the Dancers go to Monona Grove

The dancers made one of their first appearance of the new year at an elementary school in Monona Grove. Lots of smiling kid faces. Even the mascot got in on the act! With several new dancers in this year's group, the emphasis of the early part of the year is the training and rehearsals that the group needs to get their timing. Gymnastics needs to be learned and practiced and of course the hat kick does not come naturally, it too needs some practice time. With dances throughout the year, we hope you will follow along with the dancers. There is a performance schedule on the dancer website. The dances come from all over the Scandinavian part of the world - Norway, Finland, Sweden, even Denmark has a dance or two in the group's list of dances.
The dancers are self-contained. The group has three keyboards, speakers and speaker stands that come along for every performance. Each performance features gymnastics from the boys. They train hard during the summer to perfect their moves. Many of the boys have never done gymnastics prior to joining the dancers and working on these dances. Most of the kids have never danced as a couple before or even performed in public, so their learning curve is steep and nerves always have to be dealt with.
Pictures in thi blog entry are from Stu Joannes.

Norse Afternoon of Fun is on the Way

The dancers have been hard at it training and perfecting their dances for the past few months. The 2013 edition of the Norse Afternoon of Fun is the 48th annual and takes place on February 10th. It is once again at the Stoughton High School gym from 1:30-4:30 PM or until the Troll kicks everyone out. Lots of fun dances happen at the Norse Afternoon. Parents come out on the dance floor, alumni dancers come out and relive their glory days, even some fourth graders get in on the act. It's a great way to lessen the cabin fever and chase away the winter blues.

The Halling Dance is the finale and probably the centerpiece. It is based on traditional Norwegian wedding parties. These parties back in the old country on the family farm, often lasted for six days and drew everybody in from miles around. These multi-day events evolved to have all sorts of things to occupy people's time. The young men of that era worked on what we would call gymnastics today. In fact, one of the moves in this hallingkast dance is a headspin, very much in the same form as what is seen many years later in a sidewalk breakdance.

So come on down to Stoughton, eat some varme pølse, maybe even some lefse, watch a few hats get kicked, and enjoy the dancing that a group of modern day teenagers energetically perform based on old Norwegian traditions.

by the way, there's a great article on wikipedia that talks at length about the wedding dances in the Norway.

The Stoughton Victorian Holiday happened this past weekend. One piece of that puzzle is the Stoughton Norwegian Dancers. As a new parent to the group this year, this was my first full indoor performance. Fun is the first word. Unexpected is the second word. Acrobatic is the third word. Gymnastics is the fourth word. The hat dance, which is part of the Halling dance, given as the finale of the performance was enjoyable to watch. The whole Halling dance which portrays a multi-day family reunion back in old Norway overall was all fun to watch.

It is impressive to see the athleticism required to do the lifts and the backflips and the myriad other movements that are part of this dance. Equally impressive is recognizing the amount of work that goes into mastering the many pieces of this dance. It is really neat to see a 20+ group of teenagers all in this together doing such a good job at something so intricate.