#hamborgar

Borger

fuckin uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

As I prepare for tomorrow’s showing, I’ve been thinking about the ways that treepling, percussive stepping indigenous to Scotland defined by dance collectors Joan and Tom Flett as “beating out the rhythm of the music with the feet” (1) could act as a creative locus in encountering music from geographies outwith Scotland. If the defining characteristic of treepling is the articulation of musical rhythms using our southernmost appendages, how might we “treeple” rhythms and melodies from places that might not have their own version of treepling? How would our treepling need to flex in order to dance these other rhythms? What could we learn from this music as we embody it?

This made me think about music and dance from Norway, especially the hardanger fiddle repertoire so symbiotically connected to Norwegian traditional dance. One particular tune type in this repertoire, the Norwegian hamborgar, is a circling polka round dance form in which dancers occasionally stamp to punctuate their steps. (2) This aspect of the hamborgar seemed an entry point for exploration of treepling out this music. Here’s a version of a hamborgar as performed beautifully by Britt Pernille Frøholm and Irene Tillung, a Norwegian hardanger fiddle and accordion duo I first heard perform at the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in Aberdeen, Scotland.

(Frøholm/Tillung perform Andrea Berge, Hamborgar)

I’ve been a fan of Frøholm/Tillung’s sparse but deeply rich and colourful arrangements of traditional Norwegian dance music for over a decade but never thought about how to evoke the rhythms of their melodies and arrangements if I were to perform them solo. This posed a unique challenge: If I were going to articulate the rhythms of Andrea Berge’s hamborgar using percussive treepling footwork, how would I do it? And what of Frøholm/Tillung’s arrangement, to what extent would I need to evoke the extra-melodic musical choices they made to frame the tune, surrounding it like the setting around a precious stone in a ring? How would this stretch treepling? And how could treepling become music of its own, inspired by the specific melody, the performers, and culture from which it originates? Here’s an attempt...

Don’t miss tomorrow’s performance of Andrea Berge (Hamborgar) during the first Art of Treepling free open development sharing.

“The Art of Treepling,” development showing 1

Thursday, March 21

4-4:30 pm

Dance Studio

St. Leonard’s Land, Holyrood Road

University of Edinburgh

First Footing is a collaboration between dancer and dance researcher Nic Gareiss, the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, University of Edinburgh Moray House School of Education, and the School of Scottish Studies with support from Creative Scotland. For engagement opportunities check out the First Footing website.

(1) Traditional Dancing in Scotland. Joan and Tom Flett, 1964, p. 260