Re;Amble Sword Dance
RE;Amble Sword Dance
The dance was "collected" from the Flanaghans in the late 50s and early 60s and a good description of it is contained in a 10-page article "Rapper Knots from Amble and Bedlington" by Bill Fisher Cassie in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society for 1966. I have a copy of it.
I saw the dance in its entirety in the annual Folk Dance Festival of the EFDSS at the Albert Hall about 1960 when it was danced by Kings College Sword Dancers. I think the original Amble team had stopped dancing about 1931.
The connections with Bedlington may have originated from the family movements at an earlier time.
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