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Authenticity
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Ministry of Cultural Heritage of Hungary

Whose Tradition?

MINISTRY OF CULTURE. HERITAGE

Edited by László FELFÖLDI and

Theresa J. BUCKLAND
Edited by László FELFÖLDI and Theresa J. BUCKLAND

Co-editor: Eszter CSONKA-TAKACS

English revised by Peter SABBATH

European Folklore Institute

Budapest 2002

Copyright © European Folklore Institute, 2002

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced by any means or transmitted or translated
into machine language without the written
permission of the publisher

ISBN 963 202 704 3

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Whose Dances, Whose Authenticity? I have chosen one question I want to focus on in this presentation: Who is in
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Egil Bakka
We have met here to discuss the phenomenon of revival and concepts like authenticity.
We do not use the notion of revival in Norwegian, but we rather speak about the
organized folk dance movement as opposed to popular tradition. For me, the important
distinction to make about dances and their longevity is between 1) dances staying alive
because of their own strength and popularity and 2) dances being consciously
cultivated, taught and sustained by a desire to preserve, nurture or utilize.
Dances in the former category were typical to Norwegian traditional rural society,
where there was no systematic teaching and hardly any clearly formulated ideas about
keeping old dances alive. Dances in the latter category are typical of the folk dance
revival or the organized folk dance movement. This distinction is not difficult, but it
gives us a point of departure.
Felix Hoerburger coined the concept Das Erste Dasein, meaning the "first
existence," as opposed to second existence (Hoerburger 1986). In the Nordic countries
several similar concepts have been defined and used, distinguishing dance as a normal
part of traditional society from dance within the revival movements (Klein
1927;BAKKA 1970; Sjöberg 1988 and Biskop 1990). At the twentieth Symposium of
the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology in Istanbul 1998, Andryi Nahachewsky
discussed and criticized some of these concepts. I do not intend to go into any
discussion, but I want to point out that such a distinction is the basis for our topic.
control of the dances in the revival context, and which strategies of control are being
implemented? Is the concept authentic a weapon in the battle for control over dance
material or is it a neutral standard for measuring certain qualities of dances within a
revival context?
We, the ethnochoreologists, are in the middle of this, and I will try to sketch a map
of the situation in Norway primarily for the purpose of comparison. The underlying
question is: What are our roles as field workers, researchers, writers, activists and
dance teachers? Through examples, I will try to show how different kinds of people
have different objects in their work with folk dances.
First of all, moving the social, participatory dances into new contexts requires
adaptations to the new environment. I give you some key words for the most important
new contexts:
-presentations at contests
- organized teaching activities
- cultivation and training in specialized clubs
- themes in research and education
Presentations tend to encourage enhancements, such as the inclusion of impressive,
stylistic and popular elements. Organized teaching tends to systematize, place elements
in fixed order, and standardize step patterns, while it discourages variation and
individuality. Clubs often wish to make their dances stand out and different from
similar dances in other clubs. Therefore, common elements are left out and distinctive
elements are emphasized. Research and education may view the dances in a distant,
critical perspective that can diminish direct and enthusiastic engagement. Generally, in
its beginning at the start of the twentieth century, the entire revival movement was
clearly influenced by the wish for disciplining the body, making movements considered
crude more harmonious. It encouraged the noble, disciplined movements of ballet,
gymnastics and military drill over the spontaneous, personal and expressive
movements often dominating traditional dancing.

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A person with the heir attitude considers himself having inherited his or her dances
This is going to be a rather personal excursion into questions on strategies for from close family or neighbors. The users are not so emotionally involved with
control and authority on the Norwegian folk dance scene. These questions will be material from their region, and first of all want to use dances for their pleasure or
related to identity. My presentation is primarily based on interaction with some other purpose. The researcher's attitude does not necessarily belong to people
individuals and their expressed opinions, but while writing this I felt it was not conducting research, but to people whose main concern is that the revival renders a
appropriate to pin down the individuals as much as I first intended to. I should truthful depiction of the past (Bakka 1994). The heirs did not count users as much, and
have asked their permission and I portrayed each of them more than I can here. I never became a full member of the heirs' camp even if there could have been
Therefore, my presentation will deal with the opinions of dancers in different possibilities. Here I was clearly an outsider, and in some ways my university education
communities. made me become even more so.
The Rff Center
But who am I, the one presenting and instigating this discussion that is just
After several years of fieldwork and completing my education, I was given the
surfacing? I will somehow make myself the first portrait: I was born in the
responsibility of establishing a resource center to support the folk dance and folk
countryside, on a farm. From the very beginning I spoke a dialect and knew the
music revival movements. I started cooperating with local dancers and dance
ways of a rural environment. Thus, I was clearly an insider. However, there was
instructors in my fieldwork. They, in turn, wanted to learn the dances we collected,
neither a folk music nor folk dance heritage to learn from in my home
and through a try-and-fail method I developed a strategy for bringing collected dance
community, and there was not any local understanding for identifying with and
material back to its region of origin.
absorbing folk dance and music traditions.
I invited a few local dancers to our institution, and analyzed and transcribed the
This was so, even though I was later told that my grandfather, who died 5
dances from film, making descriptions of them with the locals. At the same time we
years before I was born, played melodies on the willow flute, and that our
started practicing the most challenging elements of the dances so that we all learned to
neighbor of the same generation danced springar, the old couple dance, in
perform what we had analyzed. Later I went to the region to give a course and help my
weddings in the 1920's. This dance, which I later learned, became a very
visitors become instructors.
prestigious heritage item within the revival movement.
In this way-basing our work in material collected through field work (which in
I started dancing in the local folk dance group, doing a national repertoire of
most cases could only be found in our institute), using research methods to analyze the
dances selected for being suitable in the youth clubs. These dances were partly
material and then passing it on to others though education-our institute came to
choreographed, and they were rather untypical for the Norwegian dance tradition
influence the folk dance movement substantially. Because of this, our influence
in general. Folk music and folk dance was a national phenomenon belonging to
obviously could be very threatening to other agents in the field. The classical situation,
other regions, and the idea that we might have our own did not even strike us.
which we all know, is the following: A researcher has documented
We were users of selected national material, and when I met the heirs,
people who presented their inherited local material, I realized that they were 63
different from us in many respects. User and heir are concepts I coined for our
Nafplion Symposium, so I will briefly mention them now. Then I will identify
three basic attitudes towards revival and the dance heritage.

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traditional dancing and is both delighted by its unique qualities and shocked by its
striking differences to the revival. But as soon as he presents his findings he will
provoke the people of the revival and they will make him their bitter enemy. Let
us leave this topic for a while and meet other people of the revival.
To pay for dances-Tovdal
I would like to start this presentation with a memory from my early fieldwork
period. It was the summer 1967, and I was a lone student learning fieldwork the
hard way. This was my second summer of fieldwork, but the first summer I could
record my findings onto film. Throughout the summer I had persuaded some 100
dancers in different communities to dance for me. Some of them were happy that
their dances were rescued from oblivion in this way, while others, feeling that
they were too old to dance or that they would ruin their reputation, were reluctant.
Then I was told about Tovdal, a small narrow valley, where they danced
springar. Magne Velure, my driver and companion that summer, could not
come with me on this trip. Thus, I went by bus, and contrary to my usual practice,
had to make appointments on the phone.
When I talked to the dancer I had been referred to, I was totally taken by
surprise. He was very friendly, but he firmly told me that I would have to pay him
and his partner in order to film them. He wanted to be paid not for their time, but
for the dance, which he considered very valuable. Perhaps he thought I would
exploit my film recordings in commerce.
Such a demand for payment, have never happened to me before. I had paid
musicians for their services, and I had paid the travel expenses for dancers. But,
to pay for dances? Both his demands and my surprise reveal the situation and the
attitudes. For the first time I was faced with people claiming ownership of their
dances. It was of course problematic, but simultaneously thrilling to see such an
appreciation of traditional dance.
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In the end we solved the problem. I eventually filmed the dances, and since
then I have worked with the Tovdal dancers on several occasions. Even younger
generations of Tovdal dancers have wanted to protect the dances as their
particular heritage, fearing that people from other parts of the county, particularly
from the central town, would "steal", their dances. And I would have to say that
their fears are probably quite justified.
The Tovdal people considered me an ally in their work. They did not feel like
giving their neighbors in the same county, particularly those from the folk dance
group of the major town, full and free access to their dance material. The people
from the folk dance groups were invited to come and learn, but they were neither
given the documentation nor the descriptions of the dances. In this way the locals
wanted to prevent them from teaching the dances and thereby from gaining full
control over them. The Tovdal people saw that among the outsiders there were
more experienced dance teachers and people who could invest time and resources
to become better trained performers of the dances than the Tovdal people
themselves might. So they cut a deal with me as field worker and researcher to
keep others at a distance from the material, and thus to remain in control.
However, one may fear that they are not enough in number to keep their dances
alive. Perhaps cooperation with the whole county would have helped them and
strengthened their cause. But the problem for them was how they could stay in
control, remaining the rightful heirs.
Telemark: the county where peasants threw out the tax collectors
The county of Telemark has always been considered a stronghold of traditions. It
is a county with a large number of communities with a strong dance heritage.
Revival enterprises like organized teaching and competitions started here, and
they seem to have influenced dancing in general. The borders between popular
tradition and revival are consequently somewhat blurred.
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The dancers of Telemark do not seem to fear losing control of their dances to the
dancers from other regions and to dancers of the capital city. There are several strong
dance groups and the locals do not seem to object that outsiders learn and teach the
dances.
Their line of defense goes against documentation and research. In a report from a
dance seminar, influential dancers have questioned the work of outside researchers,
such as our institution, who film their dances, offer feedback on how their dances
should be done, and thus steal the dances by taking control of them (Romtveit 1991). It
is easy to understand their fears of outside experts, and it is probably true that expert
opinions are more dangerous to local control here than the opinions of competing folk
dancers. Our institution carefully tries to keep a low profile in any kind of opinions
and advice, unless asked.
Nordfjord - internal rivalry
Nordfjord is one of the three oldest regions of the county, and it has a distinct type of
springar that is rather different from springars in the neighboring regions. The
region did not have any widespread, revived version of the springar in the 1960's and
70's.
Only one couple from Nordfjord, who had learned the dance from their elders,
presented such a dance at the competitions (kappleik). They presented their dance as
the one and only correct Nordfjord springar. For some reason they did not seem to
recruit younger people who wanted to learn the dance. Already in 1967, my fieldwork
companion and I documented this couple. At the time, we did not find any other
dancers of springar in their community, but some years later I documented quite a lot
of traditional dancers in other communities of the region.
Interested dancers borrowed film documentation from other communities in order
to learn a springar version from Nordfjord for revival purposes. They made several
attempts and even though they did not seem to succeed, the dancer of the Nordfjord
springar heard about
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the attempts to establish a new version of the Nordfjord springar and did not like it at
all. He wrote critical articles in the local newspaper saying that there was only one
correct Nordfjord springar, the one he learned and established. The battle for control
took the form of defending the one and only regional springar, and the rivals were
internal competitors who threatened the monopoly of the established dancers.
In the middle of 1980's a group of people came to our center to do a systematic
analysis and transcription. A new version of springar from Nordfjord was
established and presented. The problem of the earlier version was solved by saying
that the two versions represented different commu,nities of the region.
Dance pilgrimage to Roros, the mountain mining town
The old couple dances of Norway (called regional dances) are generally danced mostly
by dancers from their region of origin. Dancers of course move and take their dances
with them, so several regional dances are even cultivated in some of our biggest cities.
However, one regional dance known as the pols from Røros has been adopted by most
Norwegian folk dancers throughout the second part of the twentieth century. This has
affected its status both negatively and positively.
Røros is a mining town situated on a mountain plateau, and a particular version of
the couple dance pols (polish dance) seems to have originated in this town. However,
the version can be found in large rural districts both south and north, and west of the
town as well. At the Røros fair which is held in February every year, the pols has
become one of the main attractions. Every day at the fair there is dancing at noon in
one of the community houses in accordance with old practices, and the pols at Røros is
one of our regional dances which has stayed alive longest more or less independently
from the support of revival. activities. For folk dance enthusiasts even from other
Nordic countries, it is a sort of pilgrimage to go to Røros to dance with the

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takes place between individuals within a local revival setting. There is

locals at the noon dances of the fair. The locals generally enjoy the success of their
dance, and travel the world teaching.
There are hardly any strong defense lines, and most folk dancers of Norway know
the Røros pols. Outside dancers may win the national contest, and outside teachers may
teach. As long as the town and the surrounding region keep their fame, the defense
seems to be maintained. But I think defense lines against outside teachers and outside
contest winners could easily emerge.
Summary
In Norway local people throughout the country look at the regional dances as a heritage
that they want to control. They want to define what are authentics version and they
want to have the privilege of teaching their dances. They consider themselves the most
competent, and they want to win contests showing what the dances should really look
like.
Lines of defense are drawn and battles arise between individual insiders, between
inside and outside dancers, and between inside and outside researchers. As an
ethnochoreologist with the responsibility of aiding the revival, I find it challenging to
relate to a wide spectrum of interests and objects. Experience has taught me that I can
solve unnecessary internal battles about who has the one correct version by showing
that different versions can be accepted as alternatives. I have realized that disagreement
between insider and outsider interests are very delicate, but that I usually find it more
reasonable to support the insiders who supplied the available material.
I have also learned to keep clear of the defense lines of insiders towards
researchers. I find it is my role to collect and keep information available, but
unnecessary to offer information that is not requested. I think it will be of great value
for people in the future to be able to reestablish dances from popular tradition in the
most faithful way possible. But this does not mean that I have any right or reason to
disrespect the lines of oral and visual-kinetic transmission, which even
also no reason for me to fight adapted forms that may also be transmitted
through strong personal relations. We can also ask if the process of direct
transmission locally is as valuable and important as the dance itself. Authenticity
may very often turn into the question of whose authenticity.
REFERENCES
BAKKA , E. 1970. Danse, danse lett utpå foten. Folkedansar og songdansar. Oslo:
Noregs Boklag, 1-206.
-. 1994. "Heir, User or Researcher. Basic Attitudes within Norwegian
Revival Movement." Anonymous Proceedings 17th Symposium of the Study
Group on Ethnochoreology 1992. Dance in its Socio-Political Aspects. Dance
and Costume, 117126.
BISKOP, G. 1990. Folkdans inom folkdansrörelsen-folklig dans? Helsingfors:
Finlands Svenska Folkdansring rf.
HOERBURGER, F. 1986. "Volkstanz." In Hans Eichiner and Thomas
Emmerig (Hrsg.) Anonymous Volksmusikforschung. Aufsätze and Vorträge
1953-1984 über Volkstanz and instrumentale Volksmusik. Zum 70. Geburtstag
des Verfassers am 9. Dezember 1986. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 11-16.
KLEIN, E. 1927. "Folkdans" och folklig dans. Hävd och Hembygd 1935.
ROMTVEIT, H. 1991. "Referat frå dansedialektseminar i Vinje."
Spelemannsbladet 50: 22-23.
SJÖBERG, H. 1988. "Folkdans-folklig dams?" Anonymous Artiklar under 25 år,
et urval. Samarbetsnämnden för Folklig Dans. Stockholm:
Södermanlands Spelmansförbund, 13-22.
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