Sleeping bags on the floor of the school classroom

Many in our dance and musician class went to the extraordinary Linköping Folkmusikfestival October 10-11. It is the biggest indoor folk festival in Sweden, and it was really wonderful to feel the energy of many hundreds of people, mostly young, playing and dancing and enjoying Swedish folk music.
We traveled by car or train. When there was sleeping (post 3AM closing of the festival), most of us slept in a 2nd floor classroom together on the floor. I was grateful to friends who loaned me a sleeping bag and inflatable mattress. I was happy to have my earplugs; late night jamming went very long elsewhere in the school. Showers (communal but single-sex) were down the street in a fitness center. Linköping is a very cool university town and we enjoyed walking around it.

Mikael and David Eriksson led a polska workshop to kick off the festival on Friday. David was unfortunately stuck on a delayed train (it was raining), so I helped Mikael with some demonstrations, and Oskar Björck helped with others. I had some wonderful dances with David later in the evening.

Klintetten played a wonderful set on Saturday, and I was lucky to dance with Stig during part of it, including Bakmes och slängpolsk från Övre Klarälvsdalen, Bingsjö polskor, Åtabakspolska, and Finnskogs Pols.

The various festival performances were really amazing. My favorites were the Hazelius/Hedin CD release concert, and a Norwegian dance group called Vilniss.
Vilniss was a group of two women and three men, and included beautiful singing and hardingele and cello playing. They had a creative set with a circle of fans blowing large pieces of iridescent fabric into the air, with images projected on the back wall. The images included trees, many natural elements including developing blood vessels. They did wonderful Halling moves, and amazing things with Valdresspringar, including reverse rundsnu turning, and a series of moves where the partners were together but not touching, including during parts where the weight of the partner really helps the dance. They also did an amazing rundsnu for three people. Late in the dance the fans blew large snow-like flakes into a vortex on the stage.

The group MP3, playing for dance at 2:20 AM.

Johan Hedin, nyckelharpa, and Esbjörn Hazelius, cittern/guitars at their release concert for the CD Sunnan

Between all the different performance and dance venues, were hallways full of people jamming in a big happy kaleidoscope of Swedish folk sound. The energy was quite something.

The new Hazelius/Hedin CD, Sunnan, is wonderful, as was the concert where they played those tunes.

At the dance venues most of the dances played were polska or schottis. Very little hambo (maybe one or two the entire weekend). Many people danced slängpolska, ranging from new dancers to highly skilled.