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Accepted Paper:
Recruiting heirs for intangible heritage - a task for teachers?
Tóta Árnadóttir
(University of Iceland)
This paper discusses the transmission of traditional skills, labeled Intangible Cultural Heritage, within public school settings, based on the case study of the teaching of the Faroese Chain Dance in Faroese public schools.
Paper long abstract:
Since 1997 the traditional Faroese Chain Dance - a dance accompanied only by the collective chanting of ballads - has been explicitly included in the national curricula of the Faroese public schools. The inclusion was intended as a supporting measure, as the traditional contexts of transmission were changing and general interest of participating in the practice seemed to be fading. However, the outcomes have varied greatly from one school to another. As the dance was listed on the Faroese Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2020, questions about “best practices” and about the purpose of including this subject as a mandatory part of every Faroese child’s education has become even more relevant, as the schools are expected to play a vital part in the future safeguarding of the dance.
In this paper I present fieldwork in five different Faroese schools as well as interviews with both teachers and dancers regarding the role of the school in the contemporary transmission of the practice. It turns out that teaching of the dance has been practiced in very different ways in various schools and that some teachers continue to struggle to fulfill the goals set out for them -a challenge described already in 2008 by Danish music ethnologist, Eva Fock. There seems to be some disagreement and confusion regarding didactic methods and regarding ontological aspects of the practice teachers are expected to transmit. Teachers seem to perceive the task differently, depending both on their personal background and their perception of realistic learning goals.