Bygdedans, or village dance, is the term most commonly used for a variety of regional, traditional dances of Norway. These dances, and the accompanying music, is normally seen as the oldest living musical traditions in the country. These traditions have mainly survived in the more isolated farming communities of the country. In the urban areas and along the coastline where the interaction with other cultural expressions were more intense, these dances have been left behind in favour of new popular dances (gammeldans) from Europe that came along with new instruments like the Accordion. A button accordion An accordion is a musical instrument of the handheld bellows-driven free reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as squeezeboxes. ...

The basic form of the bygdedans is the gangar (walking dance in 2/4 or 3/8) and the springar (running dance in even rythm or 3/4) distinguished from each other mainly by tempo and intensity of the music and the dance. Both dances were characterised by a sequence of three parts: the figuring part; the free dancing part (lausdans) and the closed hold part (samdans). Trough time a lot of regional variation has developed and most springar dances today have a clear ¾ pulse, which intonation varies considerably regionally. For instance in Telemark the pulse is best characterised as long – longer – short, whereas in Valdres it is short – longer – long. The gangar is today only a living tradition in Telemark and Setesdal. In the western part of Norway the ganger and its traditional tunes have been taken over by rull/rudl a dance with a more modern waltzing style. The more athletic Halling or Lausdans can also be seen as an heir of gangar but is mostly danced by men. Telemark is a county in Norway, bordering Vestfold, Buskerud, Hordaland, Rogaland and Aust-Agder. ... View over Begnadalen from Lærskogen, with the large woodland ranging all over to Randsfjorden on the left and Hedalsfjella in the right background Valdres is a landscape in central, southern Norway, situated between Gudbrandsdal and Hallingdal. ... Telemark is a county in Norway, bordering Vestfold, Buskerud, Hordaland, Rogaland and Aust-Agder. ... Setesdal is a valley and landscape in central, southern Norway, consisting of the municipalities Bykle, Valle, Bygland, Iveland, Evje og Hornnes. ... The halling is a Norwegian dance. ...

The areas of bygdedans correlate mainly with the areas where the Hardanger Fidle is used as the main folk music instrument. In the parts of Norway where the violin is more common, the traditional dances like, pols and springleik, have taken up more modern traits assosiated with the gammaldans. The pols is a Norwegian folk dance, a faster version of the Swedish polska. ...

External link

• University of Oslo article on Bygdedans