Tuesday, January 22, 2019

It's Got A Kick To It



Here is one dance your servant wishes he would have learned had he decided to start putting on a kilt in his teenage years.

A mix of your servant's favourite music
and moves, set to stories and observations.
The whole idea of the sword dance is to dance around the swords without touching them -- otherwise, legend has it, you will die on the battlefield. Note the sword pointing towards the audience is on top. That's just in case an enemy should approach you while you're dancing. You can pick up that sword and point it at the bloody redcoat or whoever may be threatening to take your life or your kilt or both.

I have faked a sword dance at least once. At a friend's house one Christmas, I put down a couple of brooms and pranced around them as best I could while wearing three layers of 18th Century clothing in addition to the kilt, including a long frock coat. My heavy piping shoes also weighed me down. But I capered and high-cutted and pas-de-basqued around those brooms as best I could.

"You're a lord-a-leaping!" somebody remarked.

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