Folk Dance

The dance entertainments in Brixen that a Venetian legation found so striking at Corpus Christi in 1492 may represent the remnants of processional steps formerly circumambulating the open farmland in a ritual dance. In 1720 the city council of Bozen complained that before and after the Corpus Christi play “young people of both sexes made merry together, with ballets and meals.” In Sterzing in those days, the most boisterous dance all year is said to have taken place at Corpus Christi.[51]
People liked to meet from all over for dancing on church dedication days (Kirchtag): in Albeins on this occasion around 1500 the judge of Gufidaun had the right to the first dance. At the dedication day of the monastery church in Innichen celebrated in September, the residents of Sexten also came for markets and dancing in the 17th century.
At the instigation of the Jesuit mission, dancing on church dedication days was stopped in, for instance, Tulfes and Rinn in 1547, the Vinschgau in 1734, and Volders in 1750.[52] The noble ladies at the royal Damenstift, a religious institution in Hall, were very much displeased that “burghers and peasants amused themselves at inns with quite infuriating and sinful kinds of dancing” in the vicinity of Lienz.Exercising its right of jurisdiction, the institution therefore decreed a ban on dancing in 1778, which the administration of the domain in Lienz was to enforce.[53] In 1612, after the administrator of Georg Fugger the Elder’s domains had presumed to allow “the playing of string instruments” at weddings, church dedication days and “summer dances,” Archduke Maximilian III outlawed it again.[54]
Carnival enticed people in towns and the countryside to the dance floor. In the days of Duke Sigmund and Emperor Maximilian, even princely guests enjoyed the dance of the women of Hall on the three days of carnival; the music was supplied by minstrels (Spielleute) with two pipes (Pfeifen), a tabor and a lute.[55] The head of government in the Etsch region himself encouraged the burghers to dance in Bozen in the 16th century. By contrast, Prince-Bishop Karl II Franz von Lodron, the cathedral chapter, and the Aulic Council of Brixen, in a carnival law applying to Brixen, Bruneck and Klausen in 1793, put a general ban on all public amusements and private balls. Innkeepers could, however, obtain special permission for dances but these had to end by 9 PM. Furthermore, only music for “respectable dances” was allowed to be played. In January 1663 the Bishop of Trent prohibited dances in general in a decree that threatened to punish anyone who went to a ball, or even merely put up with one, and not least any musician who provided music for dancing. Bishop Leopold Firmian of Trent also tried vehemently to check the much-loved dancing in his diocese around the middle of the 18th century. In Bruneck the Kasinoball took place around 1850 on Mardi Gras at the inn “beim Stern.” In 1752 the Jesuit mission’s achievement in the Brixental was that “throughout the whole carnival in the entire judicial district, no minstrel was heard nor dancing carried on.”[56] The Jesuits had even managed, for instance in Telfes in 1749, to stop dancing at weddings. In the Antholzer Tal in 1742 the missionaries considered their message de-sanctified by a wedding celebrated in their presence with dancing. Dancing at weddings was so rooted in the people that, in the wartime state of emergency in the land in 1809, Andreas Hofer prohibited dancing everywhere and for everyone, but with the exception of weddings. The clerics also saw to it that in the 19th century, for instance in the area of Meran, in Gröden and in the Ötztal, dancing be abolished as sinful rambunctiousness.[57] In 1630 the municipality of Taufers in the Münstertal vowed to renounce “public and secret dancing” because of “the deadly contagious plague, to God the Almighty above all, and to Our Lady and all God’s saints, that one may be saved from this evil plague.”[58] After the day’s work was done, mowers both male and female would meet in the evenings for singing and dancing, for example on the Seiser Alm around 1840. According to an observer, there were “hundreds of them.”[59] The Zillertal was an especially dance-loving region.[60] Dance music was often still provided by Spielleute (minstrels) in the 18th century, e.g. in St Johann in Ahrn or in Steinach on the Brenner Pass, where minstrels came from “near and far” on church dedication day, e.g. from Volders. After the interdict on dancing by the church in Längenfeld, the Spielgraf (head of the minstrels’ guild) of Innsbruck complained to the local municipality because he now had to do without the dues from the minstrels. The innkeepers of Mühlbach in the Pustertal held dances at their inns and hired the minstrels themselves. In the first third of the 18th century the dancers in the Oberinntal gave the local judge and also the priest eggs in return for the permission to dance.[61] After a decree in 1707, the church dedication day dances in Steinach and Gries on the Brenner Pass had to be moved from the barns of the farmsteads to the inns so that the head of the minstrels’ guild could keep the right to collect his tax.[62] Many an inn had its own dance arbor; dance halls were in towns and a few old circuit court towns. Lienz, Innsbruck and Aschau in the Lechtal are documented as having a dance hall at their disposal in the 15th century. Theater halls (Spieltennen) served as dance halls in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Innsbruck area, such as in Amras, Schwaz, Axams, Kematen, Sellrain, Inzing, Telfs and elsewhere. Curate Witting of Wenns in the Pitztal bought the public dance hall in his parish in 1735 and had it torn down.[63] Only scattered references are available on a “Spielhof” or a “Spielhütte” for the South Tyrol. In the 17th century the public dance hall and the courtroom were one and the same in Kufstein; Kitzbühel had a “dance floor in the town hall.” Schools and parsonages were also put to use as dance halls.[64] The young people liked to meet for dancing on mountain meadows.
Favorite dances around 1800 were the “Landler” (Ländler) and “Teutsche”(Deutscher Tanz) as well as the écossaise (Schottische), and, in the 19th century, the Schuhplattler (a group dance; the young men clap the rhythm with their hands on the soles of their feet and thighs, letting out occasional shouts). In the mid-16th century “Rayensingen” (round dances with singing) at night in Innsbruck had gotten so out of hand that “no one could not sleep no more.”[65] In those days the “Handschuhtanz” (glove dance) was held annually on the Tegerwiese meadow on Pentecost Monday in Münster in the Lower Inn Valley. A reference to the Höttinger Schwerttanz (sword dance) exists from 1611.[66] Dancing devils and witches often appear in Tyrolean folk legends.[67]

Fussnoten

[51] Josef RIEDMANN, “Eine Reise durch Tirol im Jahre 1492,” Das Fenster 23 (winter 1978) p. 2343;
Quoted as in Adalbert SIKORA, “Fronleichnamsbräuche in Altbozen,” Zeitschrift des Ferdinandeums für Tirol und Vorarlberg, 3rd series, no. 49 (1905) p. 315;
Franz HATTLER SJ, Missionsbilder aus Tirol: Geschichte der ständigen Jesuitenmission von 1719-1784, Innsbruck 1899, p. 213, 244.
 
[52] Anton DÖRRER, “Das Recht auf den ersten Tanz dem hoheren [!] Gerichtsherrn,” Der Schlern 26 (1952) p. 38;
Egon KÜHEBACHER, “Zur Geschichte des Marktes Innichen,” Der Schlern 43 (1969) p. 420;
Marianne PANZER, Tanz und Recht, Frankfurt am Main 1938, p. 20;
Franz HATTLER SJ, Missionsbilder aus Tirol: Geschichte der ständigen Jesuitenmission von 1719-1784, Innsbruck 1899, p. 139.
 
[53] Quoted as in M[aria] K[OLLREIDER]-H[OFBAUER], “Tanzhäuser in Osttirol,” Osttiroler Heimatblätter 22, no. 1 (1954) n.p.
 
[54] Quoted as in Georg MUTSCHLECHNER, “Unbefugtes Saitenspiel (1612),” Der Schlern 69 (1995) p. 428.
 
[55] Ludwig STEUB, Herbsttage in Tirol, 2nd edn, Munich 1889, p. 21;
Walter SENN, “Pfarrschule und Kirchenchor: Die Musikkapelle des Damenstiftes,” Haller Buch (Schlern-Schriften 106), Innsbruck 1953, p. 439.
 
[56] Anton DÖRRER, Bozner Bürgerspiele: Alpendeutsche Prang- und Kranzfeste I (Bibliothek des Literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart 291), Leipzig 1941, p. 102;
Ursula RIEDER, “Die Dommusik und einige Aspekte des bürgerlichen Musiklebens in Brixen,” Musica vocalis: Singen in Südtirol einst und jetzt, ed. Südtiroler Sängerbund 1989, p. 31. -
For the full text of the decree of 5 January 1663, see Roberto LEONI, La Tradizione del Carnevale a Mori dal 1880 al 1990, Mori (TN) 1990, p. 16f. -
Clemente LUNELLI, “I processi per balli suoni e mascherate in Vallagarina nei secoli XVII e XVIII,” Atti dell’Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati, Contributi della Classe di Scienze umane di Lettere ed Arti a[nno] 240 (1990), p. 169ff;
Pauline and Karl MEUSBURGER, “Aus dem alten Bruneck: (Ungefähr 1830-1870),” Der Schlern 4 (1923) p. 4;
Franz HATTLER SJ, Missionsbilder aus Tirol: Geschichte der ständigen Jesuitenmission von 1719-1784, Innsbruck 1899, p. 229.
 
[57] Franz HATTLER SJ, Missionsbilder aus Tirol: Geschichte der ständigen Jesuitenmission von 1719-1784, Innsbruck 1899, p. 245, 169;
Hans HAID, “‘Tanzn ist kindisch, tanzn tuat man nit’: Quellen zur Volksmusik im Oberinntal,” Festschrift Karl Horak, ed. Manfred Schneider, Innsbruck 1980, p. 233;
O. von REINSBERG-DÜRINGSFELD, Culturhistorische Studien aus Meran, Leipzig 1874, p. 27f;
A. A. SCHMIDL, Handbuch für Reisende nach Tirol, Salzburg und Erzherzogthum Oesterreich, Stuttgart 1840, p. 32;
Richard WOLFRAM, Die Volkstänze und verwandte Tänze in Europa, Salzburg 1951, p. 108.
 
[58] Quoted as in Marianne PANZER, Tanz und Recht, Frankfurt am Main 1938, p. 17.
 
[59] A. A. SCHMIDL, Handbuch für Reisende nach Tirol, Salzburg und Erzherzogthum Oesterreich, Stuttgart 1840, p. 36.
 
[60] Philipp MAYER, “Musik und Volksmusik in Tirol und Vorarlberg,” Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild, vol.: Tirol und Vorarlberg, Vienna 1893, p. 370;
Karl HORAK, Tiroler Volkstanzbuch, Innsbruck 1974, p. 3.
 
[61] Franz HATTLER SJ, Missionsbilder aus Tirol: Geschichte der ständigen Jesuitenmission von 1719-1784, Innsbruck 1899, p. 81, 169, 243ff.
 
[62] Anton DÖRRER, “Spieltennen und Tanzhäuser,” Der Schlern 21 (1947) p. 299f.
 
[63] Anton DÖRRER, “Spieltennen und Tanzhäuser,” Der Schlern 21 (1947) p. 297ff, 341f;
M[aria] K[OLLREIDER]-H[OFBAUER], “Tanzhäuser in Osttirol,” Osttiroler Heimatblätter 22, no. 1 (1954) n.p.
 
[64] Anton DÖRRER, “Die alten Tanzhäuser und Spieltennen in Tirol,” Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 41, new series 3 (1931) p. 51;
Anton DÖRRER, “Spieltennen und Tanzhäuser,” Der Schlern 21 (1947) p. 297ff, 341;
Beda WEBER, Tirol und die Reformation, Innsbruck 1841, p. 22.
 
[65] Karl HORAK, “Volkslied und Volksmusik,” Die tirolische Nation 1790-1820, exh. cat. Landesausstellung im Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck 1984, p. 148;
Karl HORAK, “Der Schuhplattler in Tirol,” Jahrbuch des österreichischen Volksliedwerkes 10 (1961), p. 106f. -
Quoted as in David von SCHÖNHERR, Gesammelte Schriften 2, Geschichte und Kulturgeschichte, Innsbruck 1902, p. 531.
 
[66] Hugo NEUGEBAUER, “Der Münsterer Handschuhtanz,” Tiroler Heimatblätter 15 (1937) p. 355ff;
Richard WOLFRAM, Schwerttanz und Männerbund, Kassel 1936, p. 44.
 
[67] Manfred SCHNEIDER, “Der Teufel als Tänzer - zu einem Motiv der Volkssage,” Festschrift für Karl Horak, ed. Manfred Schneider, Innsbruck 1980, p. 189ff.