Description
Half Moon Sword will present its 38th annual New York Sword Dance Festival in New York City on February 17-18, 2024. The event will feature ten performing troupes from across the northeastern U.S. in a captivating weekend of performances in public spaces in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Festival, which New York-based Half Moon Sword inaugurated in 1986, was the first event in North America to focus on English-style sword dancing.
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 Festival will feature both mystical, stately longsword and athletic, percussive 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.
The dances are thought to have roots in ancient rituals, traces of which can still be seen in these present-day displays of skill. Some performances will also include Cotswold Morris and step dancing, related to English folk traditions.
SCHEDULE FOR THE 38th NEW YORK SWORD DANCE FESTIVAL
Saturday, February 17th, 2024
10:00 a.m.
OPENING SHOWCASE - All Teams
Speyer Hall at University Settlement
184 Eldridge Street, Manhattan
1:30 p.m.
Brooklyn Heights Library
286 Cadman Plaza West, Brooklyn
1:30 p.m.
Seward Park Library
192 East Broadway, Manhattan
1:30 and 3:30 p.m.
Pacific Library
25 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn
3:30 p.m.
Jefferson Market Library
425 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan
3:30 p.m.
Park Slope Library
431 Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn
Sunday, February 18th, 2024
12:30 p.m.
The Gray Mare
61 Second Avenue, Manhattan
12:30 p.m.
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music
58 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn
12:45 p.m.
Old First Reformed Church
729 Carroll Street, Brooklyn
2:30 p.m.
GRAND FINALE - All Teams
Brooklyn Waldorf School
11 Jefferson Avenue, Brooklyn
Cost
FREEHow
See the full schedule here: https://www.halfmoonsword.org/
