Happy New Years

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New Years is upon us, and so many of us will be attending parties tonight. I know I'll be taking my tuxedo out of mothballs and awing the young'uns when I hit the dance floor with my patented Watusi moves. I hope you have a good New Years Eve as well.

 

Korean sword dancing

A while back I did a post on Cossack sword dancing. Today we follow that post up with some Korean sword dancing. Above is a video of young ladies from Chungnam Arts High School doing a sword dance. Their swords are no where near as long and dangerous looking as the Cossack swords, but the costuming and choreography is very nice. 

Korean sword dances are called Geom-mu(검무). All the examples of Korean sword dancing I saw featured women; I'm not sure what the story behind that is. The dances appear to be more formalized and theatrical than the Cossack dances. Below are a couple of other examples of Korean sword dances.

Cossack sword dancing

Cossack sword dancing started out as a pantomime of fights in battles. It has evolved into showing off as you dance around while twirling swords. Above is a collection of various people doing a sword dance. I wonder what an American helicopter mom would think of their tyke swinging swords around like the lad in the video.

Below is a video by Evgeny Kolot, a Cossack martial arts instructor demonstrating a sword dance in slow motion. It is nicely filmed and rather hypnotic. There are other good videos on his channel.

Victorian burlesque dancers

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Victorian burlesque were comedies of the day that relied on caricaturing more serious works. Shakespeare was a common target. Of course there was a bit of titillations involved as well. These are pictures of some of the burlesque actresses of the day. Tastes change, and that is most obvious in some of the painfully corseted waists on display.

These pictures, and those after the jump are from the Vintage News post Victorian burlesque dancers and their flamboyant costumes. There are more pictures and information at the link.

Different sounds of Christmas

By this time of the year I imagine most of us have heard some of the same Christmas music over and over again. With that in mind I usually look for foreign Christmas music to post. I've done Japan and Brazil in the past, this year I feature the Tamils of Sri Lanka.

Above is a Christmas song and dance. Christmas dances seem to be very popular with Tamil Christians -- there are a lot of YouTube videos of kids dancing in what I imagine must be the Sri Lankan version of Christmas pageants. I must say the notion of dancing to celebrate the holiday is appropriate.

Below are a few more examples of songs and dances.

Dancing Flappers

I tried to find actual footage of flappers dancing, but the film quality was too bad. So I went with this scene, which is from the 1956 movie Don't Knock the Rock. In that movie Rock n' Roll has been banned by the town geezers because it is too wild and suggestive, so the kids put on a show where we see that, via the dances of their youth, the geezers weren't above being wild and suggestive themselves.

Vintage Avant-garde

Sooner or later even things that are modern and daring look quaint. These costumes were made by the German expressionistic artist and dancer Lavina Schulz in the 1920s. They are via La boite verta.

I did like the detail that she and her husband lived without furniture, but lived in their dance tights so they could choreograph dances and design costumes. Sadly, although perhaps predictably, she came to a sorry end, shooting her husband and then herself as financial ruin closed in on her.

The photographs were taken by Minya Diez-Dührkoop, another German artsy-fartsy type who travelled in the same circles as Lavina.

Dance in Paint

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My previous post was videos of dancers. Throughout the years artists have tried to capture the experience of dance in paint. Unable to show the motion, they have concentrated on dancers' poses, the situations of dancing, and the sensuality of the dancers. The paintings are often surprisingly effective.

There are more examples after the jump.

Modern dance

If anybody makes it through the entire thing, please be sure to leave a comment telling the rest of us how it ends. Via Diehipster.