I never expected to play Norwegian Halling tunes on (Swedish) nyckelharpa. I had noticed lydia’s transcription of one or more Halling tunes in the Trip to Tobo tune book, but I figured those were for fiddle. But Mia Marin and Olov Johansson are teaching us Halling tunes. It is very cool.

Halling (hallingdans) is a folk dance from Norway that is done to fast music (95-106 beats per minute) in 2/4 or 6/8 time. It is a lausdans (loose dance) done individually, not in couples, by young men but more recently also by women. It is very athletic and often done competitively by the participants. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halling_(dance) and  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wq6If8MsFQ for examples.

We met with Andreas and played a Halling tune for the dance class. The dancers have been learning Halling moves from Andreas since the early fall. I would love to learn these as well, but when the musicians participate in the dance classes, that is not what they are doing. As we had done before with slängpolska, we had an interesting time working on dancer-musician communication for this dance. The musicians need to be skilled players to help lift the dancers and provide the proper character for the dance moves.

Here are two images of young men/boys dancing Halling at the Kongsberg Winter Market kappleik. The dance often includes kicking a hat held high at the end of a broomstick, as illustrated in the stamp above.