Sword dances are recorded from throughout world history. There are various traditions of solo and mock battle (Pyrrhic) sword dances from Greece, the Middle East, Pakistan, India, China, Korea, England, Scotland and Japan. Popular Dances like Choliya from the Kumaon region of India, and khukri dances from Nepal are prominent in the sub-continent, while all known linked ("hilt-and-point") sword dances are from Europe.
Female sword dancing, or Raks al sayf, was not widespread in the Middle East. Men in Egypt performed a dance called el ard, a martial arts dance involving upraised swords, but women were not widely known to use swords as props during their dancing in public. However, paintings and engravings of the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (who visited Egypt in the 18th century) show sword dancers balancing sabers on their head. Sword dancing, (Raqs al Saïf) is widespread in Turkey, Pakistan-India and Iran.
Women’s sword dancing evolved out of sword fighting between men in Egypt and Turkey. There was even a time when sword dancing was banned by the Sultan during Ottoman rule, as it was believed that dancers who took a sword from a soldier and pretended to “kill” him at the end of the performance collected the swords to begin a resistance against the army. These swords were never returned. A Word on Sword Dancing by Jheri St James
General sword dance forms include:
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Mock battle sword dances are found worldwide, varying from the Greek Xiphism, the Saltatio Armatum of the ancient Romans, through Turkish, Persian and Middle Eastern traditions to Japanese mock battle dances. Some European sword dances, such as Moreshka from the island of Korcula in Croatia, include both hilt-and-point and mock battle sequences.
Hilt-and-point sword dances are, or were, performed all over Europe. These are particularly concentrated in an area corresponding to the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire at around 1400-1500, and many of these traditional dances are still performed in Germany, Austria, North Italy, France, Flanders, and the Iberian Peninsula, with a particular concentration in Basque Country.
Sword dances performed by the guilds of Smiths and Cutlers in Nuremberg are recorded from 1350. 16th century records of sword dances survive from all over Germany. Depictions of dances survive from Zürich (1578) and Nuremberg (1600). In Scotland a dance was recorded as being performed in 1285, but this was found in a document from 1440.
An important concentration of traditional sword dances can be found on the Italian side of the western Alps. Main sites are Giaglione, Venaus and S. Giorio in the Susa valley, where the so called "Spadonari" (sword -holders) dance is still now performed between the end of January and the beginning of February. This dance is also connected with the rebirth of nature and vegetation.
In Romania, in a dance called Calusari, a sword dance similar to a Morris Dance, is part of a more complex ritualistic dance involving elements of fertility ritual and horse worship.
Hilt-and-point sword dances traditional to England include rapper sword and long sword, although both of these are now also performed by revival teams outside their traditional areas, including teams in most of the English-speaking world. English sword dancing has also been brought to the New World, initially as part of the "morris revival" of the 1970s and 1980s. Teams are now extant in most major metropolitan areas in North America. The New York Sword Ale is an annual gathering over Presidents' Day weekend that brings together over a dozen sword teams form the east coast and around the world.
The Sword and Shield Dance of Bursa represents the Ottoman conquest of the city. It is performed by men only, dressed in early Ottoman battle dress, who dance to the sound of clashing swords and shields without music.