Dance of the Swords
Ballo delle Spade
It’s an ancient Sword/knife Duel simulation performed at annual festivals in towns all over Salento and Puglia.
The people of the town would form a circle around the duelists.
In the past, it was also occasionally used by people to settle scores who would pull out real knives during the simulation. This ended around WW2.
That dance is very old,
too old,
usually it was a trilogy,
1rst dance was with women to say good bye for wifes mothers etc
2nd dance was the march the men leaving the village
3rd was training or choose partner the one with Spade Σπαθες or μαχαιρες
if you fail at this dance (3rd) or did not find battle partner, possibly your role was secondary line.
Today even women dance it,
although is an ancient dance described by Plato,
danced around the fire at night.
here is one from Pontic Greeks.
trebizond 1890 souvenir
kappadokian Greeks (Farasssa)
also in Magnesia Manissa (Philadelphia)
In Makedonia the dance change a lot due to Yenissaries policy
and survived only in some spotted areas
survived through buluk-ia and field garisons
in my family old village, we did not use knifes or swords,
we had another training dance with long 1,40-1,70 m wooden sticks from κρανεια cornus, dried nearby fire.