Angel Murua has come across documents where they refer to dances with arches that were formerly danced in Gipuzkoa. He thus found a reference to the arches that the dantzaris used during the festivities organised in 1704 to celebrate the King's birthday.

Iztueta does not mention dances with arches in his book, even though he admits that there were more dances of the brokel-dantza cycle at that time than the ones he lists in his book, due to some additional dances being added to that cycle: “When I was young, these nine variations or moves were performed when this danza was danced. However, many young men and distinguished gentlemen of Guipuzcoa have nowadays learnt the contradanza and many other types of movements and have introduced them into the brokel-dantza with great propriety and notable success.”

Iztueta does not explain what these new dances are, but there are two dances that are constantly mentioned from that moment onwards each time reference is made to the brokel-dantza: the uztai handiena (dance with long arches) and thea uztai txikiena (dances of small arches).

Juan Antonio Urbeltz has unearthed a document that describes the dance with decorated arches which was performed in Irún to welcome Queen Amalie of Saxony in 1819. The text states:

“…For the ceremony to welcome the Queen to Irún, the Provincial Council ordered: that a charming dance company comprising 40 girl and boys from Pasages elegantly dressed in Asian costume with the music group be brought here, as the handsome variety of steps and their skill will delight Her Majesty, and also the two welcoming committees, as well as the general public (…) The boys and girls from Pasages with its music group conducted by Salvador de Urigoita, who at the request of the Province, had come (…) immediately from Pasages, began to play its sonatas on the stage. The dance then began and the dancers used elegantly decorated arches, and other such ingenious implements. The Queen was delighted with this innocent and gracious gift. HER Majesty spent nearly an hour in the balcony of the town hall and this dance pleased her greatly…”. 

Based on this description, Juan Antonio Urbeltz deduced that if the dantzaris performed for an hour, they had to dance around a dozen dances. According to Urbeltz, Iztueta was aware of this dance group under Urigoita and clearly knew the dances of arches. However, there is no reference to the Pasaia dance group or the dances with arches. Urbeltz suggests that such an omission could possibly be the result of Iztueta's Fuerista ideology, which made him an opponent of the people running that dance group in particular.

There are reasons to believe that reference is made to the small arch dances in two subsequent texts. This suspicion is based on two documents from 1858: on one hand, the brokel-dantza programme performed by José Antonio Olano's dance group in Bilbao in 1858 reveals that the sixth dance was: “6. Crossbow dance including the movements from ancient battles”  On the other hand, we have José Antonio Azipazu’s 1858 description of the brokel-dantza in a martial tone:

Therefore, this last reference can lead us to believe that the dance whose implements mimicked bows and arrows was in reality the Dance with Arches. It is highly likely that the dances with arches were known at the time when Iztueta wrote his book and that the master from Zaldibitarra decided not to include them in his book for some specific reason that remains unknown.  Olano’s successors, the Pujanas, taught dances with arches as a standard part of the brokel-dantza cycle.

See Brokel-dantza – History