Cecil Sharp and the Handsworth Sword Dancers 1913–1924

THIS account describes the visit made by Cecil Sharp to Handsworth in Sheffield to observe and record the Handsworth Sword Dance prior to its publication in The Sword Dances of Northern England volume III, in 1913. It is not concerned with the details of the dance itself, nor, except incidentally, with the better-known sources such as Sharp's manuscript notebooks. The main purpose is to illustrate a small part of his work on traditional English dance by means of an unusually complete series of letters, some from the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library of the English Folk Dance and Song Society and some, rather more in number, still in the possession of the Handsworth team. Although these often tell only one side of the story, as is often the case with letter collections, they nevertheless give a good idea of Sharp's methods and of attitudes on both sides to dancing and dance-collecting immediately before and after the First World War

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