A happy New Year to you all! Apologies for my enforced absence due to PC problems and a heap load of university work. I thought I'd kick off the year on an old 'dance aka kata' subject which I'm still researching... Are there any Isle of Man Mappers with knowledge of the dirk dance from the Isle of Man in which the dancer weilds a dagger? It was recovered by Manx folk researcher, Mona Douglas back in the early 1900's and is apparently still in practice today. From discriptions I have read it is different from the Scottish Dirk Dance recorded by J. F. & T. M. Flett in their book, Traditional Step-Dancing in Scotland, taught to them by Mary Isdale Mac Nab of Vancouver in the 1950's who in turn had been taught by Scottish piping & dance champion, D.C. Mather. This version is also a solo dance but could be performed in unison with two or more dancers brandishing dirks. The highland Dirk Dance is quite different in style from the better known Highland dances and in many ways imitates the use of a dirk in fighting. My research suggests that the dance may, in fact, have originated as a series of moves for training in the use of the dirk. Highland dance was also performed with other weapons including the Lochaber axe, the broadsword, targe & dirk and the flail. The Highland Dirk Dance, resembles a combative dance similar to those of Indonesian Penjak Silat, which has the performer executing knife techniques combined with wrestling style kicks, trips and sweeps. One version of the dance involved attacking and defensive techniques with single-sticks and targe shields and was last performed in Britain in 1850 by two brothers named MacLennan. Another Scottish version of the Dirk Dance, now lost, involved two dancers, in the dance one is 'killed' with the dirk, then resurrected by his/her sorrowful partner. Louie
