I recently came across an amateur video of a Norwegian bygdedans labeled "Sørlandsspringar" or "Springar from Sørlandet". This would be a traditional pair dance from the southern area of Norway, which is known as Sørlandet (The South Land).
In this video, the dancers are Torbjørn Bergwitz Lauen from Høvåg and Anne Guro Sture from Tasta in Rogaland. The Hardanger fiddle player is Gard Nergaard from Øyslebø, who now lives in Mandal Kristiansand, Vest-Agder.
Lauen and his cousin, Anbjørg Myhra Bergwitz, danced Sørlandsspringar in the 2009 NM i Folkemusikk, accompanied by Nergaard. They took 11th place in their dance category. Nergaard competed in the Hardingfele junior competition and took 6th.
It's interesting to note that the dance seems to have a relationship with another springar from Sørlandet Vestlandet, Suldalspringar or Springar from Suldal.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi!
First of all I’d like to say that I’m glad you enjoyed the filmclip :)
Second, I’d like to correct some of your post ^^
1) I’m from Høvåg (in the county of Lillesand) in Aust-Agder.
2) Gard has moved to Kristiansand, not Mandal (he has never lived in Mandal).
3) Anbjørg is my cousin ;)
4) Suldalspringar is from the western part of Norway, not the southern part :) (Suldal is in Rogaland which is a part of Vestlandet :))
Thanks for the updates and corrections, Torbjørn! If there is anything that you can tell us about the dance, please feel free add them here.
I’ve changed the post to refer to Suldal as Vestlandet because it is in the northern portion of Rogaland, but portions of Rogaland (as well as Telemark) can be considered part of Sørlandet. My cousins in southern Rogaland have often used “Sørlandet” when referring to the area where they live. Again, thank you so much for making the video available.
Sørlandsspringar is a “bygdedans” which is the group of dances that are concidered to be the oldest folkdances in Norway (telespringar, telegangar, halling, valdresspringar, rørospols etc. etc. are other dances in this group). What makes it so special compared to the others is that it is constructed in the early 1900s by a teacher from Bergen who moved to Kristiansand. This is because almost all the traditional “bygdedans” in the southern part of Norway had been forgotten and replaced by reels (which the irish, scottish, swedish, danish and norwegian folkdance traditions share as a common tradition) and “newer” dances like polka, waltz, mazurka, reinlender etc.