Where can you find a jousting tournament?
A horse arena in Oso, Washington is now a place where knights battle it out! The Seattle Knights, a theatre group, clad in protective armour, converted the arena into a battleground recently, brandishing swords et al, parrying, thrusting and fencing to an enthusiastically cheering crowd.
According to the Associated Press, the crowd in the restaurant at Rhodes River Ranch was enthralled. Jousting is a medieval sport, and we associate knights in armour with
old-fashioned virtues of chivalry and nobility. This, though, was a
dramatic enactment by a troupe that specialises in medieval fantasy, creating fanciful characters and deploying their equestrian and histrionic skills, and choreographed stage combat to recreate an experience to remember when righteousness was upheld and propriety was all.
The Seattle Knights won a lot more fans the day they ‘fought’, returning today’s wired generation to a more down-to-earth physicality and hand-eye coordination upon which one’s ‘survival’ depended on. Six knights in shining armour take turns to knock the opponent off his horse, charging at each other in a blur of speed. There may not have been real bloodshed thankfully, but the group claims that it is their love of theatre that gets them through the sport as it is more difficult to execute than it looks.
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