L to R: Anya Shipunova, Margaret Sulanowska, Kansas Brew, Barbara Blair, Hannah Mark
Vineyard Swordfish is a longsword dance team based in Falmouth, MA, near the island of Martha’s Vineyard. The team’s current repertoire includes:
– Sowerby: traditional
– Helmsley: traditional, combined from two sources
– Bampton Weavers: created by Carlisle Sword in the 1990s. There is historical evidence that the Bampton Weavers’ Guild had a dance in the 1780s, and this newer dance honors it in name though the steps were lost.
– Happy Jack: Swordfish’s 5-person adaptation of a 6-person Manx dance called White Boys.
– Woods’le: a Swordfish original, created mainly by Wendell Bishop and Ron Geering, and inspired in part by Happy Jack.
Longsword and rapper dancing originated in England, with dances often named for the locale in which they originated. “Sowerby” and “Helmsley” are examples of such traditional dances. Early historical evidence for longsword dancing comes from mid-17th century Yorkshire, while rapper dancing with “flexible steel” swords came along much later, in the early 19th century. Both longsword and rapper are hilt-and-point style sword dances: each participant holds the hilt of their own sword, and the point of a neighbor’s sword. The longsword is long and rigid, whereas the rapper sword is shorter and flexible.
Sword dancing in the US arose as part of the “Morris revival” of the 1970’s and 1980’s. A group of dancers from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts formed the Vineyard Swordfish in 1991. In addition to traditional dances, a new dance named “Happy Jack” was adapted from a traditional dance and included in the repertoire, and more recently a second new dance named “Woods’le” was also composed by the team. Vineyard Swordfish has performed at a number of gatherings, most regularly at New York’s Half Moon Sword Ale in late winter and at NEFFA (New England Folk Festival) in spring. At present, Vineyard Swordfish is working to expand their membership, their repertoire, and their participation in additional local, national, and international sword ales and other events.
Over time, mainlanders (from Falmouth, Massachusetts) have come to comprise a majority of the team. A decade or so ago, some team members formed an associated rapper team called Clownfish, which has since disbanded. At present, Vineyard Swordfish often performs with the Nobska Lights, a local youth rapper sword team, and appears regularly in the Solstice Singers annual winter solstice show.