Changing Strategies in Contemporary Halling

Halling is a popular dance form used for centuries in Norway and Sweden but today is known as a folk dance in these countries and even elsewhere. This article considers how extensive touring and contact with different cultures and audiences informs contemporary theatrical halling practices and discourses. Drawing on my ongoing fieldwork on dance artists Hallgrim Hansegaard and Sigurd Johan Heide, whom I interviewed in Reference Heide2017 and Reference Heide2019, this article investigates how they and their ensembles, Frikar and Kartellet, negotiate and “remix” their so-called halling moves.Footnote ¹ The use of the term “remix” is inspired by Indian dance scholar Pallabi Chakravorty (Reference Chakravorty2010). Writing on the rearticulation and transformation of the aesthetics and politics of Indian dances, Chakravorty claims that this new practice can be represented through the term “remix” (Reference Chakravorty2010, 169). I am adapting it for this article, as it can be deemed as suitable to the description processes in contemporary halling practices, in which the traditional forms are added to and transformed. Chakravorty finds that within the remix practice “the notion of authentic, stable, or durable practice is replaced by a fluid, changeable, and ephemeral one” (169). Alongside this, I am inspired by dance scholar Karen Vedel's writing (Reference Vedel, Vedel and Hoppu2014) about wayfinding artists—how dance practitioners who are on the move have to navigate a liquid modernity in which neither space nor time is fixed, thus they have a need for flexibility and adaptability. In short, I am interested in how fluidity and changeability are manifested in contemporary halling practices and discourse, and I aim to point out how these are being maneuvered by two dance artists whose artistic outcomes thrive on their migrational practices.

According to Sally Ann Ness (Reference Ness, Noland and Ness2008), migrational practices within various forms of dance are fueled and motivated by power relations, and they often require great amounts of both fuel and motivation to occur. These migrations can be seen to move within and through what Ness describes as fields of power, which exert influences and create pressures that move through obstacles and diversions while also facilitating features of their own (259–280). As will be pointed out, contemporary halling practices are situated in various power struggles, within Norway as well as within the dance field in general. There has been an ongoing process of relating nineteenth-century nationalism to the globalization of cultural production in twenty-first-century Europe, and the development of contemporary halling practices can be seen to be part of this. It also thrives on cultural diversity, on the remix of movements from different sources.

There is nothing new about dance being inspired by cultural diversity. When the modern dancer Martha Graham choreographed her American Document in 1938, it was with the purpose of exploring the multicultural origins of the United States. Graham was concerned with how the landscape of American culture was shaped by a variety of human beings coming from various places in the world. At that time, in 1938, America was still welcoming refugees, as well as immigrants seeking better lives. Modern dance seemed fit to address issues of cultural diversity (Scolieri Reference Scolieri2008). The history and the current situation of the halling are both similar and in opposition to that of Graham's choreography. It has been recognized as a dance form that captures the essence of Norwegian (and Scandinavian) farm life. As such, the traditional halling field can perhaps be seen as having served as an antithesis to exploring what Scolieri coins “the multicultural origins of the nation” (ix). Rather than opening up for cultural diversity, the (unspoken) view has been that halling should serve to signify Norwegian cultural identity. Typical halling-moves have served as identity markers that ideally should stay the same as much as possible. In terms of achieving this goal, the field has been divided into two main camps: those who aim to let the halling remain an identity marker of Norwegian culture, and those who see halling as a springboard for “something new” (Fiskvik, Reference Fiskvik, Dodds and Cook2013; Hammergren Reference Hammergren and Vedel2011, 185–187). Hansegaard and Heide have chosen to embrace diversity rather than tradition.

Outline of the “Traditional” Halling

Halling has been known for several hundred years in Norway and Sweden, and its practice is well documented in visual and written sources from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It has been performed throughout Norway and Sweden in a variety of contexts, with roots identified back at least to the fifteenth century and even to the Middle Ages. Thus, it has a long and diverse history. Traditional descriptions emphasize it as a male solo dance, both competitive and improvisational in nature. It has been performed particularly at mountains and the inner fjord valleys of central southern Norway. Typically, men of different ages would perform so-called godkarsstykker (male showing-off movements) in festive settings, at markets, and on the spur of the moment. Several of these godkarsstykker have specific names. Versions for couples are also common (Bakka Reference Bakka1978, 25–27).Footnote ²

Often danced at social gatherings, for instance parties, the best known form of halling is a solo danced within a group of men who compete against each other, although it can also be danced individually by men and sometimes by women. The dance has always been closely related to its music. Traditionally, the halling was accompanied by the Hardingfele, a fiddle with two sets of strings whose resonating overtones produce a rich and piercing sound. Halling music is in duple meter, usually notated in 6/8 time (Bakka Reference Bakka1978, 25–27).

The laus-halling, the form primarily discussed in this article, is a solo, traditionally performed by a male dancer. Also, in the version for a couple, the par-halling, the woman and man separate from each other, while the man does an improvised solo with acrobatic kicks and stunts (Bakka Reference Bakka1978, 26). Even though it has been recognized mainly as a male practice, the Swedish dance artist Anna Öberg is an example of several contemporary female halling performers.Footnote ³ Research by Norwegian dance artist Halldis Folkedal (Reference Folkedal2009) shows that women have also been active in laus-halling (solo) but without receiving the same attention as men. For example, a female dancer who went by the nickname “Rande-Ambjørg” was well known as a great halling performer in the seventeenth century.Footnote ⁴ Folkedal's research has added valuable insights into the traditional gender roles of the halling. The male halling dancer, however, remains essential to the dance even today, in spite of the fact that traditional gender roles are being challenged and played with in contemporary practices, as will be pointed out in some examples by choreographer Sigurd Heide.

Halling-Moves: Identity Markers of the Halling

Dance scholar Carrie Noland (Reference Noland2009, 18) describes what she calls identity markers of movement, a term that I find useful when categorizing halling. Noland observes that, despite the impact of social conditioning, human beings continue to invent surprising new ways of altering the inscribed movements they are called on to perform. Noland points out that tropes of gestural identity can develop in dances performed inside a culture. She argues that established gestures facilitate larger innovations in cultural practices. Subsequently, gestures and movements can become identity markers of a dance culture (2–3). I hope to identify such identity markers as present in contemporary halling practices. In keeping with the overall aim of this article, I am also interested in examining the degree to which these are remixed, renegotiated, and how they emerge as hybrid forms, as well as how they can be seen as being part of migrational halling practices.

In the traditional form dancers have typically performed a set of halling-moves put together either by the individual dancer on the spur of the moment or in a more planned fashion. As already mentioned, the moves consist of a variety of leaps, hops, and acrobatic stunts. A light springing step, the halling step or halling spring, is essential and serves as a transitional movement before and after acrobatic steps such as backflips and somersaults. Transitional movements are the basis of the dance —steps used to make the dance flow and to create the impression of continuous motion. Quite a few of the technically demanding moves have specific names, for instance kruking (deep knee bends in a Russian Cossack style),Footnote ⁵sviving (extensive turning), slå stiften (somersault), gå på hendene (walking on the hands), snurre på hovudet (spinning on the top of the head), korketrekkaren (the screwdriver), nakkespretten (the neck-jump) hoppe over leggen (jumping over one leg, while holding on to the other), Bjønnedans (bear dance), and Hellehopp (a playful sequence in which one man is helping the other to jump). In addition to the springing step, so-called sviving is important in tying movement phrases together. In the sviving, the dancer continuously turns around his own axis. It can sometimes last for a long time and be a feature of its own; other times it serves to tie movements together (Bakka Reference Bakka1978, 25–27).

Kruking and slå på hælen (heel-kickings) are other identity markers that are often used to tie together more technically demanding material. A stunt can, for instance, include backflips, followed by somersaults and kruking, tied together by the spring step or sviving. Often performed in an improvisational manner, there is an exchange between the transitional springing steps and acrobatic stunts, the aim often being to demonstrate strength and vigor. Typically, the dancer will start out with some light springing halling steps before he or she engages in the more technically difficult godkarstykker. The highpoint of the dance is the hallingkast, during which the performer tries to kick down a hat attached to a wooden stick, which has traditionally been held by a woman. Some of the more advanced dancers have been able to kick as high as 9.2 feet (2.8 meters) up in the air (Bakka Reference Bakka1978, 25–27).

Contemporary Stage Practices of the Halling: Frikar and Kartellet

Even if the typical halling features described above originated in social or folk dance practices, identity markers of the halling have also been adapted for the stage. One of the earliest known examples can be seen in Vincenzo Galeotti's 1786 work for the Royal Danish Ballet, The Whims of Cupid and the Ballet Master (Amor og Balletmesterens Luner). Dancing master Galeotti used halling moves such as somersaults, walking on the hands, and kruking, and added halling-like music in order to create the idea of an authentic halling (Fiskvik, Reference Fiskvik, Dodds and Cook2013).

In more recent times, halling has been transformed and expanded, not only in terms of its movement material but also in its performance practice and strategies. These can be seen in the dance ensemble Frikar (Frikar translates as “a free man”), founded in 2006 by dancer and choreographer Hallgrim Hansegaard. The ensemble and training center for dancers are situated in the mountain area of Valdres, the place where Hansegaard grew up. Hansegaard and Frikar became well known when they were part of the winning team of the 2009 Eurovision song contest (Fiskvik Reference Fiskvik, Dodds and Cook2013, 85–102). Several works have been created in the more than ten years that have passed since its initial success in 2009, and having performed in thirty-two countries, Frikar is now a widely travelled ensemble. Hansegaard says the ensemble relies on their own repertoire, as well as seeking inspiration from other cultures. As a choreographer, Hansegaard often integrates and plays with material from other dance cultures—most commonly break dancing and capoeira. Frikar is dedicated to creating relevant and up-to-date dance built on ancient knowledge for all human beings across all borders. “Free yourself” is their working motto, because crossing mental as well as scholarly borders is behind everything they do.Footnote ⁶ The stated aim of the ensemble is to work from old Norwegian traditions in combination with contemporary dance and to cross borders, back and forth, producing dance through migrational practices of learning, observing from other dance cultures, and teaching halling to dance artists in places visited. In this article, I will examine the works Leakhit and 8, in which Sami and Tibetan cultures are explored.

Kartellet (The Cartel) was founded by dance artist Sigurd Johan Heide in 2012. Heide resides and works out of Tromsø in northern Norway. Kartellet's poetic and distinctive style is combined with a strong personal expression rooted in traditional Norwegian dance. The group has experienced success and it has been in demand for numerous festivals and guest performances, especially in the countries that share borders with northern Norway: Russia, Sweden, and Finland. Heide's work has also been shown at many venues and festivals in Uganda, Northern Ireland, Poland, England, and the United States.Footnote ⁷ Heide emphasizes that all the dancers in Kartellet have a strong individual style and use their bodily knowledge and competence in order to create an intimate visual presence. Furthermore, male strength and interactions with audiences are essential. Before 2020, the ensemble worked exclusively with male dancers, being a physical collaboration of men; however, in the spring of 2020, the group will engage female dancers in a new work for the first time. Since its founding, the ensemble has quickly established itself as an important agent for halling practices and the use of halling moves. In this article I will examine the work DoPPler which premiered in 2012.

Challenging Cultural Roots

In Norway, halling has for a long time had the status of being a sort of national dance, even if not publicly declared as such (Fiskvik Reference Fiskvik, Dodds and Cook2013). Thus, social conditions as well as spoken and unspoken rules and regulations for how it ought to be performed are known to the insider-performers. Nevertheless, as a folk dance, it has been a living and evolving dance, which is rather typical of dance practices. Noland observes that, despite the impact of social conditioning, human beings continue to invent surprising new ways of altering the learned behavior they are called upon to perform (Noland Reference Noland2009, 7–9). Adaptive as well as more fixed modes can be been seen in contemporary halling practice. The importance of preserving cultural roots are still at play, but practitioners are also changing their established dance behavior. As noted by Norwegian anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen, ethnicity and social identities are generally relative, depending on situational aspects (Reference Hylland Eriksen2010, 10–18). This fluidity and relativity of identity can be seen as negotiations of identity. The act of defining Norwegian culture started in the latter part of the nineteenth century under the sweeping nationalism of that time. What were seen as typical cultural features were collected and promoted through various collectors and practitioners. Travelling collectors of folk material began to define what was “truly Norwegian,” recognizing regional differences. There was an emphasis on the preservation of culture, a fear that things could be lost. This fear was furthered by the economy, which was changing, and people started to move away from the countryside to the cities (Tyler Reference Tyler2013, 4). An act of collecting as well as of advocating so-called national dances was carried out by Hulda Garborg and Klara Semb around the beginning of the twentieth century (Bakka Reference Bakka1978, 1–10). Throughout the latter part of the twentieth century and part of the twenty-first, numerous Norwegian folk dance practices have been archived and researched, a work led by professor emeritus Egil Bakka. However, today, as stated by Hylland Eriksen, identities are much less stable or even relevant. He underlines that human beings may embody different statuses as well as a variety of possible identities (Reference Hylland Eriksen2010, 18). Thus, ideas of “Norwegianness” are less dominant in discourses today.

However, a distinct Norwegian cultural policy developed after 1945, and national aspects of cultural policy became increasingly important from the 1970s onward. The preservation of a national heritage and the cultivation of a unique national identity became priorities, and in the early 1990s, folk-music and folk-dance organizations focused on the issue of authenticity and retaining a common point of origin, while at the same time allowing for the uniqueness of local variants. As pointed out by dance scholar Lena Hammergren, the 1995 Action Plan for the Furthering of Norwegian Traditional Folk Music and Folk Dancing is an important document that speaks to the politics of Norwegian folk-dance organizations. The Action Plan was published by the folk-dance researchers Egil Bakka and Ingar Ranheim and was the result of a 1990s gathering of representatives from different organizations. Together, the organizations wrote a strategic plan for enabling Norwegian folk dance and folk music to play a more prominent role in Norwegian cultural policy (Hammergren Reference Hammergren and Vedel2011, 185–187). While acknowledging a growing awareness of Norway as a multicultural nation, the plan also expressed the wish to take care of and preserve the old traditions.Footnote ⁸ One of the goals of the Action Plan was to know how one's Norwegian dance and musical heritage had helped the creation of a more solid identity (Bakka and Ranheim Reference Bakka and Ranheim1995, 24).

The theatricalization of contemporary Norwegian folk dance and culture can be seen as part of a plan for securing the existence and continuation of traditional dance, and national identity as a part of it. Sociologist Marit Bakke identifies distinctions between the postwar democratization of culture—a top-down policy—and the later bottom-up policy of cultural democracy from the 1970s onward (Reference Bakke and Duelund2003, 163). This latter bottom-up policy is what can be seen in the works of Hansegaard and Heide. As can be seen in the following examples, Heide and Hansegaard have different approaches in what I see as their democratization of the halling, not only as choreographers, but also as dancers.

Challenging Identity Markers in the Norwegian Landskappleiken

Landskappleiken, the annual national competition in folk dance and music, is perhaps the ultimate place for the preservation of what has been coined “traditional Norwegian cultural dance practices.” Kappleik (competitions) have traditionally been conservative venues where what can be seen as “genuine” halling movements are safeguarded. An emphasis on spectacular technique, such as advanced somersaults and hat-kickings, has dominated the Kappleik. At this event, the halling should preferably be presented in its traditional form without new or creative elements or fusions with other dance forms. Yet the format of the competition is that of traditional dances being performed on stage, where anything can happen. The traditional notion of an improvisational, spur of the moment, dance is replaced with a highly choreographed one.

Both my interviewees have pointed out their often-felt displacement in the competitions, while at the same time feeling the need to manifest themselves as artists in them. Heide claims to have a relaxed attitude, not caring about the demands to follow the rules. To give an example of his defiance, he has entered the Oslo Kappleik, dancing the couple version of the halling with a male partner. This is certainly outside the traditional and conservative realm of the competition. His playful attitude and his investigations into smaller components of halling material do not sit well with the jury. Heide believes these have resulted in low placements. Hansegaard, whose halling technique is brilliant, has won the Landskappleiken on several occasions. In the 2013 competition, he introduced some new elements that he had found through researching old sources. But the jury did not believe that these previously unseen moves could stem from original sources, and Hansegaard believes that he lost the first prize because of his “new moves.” A long and heated debate followed in the folk-dance media that highlighted a sort of “need” within the folk -dance field to preserve what can be considered original and traditional halling-moves.Footnote ⁹ Arguments used in the debate were related to the expanded technique of Hansegaard: despite his brilliant technique his halling-moves were deemed insufficient within the traditional framework of the dance. One could perhaps argue that Hansegaard's involvement with dance forms such as capoeira and break dancing has resulted in a stylistically distinct style that spills over into his halling performances, although he himself would not necessarily agree with this. Perhaps this can be coined, in the words of Chakravorty (Reference Chakravorty2010), as a remixing of tradition and new elements. One could say, rephrasing dance scholars Rachel Fensham and Odette Kelada (Reference Fensham and Kelada2012, 395–410), that Hansegaard's efforts to revise his primary dance technique will not be successful in hiding his (originally) acquired impulses and imaginations. These involve working actively with dance styles and movements outside of the halling realm, as can be seen in his work 8.

Remixing Dance Styles—8

Hansegaard's play with traditional elements typically involves fusing dance styles from other cultures. One of his choreographic strategies can be seen in the work 8, which features both halling and Tibetan monks’ Kungfu practices. 8 premiered in 2015 and exists both as a live performance and as a dance film. The work was created through a combination of Chinese dance and martial arts traditions and halling practices. The dancers—Chinese Kungfu monks and Norwegian male halling dancers—explore and merge dance styles of their own with that of “the other culture.”

Hansegaard wanted to investigate what can happen in such a meeting. Trying not to work from predetermined choreography, he sought to embody the traditions of the Tibetan monks, while at the same time preserving his own halling-based dance style. In order to become acquainted with the monks and learn their ways, he lived with them in the mountains for three months. Communication had to happen with body language and gestures, and at times this was truly challenging. By communicating through gestures and body language, he further explored both the power of body language and the difficulty in acquainting himself with a movement language of another culture. In 8, several meetings of different movement styles take place, and Hansegaard aimed to use movement material that highlights differences as well as similarities of the Kung Fu and halling styles. A competitive mode underlines the work, expressed in what can be called movement meetings involving both styles. In the middle of the work there is a battle between the Kungfu dancers and the halling dancers, each using their own style. In other sections of the choreography the two styles are merged. Gestures—hand gestures as well as foot gestures—are used often, creating combinations of what Noland describes as transformative gestures, gestures whose meanings are subtly changed according to performance cultures and styles (Reference Noland2009, 18). In some sections of 8, the two dance forms are juxtaposed; in others, they are integrated. The shared movements and gestures create new moves— remixed in such a way that the original form is still traceable through a variety of identity markers such as kruking, sviving, kicking the hat, somersaults, and backflips.

Noland considers that gestures and movements are often translatable into different cultures and settings: “Despite the very real force of social conditioning, human subjects continue to invent, springing new ways of altering the inscribed behaviors they are called on to perform” (Reference Noland2009, 7–8). In 8, Hansegaard seems to have worked toward something I would define as “inscribed behavior.” This is done through inventing new ways of integrating well-known halling moves into the Tibetan monks’ playful Kungfu style, the migrational activity creating a new remix. The interesting question is to what degree this new “behavior” remains in the body, influencing subsequent projects. When asked about this, Hansegaard thinks that the influence varies; it is present. However, he can choose to take away the main foreign features when needed, for instance in the Landskappleik, where the aim is to perform purer versions of halling. According to Ness (Reference Ness, Noland and Ness2008, 259–280), powerful gestures may also produce the most dominating and tyrannizing forms; the performer, when gaining mastery, becomes a slave to the powers structured by tradition. As I see it, Hansegaard has, in fact, become less of a slave of his halling traditions through his deliberate embodiment of a remix of styles. He uses plasticity, something that Ness deems as a feature not to be underestimated, especially the dancing body's capacity for spontaneous dance. In this lies the ability to find new purposes and places to go within gestural conventions (Ness Reference Ness, Noland and Ness2008). However, Hanseg1aard's new “plasticity” and “inscribed behavior” were deemed as stylistically undesirable to the 2013 jury. I would argue that Hansegaard, through his migrational practices and his willingness to embody material from outside the halling, has made a remix of material that goes against traditional (spoken as well as tacit) rules and expectations.

Leahkit: Archaic Fusion Turned Inward

Hansegaard's Leahkit premiered in Rudolstadt, Germany, on July 5, 2015, at Theater Rudolstadt. The work was the result of a creative process that had lasted more than a year and a half.Footnote ¹⁰Leahkit was created in collaboration with singer Torgeir Vassvik. Together, Hansegaard and Vassvik formulated a performance in which traditional dance and song material are fused with a variety of gestures, vocal utterances, dance, and acrobatics. At the core of the dancing are halling-moves, fused with break dancing and capoeira movements. Leahkit is at the same time Nordic and global in its use of international dance styles and Eastern styles of singing. For instance, Vassvik's singing is comprised of Sami songs as well as Mongolian throat songs. The work brings two men together in what can perhaps best be described as a ritual bonding of past and present. According to dance critic Mary Brennan, at the performance in Edinburgh in November 2015, Hansegaard “melded the snap of nimble folk dance with a slithering, sinuous flow of acrobatic urban moves” (Reference Brennan2015).

Leakhit is thus filled with material either copied or inspired by halling movements, but, unlike 8, the technical elements have been toned down, and Leakhit is less “packed” with technically demanding choreography. It feels as if the movements come from a deeper place— the remix of dance movements from halling, break dancing, and capoeira are so well integrated in the choreography that they become more Hansegaard's personal style than “Hansegaard the choreographer's style.” Leakhit is more of a personal statement, and as a spectator (at one of the Oslo performances in 2017), the dancing came across to me as the display of an inner journey. One of the features was the use of repetition. I found myself being mesmerized when Hansegaard kept on endlessly sviving toward the end of the piece. The sviving stopped being a halling move and took on a more symbolic feature of strong connections between guttural throat singing and an endless journey. I certainly did not care if this was halling or not.

Hansegaard and his ensemble have been engaged in this promotion of Norwegian culture, but their focus has gradually shifted, and so has their audience, according to Hansegaard. For instance, during the talk after the performance of Leahkit in Rudolstad, the spectators were mostly interested in sharing what they felt about the piece, how it affected them, rather than in the different elements in themselves. Hansegaard explains that not one person asked about the different moves of the choreography, for instance, about the role of the sviving. Instead, they were interested in how the ten minutes of sviving had placed them into a transformative mood. Several spectators talked about getting into a trance-like state.

Both as an identity marker and an aesthetic feature, the sviving is displaying a more introverted expression in Leahkit and serves perhaps to underline a more global shift in audience interest that is in sync with global tendencies of dance artists who are on the move: wayfinders, negotiating expectations from different dance cultures.

Audience Bonding in DoPPler

In the works of Sigurd Johan Heide, halling moves such as sviving, Hellehopp, and a special “Heide jump” around the dancer's own axis (counterclockwise) are often used in order to create a continuous flow. These can also be seen as part of how Heide wants to create a special interaction with the audience. The idea of bonding with the audience continues to be a strong element of Heide's approach, while also being a much-used feature in contemporary dance (Reason and Reynolds, Reference Reason and Reynolds2010; see also Karoblis et al. Reference Karoblis, Sigurd Heide and Okstad2016). Heide purposely wishes to create a social setting similar to that of the social dance, thus he feels like a performance artist more than a dance artist in his approach to an audience.

All of his choreographies involve audience participation in some way or another, a premise that also dictates the use and size of the performance space. Close audience interaction calls for a smaller and more intimate setup, with spectators seated around the performers. The setup creates the frame from which he works. Heide employs a great deal of flexibility in the use of material, and with the audience sitting in a circle around the dancers there is no front or back —the dancers can be seen from all angles. He does not want to display technical virtuosity, but he nevertheless uses highly technically skilled dancers, and they are all male dancers who are trained in the halling tradition as well as in other folk -dance styles. Consequently, there are parts of his performances in which the identity markers—his personal halling moves described above—are used. In other parts of the performance only the halling connoisseur would be able to trace the halling elements, because of the way these are fragmented or interwoven in, for instance, walking or turning steps. The transitional steps are especially important in Kartellet's style.

Heide likes to play with the boundaries between the serious and the playful, and interactions between the stage and the audience. Thus, all of Kartellet's performances are created in small formats, with the dancers and spectators in close interaction, easily transported into new venues in different countries. Kartellet aims for audiences to achieve a more physical experience of music and dance than if they were just watching. The ensemble's web page emphasizes that Kartellet is about creating poetic images and illusions. The ensemble aims to share its dance on different levels and states on its Web site that interactivity in the performing arts can encourage, provoke, and engage the audience. Furthermore, Kartellet aims to offer the audience a sensuous experience, thus the performances are, through public participation and presence, a little different from time to time in order to meet the demand of the moment. Perhaps even more importantly, Kartellet aims for its audiences to experience “proximity, participation and playfulness,” three core elements of Heide's artistic credo which he seeks to investigate in interaction with his spectators (Dansegruppen Kartellet n.d.). However, he does not like to steer his audiences into a specific interpretation, thus audiences are not spoon-fed facts on what the performance is about. Neither does he give out elaborate information in programs. Each spectator must be able to interpret freely.

The Kartellet dancers interact physically with the spectators, taking them by the arm and leading them into different spaces, dancing with them, or making them dance alongside. Exciting possibilities for cultural meetings and exchanges of social behavior lie in this approach, and Heide points out that his performances are determined in these cultural meetings. A Russian or Polish spectator's way of adding his or her own versions or interpretation of a step informs and influences the professional dance. Thus, the dancers add or subtract moves and perform the choreographed steps a little differently every time.

Having myself been a part of Kartellet's performances as a spectator, I have experienced how audiences (including myself) are moved like sculptural pieces, arranged in different formations, and taught new material to integrate into their own dancing. I have been danced with, and I have been placed together with other new partners. Creating new perspectives changes the audience experience as well as that of Kartellet's dancers. The performer-audience connection can be seen as a display or staging of the social elements of folk dance. It diminishes boundaries between presentational and participatory dance. An additional aspect is that this process imitates the anxiety that some people may feel when they are interacting at parties, worrying if they can find somebody to dance with, or perhaps also worrying about having to dance. It can provoke anxiety, something Heide also recognizes; thus, the dancers never force anybody, but gently invite the audience to interact. Heide describes the interaction between audiences and performers as not just an “additional aspect” but as the essence of his works, of his choreographic thinking and credo.

DoPPler (premiered 2012) is the ensemble's signature work. The audience arrives and sits in a circle as the two musicians (a fiddler and a percussionist) are simultaneously playing folk music from the northern area of the country. The dancing starts out with small movements, building in dynamics and vigor as the three male dancers take the audience through a journey of male relationships. DoPPler is saturated with traditional halling identity markers. The Kartellet dancers perform highly technical moves, godkarsstykker, using for instance Hellehopp, Bjønnedans, kruking, sviving, and many more.

Photo 1.

Dance company Kartellet in Doppler (2016). Dancer standing: Inge Martin Helgesen. Upside-down dancers, from left to right: Helge Andreas Norbakken, Sigurd Johan Heide, Ragnhild Furebotten, and Ådne Geicke Kolbjørnshus. Photo: Knut Aaserud.

The uniqueness of the piece lies in Heide's ability to build technical phrases that excite and engage, juxtaposing them with playful sections (for instance hide and seek) as well as intimate duets and trios. Halling moves are alternately being dissected into small parts and presented in a grandiose fashion. There is an interplay between repeated small gestures and technical godkarsstykker. About two thirds of the way into DoPPler there is a sequence during which the dancers are jumping rope, with dancers taking turns in integrating highly technical halling moves—difficult backward somersaults, spins, and leaps—into the rope jumping. The mundane jumping rhythm of the rope becomes almost trance-like with its repetitive qualities. On top of this comes the “showing off material” that transforms the action into a sophisticated piece of choreography. The playing activity of rope dancing is mixed with typical identity markers of the halling into a work that is uniquely new—it is DoPPler, neither jump-roping nor halling.

Kartellet uses only male dancers on a regular basis, which often challenges the notion of gender roles as well as what maleness in dance can be about. For instance, the par-halling (couple halling) traditionally involves a courting element with the man showing off his skills to the woman. Heide, however, uses only male dancers, and his agenda is to contradict the stereotypical notion of maleness. He aims to show that men are just as capable of all the subtle nuances of human emotions as women and wants this to be portrayed choreographically. His works are not about courting or love, but about human togetherness, while simultaneously challenging typical notions of the male dancer as supporter of the woman. If needed for the specific aim of the choreography, female dancers are used. T his is also changing: for his new work in 2020 with the title Kan du komme ned og hente meg (Please come and get me), female dancers are highly involved.

In the manner of much folk dance, Heide works in small formats, with limited performance space, and always with the audiences encircling the dancers. The interaction between dancers and musicians is essential. Live musicians are always used, if possible, and they are playing folk music from the northern region of Norway. Even if Heide is respectful of his folk-dance roots, he aims to transform the movements so that they take on thought-provoking as well as emotional content; it seems essential for him to feed the intellectual as well as the emotional side of the spectator. As suggested by Vedel (Reference Vedel, Vedel and Hoppu2014), he can be seen as a dance practitioner who, while on the move, is constantly navigating a liquid modernity in which neither space nor time is fixed. Heide is playing with the use of space, and in his adaptable approach, his work is driven and characterized by what Vedel describes as the need for flexibility and adaptability.

Renegotiating Remixing Halling Moves

Hansegaard and Heide are representatives of what Vedel (Reference Vedel, Vedel and Hoppu2014) describes as wayfinding artists. They need flexibility and adaptability when negotiating between traditional expectations from the folk-dance environment and current Nordic and international dance trends. They use traditional identity markers of the halling in different ways: Heide's moves are often dissected and reshaped until they are almost unrecognizable. Unlike the stereotyped and preserved forms of halling that can be seen in the highly competitive Landskappleiken, both artists allow for developments of the dance as well as for the fusion and remixing of styles. Traditional material is expanded, reworked, and transformed through the convergence of different cultures, embodying movement material from encounters across borders. Even if they are not migrational artists out of necessity, they can be described as wayfinders, their personal styles shaped by cultural encounters when performing in and out of Norway.

Working with dancers as well as audiences from other cultures facilitates the renegotiations and remixes of material based on halling moves. Hansegaard and Heide are privileged in the sense that they are working in what can be described as rather stable and safe environments in Norway, which offer unique possibilities, where travelling is done out of creative desire and not migrational necessity. Border proximity matters; Heide's works thrive on cultural exchanges facilitated by geographical juxtapositions with Russia and the northern parts of Finland and Sweden. Heide himself claims that his artistic output is the product of this northern border proximity. Thus, Heide's movement language has been developed through these contacts, creating, to paraphrase Noland, a distinct “northern troupe.”

Various halling moves have traditionally served, and continue to serve, as what one can call identity markers of “Norwegianness,” often aiming to demonstrate (often masculine) vigor and virility. In the works of Hansegaard and Heide, negotiations between well-known halling material and other movement styles and gestures are used to create fluid remixes, resulting in practices that are less personally inscribed in the traditional halling. Whereas Hansegaard embodies the Norwegian in a way that follows the halling tradition's use of technique and bravura, Heide works with a deconstructive strategy, emphasizing small elements and using involvement of the audiences in a very different way. This corresponds with the claim made by Fensham and Kelada, who argue that choreographic works can be seen as broader dialogues of nation, power relations, and identity (Reference Fensham and Kelada2012, 407). In fact, even if the question of “the nation” might seem out of date in today's Norway, a desire to embody traditional dancing roots can be seen in the choreographic works of both Hansegaard and Heide. They are both narrating “the Norwegian” through their use of halling moves.

On a smaller and more localized level, the polarities are displayed in the use of preservative and exploratory modes and in the interplay of local and global dance moves. The most common identity markers, the so-called godkarsstykker—the showing off moves—are still essential features of both Hansegaard's and Heide's works, but, as we have seen, in different ways. These contemporary halling practices inherit the tradition while also freely using dance material from other cultures. Technical bravura continues to play an important part and with the typical identity markers—halling moves—commonly used. On the other hand, negotiations and fluidity can be seen in the interaction between different dancing styles in Hansegaard's 8 and in the performer-audience interactions in Heide's DoPPler. An agenda of democracy and equality between dancers and audiences emerges. Hansegaard started out with a need to educate his audience, a focus that has gradually shifted toward aesthetic content and experience alongside his own interest in the interplay of dance cultures. Heide claims that his agenda has always been purely artistic, but that the means for achieving his aims are rooted in traditional halling practices.

With the words of Vedel, their practices can be described as a form of liquid wayfinding (Reference Vedel, Vedel and Hoppu2014). Their works exist within the overlap of mobility, through reciprocal partnerships and the touring of their own productions. Interactions with the audience are elegantly woven into the work, making it suitable for international spectators, since the audience interaction takes place entirely through gestures and movements. Heide's work has, for instance, been shown several times in Russia, and there has been no problem with getting the audiences involved. Audience meetings and participations are formed differently in Murmansk than in Tromsø because of subtle cultural differences. As dance scholar Martin Barker states, “Being an audience for anything is never a simple or singular process. It is a process that begins in advance of the actual encounter, as people gather knowledge and build expectations.… In other words, audiences bring their social and personal histories with them” (Reference Barker2006, 124). With the close audience interactions of Kartellet, the cultural and social history of each audience member becomes a part of the performance.

Ness (Reference Ness, Noland and Ness2008) has pointed out that the migration of gesture ultimately leaves us with a sense that in order to understand the role of mobility in contemporary life we must be prepared to follow the dancing as it migrates, covers ground, and changes meaning. The value, or perhaps reward, of these migratory practices and exchanges of material is that they can give a heightened appreciation of new articulations and cultural integration as well as disintegration (259–280). Furthermore, the practices of Hansegaard and Heide have the ability to perhaps leave the audiences with what Ness (Reference Ness, Noland and Ness2008) points out can be a more subtle awareness of how gestures may come to possess the agency to migrate into new bodies. These new, or perhaps remixed, bodies become fluid in their capability to express and experiment but also to unlearn. Moving in and out of Norway is the experience of travelling, touring, going away, and coming home. This wayfinding adds to and subtracts from the halling in subtle as well as more stated ways. It is through their moving in and out of Norway that both dance artists have arrived at their current artistic style. Their artistic beliefs and working methods are the result of belonging to a global culture with long journeys and physical travelling as well as artistic developments. Heide and Hansegaard are more and more living between two worlds and the constraints of these, finding ways to negotiate and cope with both.