| Where: | Woodhouse, Yorkshire in the Market Square; Handsworth, Yorkshire outside St Mary's Church |
| When: | Boxing Day 26th December |
| Time: | 11.15 at Woodhouse; 12 noon at Handsworth |
The Handsworth Traditional Sword Dancers perform every Boxing Day wearing unique military style uniforms and carrying metre-long swords. The team of eight are accompanied by musicians and perform an intricate dance featuring a “lock” of intertwined swords. Performances are also made throughout the year but this is the event where they perform “at home” – when the tradition began the team were based at Woodhouse but eventually most dancers moved to nearby Handsworth, so performances are made at both venues. Dances last around 10 minutes, and end with the Captain holding aloft the “lock” of swords. The team also perform a mumming play -in 2011 it was the Derby Tup (click for info) – and the local Yorkshire Carols are sung led by the dancers and their musicians (click for info).
Helpful Hints
There is a similar tradition at Grenoside (see separate listing) – midwinter was the customary time for such dances- and it is possible to get to both on the same day (we did in 2011).
Click here for the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/handsworthsword/
Click here for the event website : http://handsworthsworddancers.org.uk
Hi, I am a journalism student and I was really hoping to talk to someone about the Sword dancing. I think it would be an amazing story for my groups South Yorkshire news website. If someone could contact me about this or point me in the right direction of who I need to speak to. Thank you!
Hi Lisa!
If you go back to the Calendarcustoms page for the Handsworth Sword Dancers and scroll down to the Helpful Hints section below the video, you’ll find a link to the Sword Dancers’ own website – just click the link and they have email contact details at the bottom of their homepage. I expect they’ll be only too pleased to talk to you for your project – best of luck with it!
Averil