Old-Time Music in the Driftless: Honoring the Past to Nurture the Future
By Anna Rue with contributions from Beth Hoven Rotto
Since at least the late 1960s, people have been sounding the alarm that Norwegian-American old-time music in the Upper Midwest is on the verge of disappearing. However, regular old-time dances and music events held throughout the region ask us to update the refrain that this music is truly fading from our communities. Remarkable and tireless efforts are being undertaken by musicians, scholars, community members, libraries, and students working together to preserve, study, and revitalize old-time dance music so that it does not disappear. Norwegian-American old-time dance music has existed in the Upper Midwest since Norwegian Americans first settled in the area. The Driftless Area in particular (the unglaciated areas of northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota, southwest Wisconsin, and a small corner of northwest Illinois), includes many communities that still identify with their Nordic roots and have sustained their music traditions. For generations, old-time music and dance were central to the social fabric of the Driftless. Even in years when it lagged in popularity, residents surrounding Decorah, Iowa, and Spring Grove, Minnesota, had regular opportunities to hear old-time music at public performances and dances. The old-time dance music traditions of the Driftless demonstrate a continuity that has come from consistent gatherings and connections among musicians and dancers without the music becoming static or frozen in time. These traditions not only help connect to local past, but also remain relevant to our present and express a hopeful wish for the future. Still, cultural continuity can be hard work, particularly in an era when there is so much competition for people’s time and our digital lives and the recent pandemic have made many feel more socially isolated than ever before. Despite these challenges (and perhaps somewhat in response
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to them), Norwegian-American old-time music today continues to attract musicians and dancers, reasserting its place in connecting people through music, movement, and community. These old-time dances are drawing larger crowds, and what’s more, the multigenerational audiences are truly enjoying themselves and having a great time together. There are also meaningful efforts to support the revitalization of traditional music in the region that emerge from community artists connecting with, mobilizing, and improving institutional resources. The work of distinguished folk musician Beth Hoven Rotto, in collaboration with the University of WisconsinMadison, is one example of how the passion and expertise of community musicians can help us remember important histories by making resources accessible and offering a beautiful new perspective on a tradition with deep roots in the region. In the spring of 2022, Hoven Rotto, fiddler of Decorah-based band Foot-Notes, accepted a Musicianin-Residence position at the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of WisconsinMadison. Hoven Rotto’s residency was especially focused on welcoming more musicians into the Norwegian-American old-time music tradition, and she took a holistic approach to this work. Throughout the semester, she improved archived music collections, made old-time dance music more accessible to musicians, created a community of players to learn the music, raised awareness of this unique music tradition on the UW-Madison campus, and created opportunities to put this music into practice by holding community dances. Hoven Rotto’s residency was aided by several archived music collections held at the Mills Music Library at UWMadison (Mills) – Arnold Munkel Collection, Leonard Finseth
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