Ryburn Longsword Dancers

RYBURN LONGSWORD Dancers are based in Ripponden, near Halifax, and have specialised in traditional Yorkshire Longsword dance since 1994.

We practise on Wednesday evenings from 7.30 to 9 pm in the upstairs room at the Hollins Mill, 12 Hollins Mill Lane, Sowerby Bridge HX6 2QG. See Come and Join Us for more details.

For any other information, please email ryburnlongsword@gmail.com.

Come and See Us Dancing

During each year you can see us dancing in and around Ripponden and Halifax, at local festivals and community events such as the Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing and Todmorden Folk Festival.

For full details of forthcoming events see our programme page.

Our Next Outing

Our 2025 Longsword Dancing season has ended. We continue to practise over Autumn and Winter, ready for the next season which starts in Spring 2026. We'll be adding our bookings and performance schedule in the New Year.

What is Longsword Dance?

Longsword dance is a Yorkshire-based form of traditional dance performed by five, six or eight dancers together in a circle, making a sequence of movements in which the dancers go over or under one of the swords. The dances are fast-moving and showy; normally they end with the production and display of a 'lock' where swords are intertwined in one of a variety of shapes.

Ryburn Longsword has been dancing Yorkshire Longsword since 1994. Some of our dances are traditional and come from villages across Yorkshire, while others have been created by members of the group.

See us dancing in this video taken at the Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing Festival in September 2024 (thanks to YouTube user bogardesbar).

Ryburn Longsword has from its beginning been part of the Ryburn 3 Step folk development organisation promoting traditional song, music and dance in the Ryburn Valley in West Yorkshire.