Country: Senja, Troms, Norway
Type: couple dance
Formation: couples in open circle, M with back to centre of circle. Waltz hold.
Steps: bytomfotsteg frå hamborgar
(change-step, with an additional small lift on beat 4))
sluttsteg.
Sheet music: Norwegian description for Nordlek 2006.
Recordings:
Egeland, Ånon & Susanne Lundeng Niaren frå Senja on: Norska turdansar II frå Agder og
Nord-Norge Grappa 1996, track 25 [YouTube];
Finlands svenska folkdansring Årsprogram 2005-2006 track 06.
| Bars | Part | Dance progression |
| 1-8 | (a) | Beginning with outside (ML/WR) foot, couples dance hamborgar for 7 turning change steps,
turning CW and moving in LOD (1-7), followed by a sluttsteg (8), during which M bows and W curtseys.
[The description from the 1948 publication emphasizes that M must have his back to the centre of the circle at the end of the 7 bars of hamborgar, otherwise it becomes very difficult to do the dance.] |
| 1-8 | Couples dance hamborgar for 7 turning change steps,
turning CCW and moving in LOD (1-7), followed by a sluttsteg (8), during which M bows and W curtseys.
[Finish with Ms back to the centre of the circle.] |
|
| 9-16 | (b) | Couples dance hamborgar for 7 turning change steps,
turning CW and moving in LOD (9-15), followed by a sluttsteg (16), during which M bows and W curtseys.
[Finish with Ms back to the centre of the circle.] Because the dance constantly alternates between turning CW and CCW, at the next repeat from (a) couple should begin turning CCW, etc. |
| Repeat from (a) as desired. |
Provenance:
In the 1930s, Gudrun Lunde, at that time leader of a folkdance group in Bundeungdomslaget in Tromsø, heard that Emil Berg, who had grown up in
Lysbotn on Senja, knew some old dances. She persuaded him to come to Tromsø to teach the dances, one of which was Niaren or Nigjaren, to the
folkdance group. She also wrote descriptions of the dances, which she then sent to Klara Semb. Ms Semb published two of the dances in the 1935
edition of Norske folkedansar II, but not Niaren. It was published for the first time in the 1948 edition, and has not been published again
until the 1991 edition.
Niaren is danced to one melody only. According to Hanna Berg Angell, Helmer Telnes, at the Teachers' College in Tromsø transcribed the
sheet music based on Berg. It was published in the 1952 edition of Norske folkedansar III: slåttar.
This was one of the combined dances for Nordlek 2006 in Göteborg.
Printed source: Semb, Klara Norske folkedansar II: turdansar (NFII 1991). Oslo: Noregs Boklag/Det Norske Samlaget, 1991. pp. 298-299.
See also Norwegian description for Nordlek 2006.
Translation: Laine Ruus, Oakville, 2021-06-10, rev. 2021-08-28.
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