Come Dance with Me! The history of theatrical dance in Narvik, is primarily about the first attempts to make dance a normal and natural part of cultural expression in the city. Thanks to the folk-dance club BUL Narvik, private dance schools and Narvik musikkskole, now kulturskole, many young people have developed their talents in multiple performing arts. In particular dance educators have expanded the horizons of their pupils and awakened their interest in professional performers and visiting ensembles.
The book’s many illustrations give a visual picture that mere words cannot and enable the reader to envision what performers and spectators experienced.
Why is the history of dance so important?
The history of dance is the history of dancers. If dancers don’t write it down, or conduct research into it, and publish it, then who will? We don’t know what history will say about our lives, but they will certainly say nothing if nothing is written down.
A major aim of this site is to educate politicians about dance and its role in Narvik’s cultural history, so that they understand the importance of a community culture school to the city’s life. It is also aims to paint as accurate a picture as possible from this colourful period.
Dance is not only a fun pastime but also an essential skill, which influences all parts of a person’s life. Things we take for granted today like a publicly funded and run dance school, finally came about in 1999 in Narvik. This was (sometimes bitterly) resisted for three decades by the Narvik council. Dance history is full of conflicts between innovators and traditionalists. Today dance is (mostly) on an equal footing with music and theatre in local community schools.
Personally, I believe that creative people are vital to the future prosperity of a community. Hence, all children should be able to study the arts in a well-run community culture school. This requires politicians to make this financially possible based on an understanding of the story that lies behind. I hope that politicians are open minded enough to realize that even though they themselves do not understand the importance of studying dance, that they still vote to fund it. According to the Greek proverb, A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.
What is dance really?
This is a very important question.
Generally speaking, dance is an art form that very few people truly understand in Norway. Historically it has rested on the efforts of a handful of idealistic teachers and their schools.
Dance is something that very few politicians are willing to support. The quality of dance instruction and standard in our national theatres today deserves much better support and recognition. One way to achieve this recognition is to write about the history of pioneers like Haagensen and Lian.
Our art, until recently, depended almost entirely on memory. As poetry did in the time of Homer. Even outstanding teachers like Haagensen and Lian, were doomed to short periods of fame. We can see the past only through the work of today’s artists, and the fragments of film, photographs, newspaper articles and scrapbooks earlier dancers left behind. Notation also enables us to see the whole structure of a ballet. However, it is not the same as being physically present both as an audience and as a participant.
Dance is a momentary art form leaving little visible trace behind, except in visual images and the memory of its practitioners and viewers. Unlike music and art, dance is transitory and ephemeral, and leaves no concrete product for future study, hence the importance of preserving the reminiscences of people who lived during the establishment of dance in Narvik. Oral histories of people with first-hand experience form the basis of this netsite and are transcribed and published in the folder Interviews. Their visual history is also preserved the photo gallery pages.
What is unique about Narvik, is that this small community was a pioneer in offering dance instruction in a professionally run school, long before any other north Norwegian town. Professionally run schools only existed in a few large southern cities like Trondheim and Oslo. Two short lived, privately run, amateur dance schools and a number of sporadic dance shows, did exist in Narvik in the interwar period, however, it was not until 1951 that a professional dance school was established in a town already famous for its active song and music life. Dance instruction has existed in Narvik, to the town’s delight, ever since. The history of the founding of Narvik Kommunale Musikkskole (the Community School of Music) is discussed here: Founding of the community music school in Narvik