 Angela and welcome to the art center and welcome to the family festival Norway Thank you so much for coming out this afternoon Just some housekeeping real quick, please take the time now to silence yourself bones Please refrain from using them because the glow is really distracting to all of you and to the dance Specifically she's the president of the Sons of Norway Lodge here. Thanks to all the Sons of Norway all the volunteers So I also do want to thank Lingling College a light energy for helping make this possible And I wanted to let you know that our next family festival will be January 18th We'll be celebrating the culture of Thailand. So make sure you come back for that And now I'd like to bring out Stacey I'm just gonna tell you a little bit more about the Three empty seats down here if anybody in the back wants to come and fill in these single seats are more than welcome to My name is Stacy Heimsoth. I'm the director of the Stoughton High School in the region dancers And we are a school group that has been in existence for over 60 years started in 1953 These are sophomores juniors and seniors at our high school. We practice every morning at five minutes to seven until 740 so they have time to shower and get to class on time We can't practice after school because most of these students are also athletes and so after school They have their athletic performance. So they're very busy kids into lots of things And in order to be into this group, they have to have great recommendations a good great point average and be you know Kids of good good characters. So I think you're in for a real treat We will be performing now and then also again at 2 o'clock and we'll do mostly different dances at 2 o'clock So if you want to come back or spread the news to have other people come and see us at 2 o'clock, that would be great So without further ado, let's welcome the Stoughton High School Norwegian dancers But we do dances from all of Scandinavia Mostly though from Norway and Sweden in little man You're going to see two groups of four dancers The guys will be in the middle and with one girl on each side The girls are going to drape their arms across the guys shoulders and link hands and as they walk around The girls feet will lift up off the floor and they'll fly through the air They're going to do this three times And the second time they will be going up and down using a dipping maneuver If you notice they are all wearing boonads and these are all from Norway So they are brought over from Norway and we have a seamstress in Stoughton who puts them all together for us So they are as you know, they're authentic and if you've ever priced a boonad, you know They're very costly each of the girls boonads is anywhere from two thousand to five thousand dollars apiece Little man Girls are starting to flirt with each other and snooze which then of course makes them sneeze all over the girls So let's see what happens in snooze dance a Russian Influence pretty much the middle part of Norway where the country just starts to get skinny as it goes north But you can hear a little bit of a Russian influence even at the country. It's not way far north But just listen for that again in Scandinavian Square You're going to see some of the bus stop like you did in it will also be treated to a lift with the ladies at the end of the dance She dancer because of and I get to see a lot of smiling children laughing and Enjoying our performance and I think that's the best part of it Hi, I'm Patrick Riley. I like to dance because I like the group of people I'm dancing with and it brings a smile on everyone's face Hi, I'm Isaac I exterior. Um, the reason why I joined dancing is because My grandpa was one of the first dancers and I just thought I should carry the tradition and a few my cousins are on it and I'm Isaac Landers and I joined Norwegian dancers because it's a great experience and it's a huge tradition in storm, Wisconsin Hi, my name is Connor and I joined Norwegian dancers because I like to be in a part of the close-knit group Well, we practice every morning for about seven o'clock to seven forty five And it does get very tiring sometimes, but you know, I mean, it's a lot of fun at the same time Yes, some of our guys get a little beat up with the The tricks that they do during the hulling, but overall we're pretty healthy kids. So we bounce back from it pretty quick Well, we traveled last year to Arizona and that was a lot of fun And so one of the best things about our tours is that we get really close together We really bond but as far as traveling. It's a really cool experience because for me I'd never been to Arizona before so it was a cool way to experience Arizona, but also bring our culture and As far as going to Norway next year that will be really exciting for a group like Isaac But yeah, it'll be really cool for our group to be able to do that. No Yeah, a little bit adds a little bit of weight the guys can Talk a little bit about how girls get heavier when they're wearing wool Lifting us a little bit tougher and especially to Arizona. We were hot wool bunans They're all like wool. So when we wore them, we got really sweaty and hot So yeah, that's one thing about our group. We're really close because we're all sweating on each other Another bonus to the dancer group Sometimes depending on How the week was beforehand you might want to punch a guy, but otherwise we're pretty friendly and it's usually fake punches The slaps the slaps get intense if you if you've had a bad day the day before You maybe just want to take it out on somebody the person closest to you is probably the best option Best part about Norwegian dancing is being able to make everybody in the room smile It's between our acting or our tricks or our Lifting us in the air it no matter who you are from little toddlers to senior citizens. They love it and it's fun to make them smile And add to that Just the group of people like people have said before It's just you become so close with the people and it's the best experience you could ever get I mean, I don't think Cassie and I knew each other beforehand But we never would have been as good of friends as we are without dancers. Yeah, it definitely has definitely been the biggest The best part of my senior year my whole high school career. This is the best part of it So I'm so happy that I joined dancers Nice kisses and then they'll do a weaving and then towards the end They're gonna take their two lines and form two circles and at the end they will take those two circles and Mesh them into one and watch the footwork pattern. It's a little unusual in co-car. They'll be doing a heel toto pattern co-car and Galesca and watch for one point There's a little bit of a humor thrown in so watch for that and then at the end They'll be doing a weaving pattern a figure eight pattern where they make just a big mess with their swords And then they come out of it in sword dance If you were in doorway, you would have the bunad that represents the district that your family comes to have gymnastics stunts in them, which Obviously due to the size limitations today. We can't do here our dancers. No 46 dances So when we perform the chances are that you're going to be seeing different dances So we encourage you to come to Stoughton sometime and see them and of course we in Stoughton. We celebrate sitting to my Very well a second largest celebration in the world I think it is and we celebrate Friday and Saturday is Sunday of the weekend That's closest to sit in a my which is May 17th, which is norways independence day So we will conclude our performance today with the Hulling Cust