Although a variant of the artistic solo men's dances are preformed with knives and swords throughout south-eastern Europe and the Near East, this leaping (pidhiktos) dance is typically Cypriot, where it is also preformed with sickles rather than knives.
Two dancers hold a knife or sickle in their hand as they dance, the movement of the sickle sometimes taking the form of harvesting and at times imitating a whip encircling the body. The symbolic character of the dance denotes bravery, virility as well as fertility. The music is played by the violin today and the outi, which is a typical ensemble of Greek village music today. The rhythmic pattern is in 2/4 time.
