Frå pardans og laus til tur og orden: om den norske hallingdansen

Abstract

This article discusses the history of hallingdans, by tracing it back to three periods: The couple dance halling in the 18th century, the individual lausdans in the 19th century and the modern version taught by Sevat Tveito (Hallingdal) and Gullik Kirkevoll (Valdres) in the 20th century. Previous research has described the 19th century dance as a totally unorganized dance. However, by studying details in video tapes of dancers in the 20th century, this article finds remnants of a structure. This structure is being referred to as linkedans, and describes a fundamental step which is possible to variate in many ways, enabling dancers to combine different elements of the dance. Furthermore, by systematically going through turane (the standardised motifs) in the dance in the 20th century, parallels are found to the couple dance halling in the 18th century. The upright dance style with lifted arms and well-planned acrobatics, which are typical of modern dance, are argued to be a feature introduced by Tveito and Kirkevoll.