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Village Voice > Footnotes
Scottish Dances Pace Holiday Revel,
Delighting With Their Precision
The Christmas Revels
by Eva Yaa Asantewaa
January 14th, 2005 5:28 PM
The Christmas Revels
Peter Norton Symphony Space
Closed
At two and a half hours, New York Revels' winter
solstice f๊te devoted, this year, to Scotland's
artistry was as overstuffed as a holiday goodies basket.
Lovely singing and Highland flinging and storytelling
and mumming stretched late into the day. A piper piped
and a fiddler fiddled and the audience snaked around.
On a stage festooned with evergreen, dozens of hearty
performers offered instrumental pieces, poems, songs,
and dances that flowed together seamlessly. A low-key
gentleness prevailed, but one number Half Moon Sword's
performance of the traditional Papa Stour Sword Dance
of the Shetland Islands electrified. Ten woman dancers
presented themselves as soldiers with their long swords
at the ready. With hilts and tips gripped in their
fists, they formed a continuously moving chain whose
increasingly complex rearrangements were rendered with
the ease of wielding not a weapon but a silver needle
and silken thread.
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