History

På svenska

LOGDANSARNA (“The Barn Dancers") started in 1990 as a dance team in the local folklore society “Hembygdsgillet Burlöv-Lomma” in Scania. During 2001 we have became a society of our own.

The name of the team wasn’t an official name from the beginning, but was used spontaneously because of the kind of dances we danced - Barn Dances from England.

At the beginning the programmes were made up by different ball-room dances, or correctly speaking, several different dances were put together to avoid to much repetition of the dance figures. During the first years we had performances at, among others, “Lilla Torg” (Small Market) in Malmö, the Market in Arlöv and the Market in Lund. The last-mentioned performance in heavy rain and in front of an audience consisting two persons and some faithful ones from our society.

In those days our costumes were inspired of the Wild West. The ladies were wearing checked dresses and the gentlemen jeans and waistcoat.

That was how it started. The team which danced on Tuesdays beneath the library in Arlöv began to give dance performances. This photo was taken in Arlöv at the end of the 80´s.

Facing, as we thought, a somewhat more important performance at the Concert Hall in Malmö, we decided to make new clothes. These were more like folk costumes, but still in an indeterminable style. The most distinguishing thing was the ladies´ big white collars which everybody, at least, had an opinion about. I believe they had an outstanding effect at a distance.

The team still only danced to English music and although the dances were mostly made up by myself, the Swedish influence was not very significant.

However, some Swedish music slowly appeared in our programs and some Swedish influenced dances as well. On one occasion we had both an English and a Swedish programme but because of heavy rain only the English one could be performed. Our team had now quite many performances and we danced at several places e.g. Landskrona, Kävlinge, Trelleborg, Arlöv and at the Malmö festival.

The Barn Dancers at the mill in Arlöv in 1994.

One year we got the possibility to make a performance in Smyge where there was a folk music festival. The first time we had to beg for it, but after that we have been invited several times. Thanks to this festival we have got the opportunity to get to know the folk dance group from Söderslätt and the lovely music group “Durfåglarna”.

The first time “the Barn Dancers” were going to perform to live music was at the Folklore Festival in Rättvik, Dalarna, in 1996. Not only learning all dances to a new type of music, we also had to keep more than 20 dances present in our minds. And now, suddenly it was supposed to look Swedish too. One reason was to match our new costumes, made for this special event. These caused a great deal of wonder and we were asked many times which part of the country they came from.

By the mill in 1996 in Arlöv together with the musicians Folke, Nisse, Ebbe, Gunvi and Rolf just before our journey to Rättvik.

Both in Rättvik 1998 and in Erfurt 1999 in Germany we were lucky to have the group “Durfåglarna” as musicians.

An important moment for us was when we got “Durfåglarna” to play at some of our performances. It is a group of about 15 musicians who like to play old Scanian music, but they also play a lot of their own composed music. They have released 2 CD records. Probably it is still possible to buy them.

“The Barn Dancers”, which at present consists of 24 dancers, has specialized in newly composed dances, influenced both by Swedish and by other countries folk dance tradition. Our focus at the performances is the audience. The dances are addressed to the audience and the purpose is to give the audience something new and different. Our aim is to be perfect. We believe that we were one of the first teams in Sweden to do “dances on stage in folk dance tradition”. In the last years our dances have been spread to other folk dance teams in the south of Sweden. Gradually they have started using some of the dances in their own performances and because of this we believe that “the Barn Dancers” have influenced and developed the tradition of folk dance.