Barn og unges dans, was a 3-year-old pilot project from 1993-1996, initiated by the Norsk kulturråd (Arts Council Norway). The Norwegian Arts Council is in charge of a broad spectrum of administrative tasks and functions within the cultural field, including artists’ grants, the Audio and Visual Fund and a number of other funding schemes. Information their projects can be found here.
The Arts Council’s work for children and young people is based on the aim that all young people in Norway should have access to professional arts and culture of high quality.
The project Barn og unges dans, was the first dance project in Narvik kommunale musikkskole. The Arts Council’s project consisted of two Norwegian municipalities and three county municipalities, one of which was Narvik/Nordland. The responsibility for the implementation of the project in Narvik/Nordland was Narvik kommunale musikkskole (Narvikmusikken). The Norwegian Centre for Child Research; which does basic and applied long-term research on childhood, and on the activities and conditions of children’s lives; accounted for the project’s implementation and evaluation.
One of the central goals of the local projects was to discover how cooperation between the municipality, local music schools, recreational clubs and kindergartens could offer children dance instruction both in and outside the formal education system. There is a report available both from the local project in Narvik, and from the national project in Norway.
Barn og unges dans (Children and young people’s dance) had the overall goal to stimulate interest in the dance among children and young people. The reason why Narvik was successful in winning this project amongst twenty five other applications from Nordland counties, was the quality of the Narvik project application and its geographical location in northern Norway.
The Arts Council hoped to show that comprehensive dance activities for children and young people should be available in local communities. Local partners were kindergartens, primary schools, after-school clubs, music schools, youth groups, theatre groups, and the like.
The Council wished to gain knowledge about how to reach the greatest number of children; how to establish the widest possible diversity in styles; and how dance affects children’s and adolescent’s growth and development.
For Narvik, it was the second step in the inclusion of dance instruction as a part of Narvik kommunale musikkskole (Narvikmusikken). In keeping with the historical unwillingness of the council to fund dance instruction, the council’s contribution was minimal, with 140,000 NOK coming from the Arts Council, a yearly grant from Nordland Fylkeskommune, income from pupils’ fees, and the rest coming from the schools drift budget. However it did mean that Narvik kommunale kultuskole could employ a dance teacher, which would have been impossible if they had had to finance a full position alone within their tight budget.
The position consisted of fifty percent instruction and fifty percent administration. The project included responsibility for dance instruction in the whole region, not just in the city environs.
A Regional project
The project was far more than an after-school recreational dance school (initially called Narvik Ballet Akademi); it also involved dance instruction in local kindergartens, like Rallar ‘ n barnehage where they gave a performance of “Hoa Hottentott” in 1994; all grade levels in regional elementary schools, and several summer dance school projects.
The opening of Rallar’n barnehage 20.10.1994. Balletten “Hoa Hottentott”
One particularly fruitful project was in cooperation with the Norwegian Opera (DNO) where 50 young dancers from Narvik and neighbouring communities took part in a Ballet Bélas Bro, as a part of in DNOs visit to Narvik in June 1994.
Dancers from the Nasjonaballetten visited local elementary schools like Tårnveien skole and Villaveien skole; Ballangen skole participated in the production “Peter and the Wolf”, and children from the whole region participated in a week long summer school with teachers from the DNO. Later, in the spring of 1996 teachers from DNO returned for another summer school.
Narvik was Norway’s first council-run music school, however it was quite late in including dance instruction. The project demonstrated that dance instruction was an excellent enrichment to the community school’s activities, and in fact financially the student fees covered most of the teacher’s salary. All that was needed was an appropriate dance studio and council support to administer the dance school. Narvik and its neighbouring communities received instruction of a high professional quality, and this gave pupils the opportunity to pursue further education in dance if they were interested and talented enough.
Full Stop in Dance Instruction
On the completion of the project, Elin Raastad explained why dance instruction should continue in the community school. In the first place, sixty pupils from 5 to 17 had danced for three years, and would abruptly lose their recreational activity.
The council did not inform kultursjef Jan Clausen that the dance teacher’s position should have been baked into his 1996 budget and so when Narvik no longer received external financing, the council was unable to finance the position. There was also a discussion about where dance instruction belonged in the kommunale musikkskole or in elementary schools.
Mid-June 1996, Iris Bartholsen (SV) found NOK 45,000 in the budget to finance a dance teacher’s position for 1997. At the same time SV arefused to raise the student fees in the musikkskole (Narvikmusikken). The mayor, Odd G. Andreassen (AP) supported redirecting monies to support the dance teacher’s position. 35,000 and was taken from rusfrie midler, 10,000 from ungdomskonsulentens opplæringspost. The council found 70,000 of a needed 140,000 in its budget. The council instructed the school to find the additional monies required to fully finance dance instruction when Barn og unges dans was completed June 1996. The council was unable to fully finance the dance teacher’s position and Elin Raastad left Narvik leaving sixty pupils without their dance activity. The last year of the project’s existence was heralded by articles in the local paper.
Dance Continues in Stop Gap Projects
When the council was unable to finance the dance teacher’s position the leader of the parents association, Aud Ljunggren, worked hard to retain dance instruction in small stop gap courses mid-1997. A ballet teacher from Nasjonalballeten, was invited to give an intensive dance course for a small group of older students that was be performed in 1998 as part of Narvik council’s delegation to Festspillene in Harstad (FINN). (Markeringsdistrikt). (Kristensen, 1997)
This heraled in two new projects aimed at including dance as a permanent part of Narvik kommunale musikkskole; project DRAMUDA and Dans som kulturell bro.
This page was written by Fiona Jane Ellingsen. Fiona worked as a consultant in Narvik kulturkontoret (Narvik cultural office); and later a music producer and dance teacher at Narvik kommunale musikkskole (Narvik Musikken), later Narvik kulturskole (Narvik community school), from 1991 – 2006.
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