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.

A Different, Yet Familiar, 1960s

I would have been about 10 years old when the above film was shot. I grew up far from Kentucky, so dancing to a blue grass band in the living room was something I never saw. Still, the look of the room, and of the people in it, is very familiar. For me a very odd juxtaposition of the exotic with the nostalgic.
 

More wilderness dancing

Chuck posted a link to the above video in the If I could dance like Michael Jackson post. As Chuck points out it is more wilderness dancing, so we have a theme going. It is too good not to be featured in its own post.
    

If I could dance like Michael Jackson

I feel a little guilty posting this because the guy appears to be a drug burnout, but dancing is this douche bag's  passion. The first third is a demonstration of his magnificent dancing while the second two thirds is a rambling and incoherent rant and rave about drugs. You might want to skip the ending drug bit, but his dancing is a sight to behold.