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Traditional dances of Cyprus

Sieves, sickles and a smashed clay jug

Dancing is an ancient tradition close to the heart of Cypriot life, performed in traditional costume to mark everything from weddings to religious feast days. Of the five best-known dances, three are found nowhere but Cyprus.

Tatsia

The Tatsia is a men’s dance, performed in tavernas and at festivals. It is a dance of skill: the performer balances a glass of wine in a sieve and spins the sieve through a sequence of moves while dancing. Accomplished dancers manage three glasses or more. The whole point is that nothing spills — not onto the stage, and not onto the audience.

The Tatsia. The difficulty is invisible until you notice the wine is still in the glass.

Drepani

Close cousin to the Tatsia, and again men only. The Drepani is danced with a large hooked blade — a sickle or scythe — spun through a series of turns and sometimes thrown into the air and caught. The sweeping motions imitate harvest work, cutting crops.

That is characteristic of Cypriot dance generally: the choreography carries village life inside it, artisans at work, the year’s labour turned into steps. The moves enrich the dance and tell a story about how people actually lived.

O Horos tis Kouzas

The Kouza is a women’s dance, performed at festivals with a clay pot. It comes directly out of village life before running water: women carried a jug to the village fountain to fill it, and the young men of the village found reasons to be nearby.

The dance tells that story. A young man startles the woman he loves, her jug smashes on the ground, and she is furious. He apologises with a rose. Eventually she forgives him, and they dance together.

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