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The Swedish Polska MATS NILSSON The Swedish Polska Translated from Swedish by Eivor Cormack and Jill Ann Johnson English proofreading by Esbjörn Wettermark Svenskt visarkiv/Musikverket Stockholm 2017 1 © 2017 Mats Nilsson & Svenskt visarkiv/Musikverket Photos, Front cover (from the top): Korrö Folk Music Festival, Leif Carlsson (2006); Orsa, Mats Nilsson (2003); Stallet, Stockholm, Mats Nilsson (2003). Back cover: Korrö Folk Music Festival, Leif Carlsson (2006) ISBN 978-91-979205-5-1 Skrifter från Svenskt visarkiv nr 37 2 Innehåll Preface to The Swedish Polska by Dan Lundberg 4 Thank you … 5 Polska the Swedish Way? 8 II Polska – What Is It? 11 What Do the Polska Dancers Say? 12 Polska – But Schottische and Waltz Too 27 III Polska Dancing in Sweden in the Twenty-First Century 30 Venues – Where People “Do” the Polska 30 Polska Dancers – the People Who “Do” the Polska 39 Meaning – Togetherness, Cultural Heritage and Aesthetics 45 IV A Contemporary Dance Form 51 How is Polska “Done” Today? 51 Music to Dance to 60 A Typology for Twenty-First Century Polska Dances 63 V Some Historical Aspects 75 Polska as Dance 76 Polska (Dance) Music – Not Only Triple Metre 86 “A Beloved Child Has Many Names” 89 VI A Popular Cultural Manifestation in the 2000s 96 Folk Dance, Folklig Dans and Popular Dance 97 (Polska) Dancing through the Centuries 100 The return of Polska Dancing 103 VII Dance Ethnology – Studying an Expressive Cultural Manifestation 107 Researcher and Dancer – One and the Same Person 110 Folk Culture and Popular Culture 114 Polska Dance as a Research Field 116 Notes 119 Sources 127 3 Preface to The Swedish Polska When we first published Mats Nilsson’s bookFrån långdans till bugg [From long-dance to jive] (2004) as an e-resource on our website, we had not anticipated the demand for literature about dance and folk dancing in Sweden. Since its online publication, the book has been one of Svenskt visarkiv’s most used e-resources. International readers regularly request English-language literature in this area, and this new publication is in response to these requests. The Swedish Polska was first published in Swedish asPolska på svenska, in 2009, and has since been widely used by university students and dance scholars. In addition, it has been read in wider circles by dancers, musicians, and other interested readers. The English online version is a translation of the original book with minor corrections, not a new edition. Mats Nilsson is an ethnologist based at the University of Gothenburg, where his primary research interest is folk-, and popular dancing in Sweden and Scandinavia. Today, he is one of few Swedish ethnologists who research and publish in this area. He received his PhD from the University of Gothenburg in 1998 with a dissertation entitled Dance – continuity in change, a study of social dancing in Gothenburg from 1930 until 1990. However, Mats is not only an academic but also a dance practitioner with an almost lifelong experience as dancer and tutor. These combined competences make up an important foundation for this book. Throughout the study, Mats’ personal relationship to dance and dancing is reflected through thoughtful reflections and observations of the Swedish polska dance scene. With a personal and not overly academic language, Mats allows himself to move around the Swedish dance floors to ponder on the nature of dance and music, as well as their social roles and functions – in the present and in the past. Stockholm, 11 March 2016 Dan Lundberg Director, Svenskt visarkiv (Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research) 4 Thank you … … all dancers and musicians I have met! … for financial support during the research Council for Artistic Development and Research, DOCH, School of Dance and Circus, Stockholm The Faculty of Arts, University of Gothenburg … for contribution to printing Wilhelm and Martina Lundgren’s Foundation for Scholarly Research 1 … for manuscript reading and productive discussions Professor Birgitta Skarin Frykman, Gothenburg Archivist Göran Andersson, Växjö Dr Ingegerd Sigfridsson, Hönö Dr Karin Eriksson, Växjö Associate Professor Marianne Pipping Ekström, Gothenburg … for photographs Bengt Nilsson, Gothenburg, private ownership Leif Carlsson, Småland Music Archives, Växjö Mats Nilsson, Gothenburg, private ownership Ronny Lindkvist, Småland Music Archives, Växjö höNö, AuguSt 2009 Mats Nilsson 5 I Polska the Swedish Way? IS there Such a thing as “Swedish” dance? Is it possible to talk about a “Swedish” polska, considering the name’s connotations with Poland; the word polska in Swedish being the term for a Polish female as well as the Polish language? And on what grounds can we call the polska Swedish? I believe we can talk about Swedish dance, just as we talk about Egyptian, Argentinean, or Spanish dance, because certain dances exist and are being danced among the people who inhabit the geopolitical area, which for some centuries has been called Sweden. Polska is one of these Swedish dances that have been danced and shaped by the people who live in this particular part of the world. This is not a manual on how to dance the polska. The best way to learn is on the dance floor, along with other dancers. No sooner has this been stated than some of my own views on dancing are revealed. It is something you do, it is an activity, and not something you learn by reading a book.1 But maybe this is, after all, a kind of manual; a textbook about possible attitudes and relations to dance, such as physical movement and music making, which can also be applied to other non-material expressive cultural manifestations. The idea is that this text should bring something new to people who are already familiar with, and knowledgeable about polska dancing – as well as to all those with a more general interest in dance or cultural studies as a whole. However, this book is first and foremost a scholarly essay on dance. The Swedish title for this book, Dans – polska på svenska, (literally, Dance – Polska in Swedish) has a background of its own. This is my third book on dance. The two previous ones are titled Dans – från långdans till bugg (Dance – From Long Dance to Bugg), 1990, and Dans – kontinuitet i förändring (Dance – Continuity in Change), 1998 – hence, the idea of giving this, my third book, a title in a somewhat similar style. The first book, from 1990, is a textbook for a study circle on dance, an educational and part historical text on popular dance in 6 Sweden from the Middle Ages onwards. I had wanted it to have the title Dans på svenska (Dance in Swedish), but the publisher vetoed it. At the time, the publisher considered the title potentially discriminating against immigrants, or, “new Swedes”. I found their argument difficult to understand, as most of the Swedish dance repertoire is ‘immigrant’, and this was one of my points in Dans – från långdans till bugg. The book from 1998 is my doctoral dissertation on dancing in Gothenburg between 1930 and 1990. Using the expression “in Swedish” would have been too general in that context, so I focused on my reflections on continuity in change instead. However, now the time is right to develop my thoughts on Sweden and Europe’s shared dance heritage by looking at a particular case; the Swedish polska dance. That is why I chose the title Dance – polska på svenska for this book. In the text, I approach polska dancing from four different angles. These are, with polska as dance, as music, as a name, and as an experience. The first angle looks at polska as movements and choreographic form. There are two aspects here, mine and other researchers’ words to describe the movements which make up the way polska is danced, and the dancers’ own words and names for the dance they dance. Although these two positions do not always concur, there is a general agreement between dancers and researchers of what it is that constitutes polska as a dance. Secondly, polska is a musical form – in this case a form of dance music. Dance music is an important part of nearly all forms of dance, something that cannot be completely ignored. Polska is usually described by both dance practitioners and researchers as music in triple time with a distinctive rhythm. Thirdly, polska is a name, a term for something. The starting point here is, what name dancers use for their dance form, and what name they give to the music they dance to. In fact, one could argue that it is the name polska, which bring the dance and the music together. It is in the language and the mind that we establish norms and shape the perceived relationships between sound and movement. The fourth, but in many ways the most important, aspect is that polska constitutes the experiences and emotions which arise from dancing the polska. In the act of dancing, the physical movements of the dancer and the sound of the music fuse. At its best we stop thinking and just “do” the polska, we rotate and ‘float’ with the music, allowing ourselves to reach a “flow”, and a complete experience.2 In this context, ‘fluidity’, or, to ‘float’ (flyt), is a technical term used by polska dancers, while ‘flow’ denotes the psychological and creative experience reached through dancing. 7 When these four aspects (dance, music, the term and the experience) are brought together they make up the phenomenon I call polska dancing, as a manifestation of a twenty-first-century Swedish dance subculture. It is of course possible to start from any one of these four aspects, but their order has not been chosen at random. This book focuses on polska as dance form and the way of dancing.
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