Paint Creek Folklore Society: A Page in History
by Glen Morningstar Jr.
In celebration of the upcoming 30th anniversary year
of Paint Creek Folklore Society
ARTICLE 8…Paint Creekers Perform in Denmark and Sweden
With Paint Creek's successful hosting of the first
half of the folk music, song and dance exchange with the Danes from Thy Spillemandslaug and Thy Folkedanserslaug
in July 1984, plans were set afoot for Paint Creekers to complete the second
half of this exchange. Many lessons were learned from our Danish friends and
performers when they were here and we were anxious to apply them.
A proposal for Michigan and Kentucky folks to travel to Denmark in July 1985 was constructed and submitted to the
PCFS Board by Glen Morningstar on November 3, 1985. It contained the Purpose of the Exchange,
Programming, Travel, Pricing Forecast and Timeline. It was enthusiastically
approved. The program included performances and workshops. A process for rostering participants was also part of the proposal with a
target of 13 folks from Michigan
and 13 folks from Kentucky as the group. Svend and
Anna Hamborg from Thisted, Denmark were confirmed as the coordinators for the first week in Denmark and Meta Ollgard was
confirmed as the coordinator for our second week in Rodding
(the old capitol of Denmark, on the mainland).
Rostering for the exchange was completed by December 17,
1984 with participants in Michigan joining from Paint Creek Folklore Society, Detroit
Country Dance Society, and the Ann Arbor Council for Traditional Music and
Dance. Kentucky participants were from the Kentucky River Folk
Dancers in Frankfort and Berea Country Dancers Alumni in Berea. Don Stosberg was the
leader and contact for the Kentucky
contingent. We finished with a total 30 people. Michigan names you'll recognize are Decker, Douglas, Freeman, Hays, Jackson,
Menton, Morningstar, Nagle, Neal, O'Connell, Pavlinak, Preston, Robinson, Szczepanski, Theyken, Visconti and Warner.
Once the rostering was complete, all aspects of the
trip from costuming to language to music to printed programs to specific dance
programs were identified. Each participant took at least one of the aspects to
lead that activity. Some particularly enjoyable time was spent on learning Danish
language and customs and watching the stunning costuming develop to support the
program. One of the key activities was to select our group's name and we landed
on Vennekreds, a Danish word for "A Circle of Friends".
The programs were fantastic. Everyone pitched in to
finalize two distinct programs with the ability to mix and match for the
settings in Denmark and Sweden. The basic theme for our performances was "Dance and Sing Your Way
through American History" with performers, costumes and music changing like
sets in a Stratford play. The transitions between the segments in the
programming kept the energy high and the audiences attentive. Many practices were
conducted both separately in Michigan and Kentucky and also with the whole group together in both Michigan and Kentucky. We silk-screened our own logo on tote bags and a
variety of apparel. Books of our programs were constructed for each of the
participants and booklets of our programs were constructed to distribute
wherever we performed. These booklets are on file in the Archives of Paint Creek
Folklore Society.
On July 18, 1985, 8 cars loaded with 30 dancers, musical
instruments, costumes and luggage departed from the parking lot at Fort Street
Presbyterian Church (Pastor Drew Nagle was one of the
participants) and caravanned across Canada to Toronto. In Toronto we boarded a Sterling Airlines jet and flew first to
Copenhagen, then hopped in a "tin can" and flew to Thisted in the Jutland. When we arrived
in Thisted at 10:25 am on July 19th, we were greeted by our friends from Thy Spillemandslaug playing great Danish and American music and
met all our hosts. That night we had a grand reception at the Amatorhuset (folkdance hall) in Thisted
where we ate and drank heartily and performed both of our 1-hour programs for
our hosts. A total of 20 Danish families were hosting our 30 participants. Staying
with families in their homes was a most wonderful way to learn about Denmark.
Our schedule in Denmark is best described as whirlwind. We conducted two performances
and one 3- hour workshop in the Thisted area before
traveling with our hosts via cars and ferry boat to Sweden where camped and performed near Uddevalla
for two days. Note that this was one month after “Long Day.”
While the sun would indeed set while we were in Sweden, the sky was always light like day- break. We didn't
get a whole lot of sleep :^) We returned to the Thisted
area where we performed on Radio Holstebro in Hanstholm then mixed site seeing with two more performances
over the course of the next 3 days. At the conclusion of this first week, we
all gathered at the bus station in Thisted where our
most gracious hosts saw us off to our second spot in Denmark, the old city of Rodding. In Rodding we had a very
similar schedule as in Thisted. One of the added
adventures in Rodding was sharing a performance with
a young group of French traditional dancers. It was a treat to see teenagers presenting
their culture's dances. Another notable performance was in Legoland…yes,
the home of Lego blocks.
At the completion of our second week with new friends
in Rodding, they gathered us together at the bus
station there and saw us off as we returned to Copenhagen. For the last night in Denmark, we all celebrated with a trip to Tivoli, the amusement park in downtown Copenhagen. We stayed at a local hotel, the Dan Hotel, in the city.
In wrapping up this article I wanted to note that one
of the gratifying elements of the exchange was a result of us sharing the
occupations and interests of the members of our group with our Danish contacts.
Our contacts worked especially hard to match us with hosts of similar
interests. It was a delight to share stories with each other of very similar
occurrences across the countries. We had a whole new view of the United States and how we were perceived just 8 hours (by air)
away. This exchange was the talk of the town for the next two years and generated
a lot of positive notoriety for Paint Creek Folklore Society. We agreed with
our Danish counterparts to conduct the exchange again with a target of 1987 and
1989 trips respectively.