Stoughton High School Norwegian Dancers

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Stoughton High School Norwegian Dancers

Beginning in 1953, the Stoughton Norwegian Dancers have been entertaining the young and old alike through traditional Norwegian dance. And so the dancers began.
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In the spring of 1953 there was a Physical Education Demonstration scheduled for the public in Stoughton. A month before the big event, Ms. Reek, a phy ed teacher for the district, selected six junior girls and told them to find six boys for a folk dance group that would go public for the upcoming Phy Ed demonstration. The group was accompanied by a single accordian player. They performed two danc

es before a packed gymnasium, a schottische and the Reinlendar. Their second and final performance that school year was at the second annual Syttende Mai program following the Sunday parade. That event was held in front of the side bleachers on the athletic field at the old high school. Immediately the next fall, 3 more couples were added to the group. The Dancers were in high demand almost from the very beginning. In 1960 the group went on tour for the first time outside the midwest when they performed at the National Folk Festival in Washington D.C.. Ms. Reek had exhausted all sources of information in the United States and so in 1964 she spent a summer in Oslo at the International Summer School and researched Norwegian dance and costumes. Thus in 1964-65 more dances were added to the group including today's signature dance, the Norwegian Halling. The Norwegian Dancers continued to grow in popularity and demand and continued to make themselves more and more authentic with costuming from Norway. In 1971 Jeanne and Kay Seamonson traveled to Norway to learn more dances there but then also traveled to Sweden, Denmark and Finland to increase the Dancers' repertoire to include all of Scandinavia. Contacts in the Folk Dance world were made thru that trip which enabled the Dancers to tour to Norway for the first time in 1972. Performances were held in Bergen and Oslo. Jeanne Reek retired as director of the Dancers in June of 1999 after 46 years of dedicating her life to this group. The Dancers were then aptly led by Polly Goepfert for the next 12 years. When Polly retired in June of 2011, Staci Heimsoth became the current director. The Norwegian Dancers have performed all across the United States, Canada, British Columbia and have made four tours to Norway.

11/23/2024

We LOVE performing at schools and had the chance to perform for Clinton Elementary School and at Gingerbread House Preschool right here in Stoughton. Here are a few pictures from those performances! ❤️🇳🇴

11/22/2024

What a great audience during our performance at Clinton Community School District!

11/22/2024

A very cool video from Clinton Community School District!

11/13/2024

On Sunday, November 10th, we performed at Milton Senior Living. Here are a few of the pictures that were captured from that performance. A great Question and Answer session followed up our performance!

11/03/2024

We regret to inform you that our special order dessert of Lutefisk Pop Tarts won’t arrive in time for Lapskaus this year. So you will have to settle for some delicious waffles and strawberries for your Lapskaus dessert! 🤣🤪😜🙃

We will be serving the delicious Lapskaus dinner tomorrow (Monday, November 4, 2024) at Christ Lutheran Church, 700 County Rd B, Stoughton, WI from 4.30 pm - 7.00 pm.

The dinner includes this stew with tasty bread, salad & delicious waffles with whipped cream & strawberries - served by the Dancers.

It’s the perfect dinner for a chilly fall evening, so come on out! You might even catch the dancers doing a dance!

10/28/2024

This past weekend, Destination Stoughton was held on a glorious, sun-splashed Saturday. What a great backdrop for a performance! Enjoy a few of these great photos from that magical performance. There was even a retired director sighting- so cool to see Ms. Heimsoth at the performance!!!

We loved seeing all of the costumes from our smallest fans, which reminds us to stay safe this Halloween.

10/26/2024

We hope there will be a big crowd today! The weather looks great! Trick or Treating downtown and a performance? Sounds like a great afternoon to us.

There is only one place to be this weekend, DESTINATION STOUGHTON.
Our Stoughton High School Norwegian Dancers perform outside in the City Hall Parking Lot today at 4:30 pm. This is a free event.
A full list of weekend events is available on our website: https://bit.ly/4hunWaS

10/22/2024

It’s always so fun to perform in Stoughton! We were afforded that opportunity this past Saturday when we performed for the Hadeland Lag of America and some of our families at the Sons Of Norway Stoughton WI lodge. We also were able to share a little about our group with a Question and Answer session after the dances!

Our next Stoughton performance is at Destination Stoughton on Saturday, October 26, 4.30 pm., at the City Hall parking lot.

10/20/2024

We hope to see you at our Destination Stoughton performance on Saturday, October 26th! Maybe there will even be candy involved! 🇳🇴👻🎃🍭🇳🇴

Our outdoor performance starts at 4.30 pm in the Stoughton City Hall parking lot.

The internationally recognized Stoughton Norwegian Dancers are inviting the community to attend their first Stoughton performance of their 2nd season at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26 at the City Hall

10/19/2024

Last night these 5 helped lead the Stoughton Viking football team to a 34-12 victory on senior night and their football team to a 7-2 record. Today they performed at the Sons Of Norway Stoughton WI with the rest of the Norwegian Dancers. More photos of the performance to come soon!

10/19/2024

Very kind words from a fun performance at a great school! Thank you School District of Janesville, WI!

10/18/2024

We were greeted with sunshine and smiles with recent performances with our neighbors to the south. We were fortunate to perform at Kennedy Elementary School and Oak Park Place Janesville this past week. Here are some pictures from those performances!

Address

600 Lincoln Avenue
Stoughton, WI
53589

Website

http://www.stoughtonnorwegiandancers.net/

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Videos

📢 Attention Alumni 📢 Time to dust off your dancing shoes! Any graduated Norwegian Dancer is welcome to join our practice next Thursday, January 4th, at 6:45 a.m. for a trip down memory lane! Do you remember all of the dances?! Let's find out! We'll see you there!