqZ3_hUA https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fKGue3LViVY |
1st June 2024, 08:40 PM | #10 |
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from the Philippines ( looks very similar to what I did with Pentjak Silat in my younger years; martial arts was to be performed on music)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSl_6_RAM_A from Yemen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbt2MaCq3wA and Nigeria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6HcLIh-Ms although no sound, some very nice pictues from 1930 Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-HwDWT7D0U last but not least a little Celtic dance from Bonnie Scotland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiET7tcn1_I |
20th June 2024, 11:44 PM | #11 |
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double...
Last edited by gp; 20th June 2024 at 11:59 PM. |
20th June 2024, 11:49 PM | #12 | |
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Quote:
to keep the examples still available for the future, I found sone replacements in which the ladies move like swans and the men as eagles around them https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LDZKjo9sUkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SANJrU5PjOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AleeoXN0w-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2Ly_lsdHn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR18c6xIiD0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2Ly_lsdHn8 and away from the warriors, to the folk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrAWrgFuNmc and a sweet little girl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuDj1XQ4u5s Last edited by gp; 20th June 2024 at 11:59 PM. |
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21st June 2024, 12:10 AM | #13 |
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shaska...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLkjBMPAP2g and some amazing Ladies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJGFBHXpWy4 away from dancing but to what it was intended to do, a most interesting technical move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqeiWawbzLo Last edited by gp; 21st June 2024 at 11:09 PM. |
21st June 2024, 12:20 AM | #14 |
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the Ladies with their Shaska reminded me of my pentjak years
an old film fron Holland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISCawEcaSak and from Indonesia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxEbN93FL_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Stbxe8Iek Last edited by gp; 21st June 2024 at 05:24 AM. |
27th July 2024, 01:11 AM | #15 |
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a Georgian dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjGnWstCi94 2 Zeybek ones : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz2FZkgleZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgQju-8rHkU |
30th July 2024, 06:29 PM | #16 | |
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Quote:
Shame the Zeybek ones didn't involve the yataghans. They were just decorations shoved in the sashes. |
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