Hambo
The hambo is a Swedish folk dance in three-four time and is danced in pairs.
music
The Hambo is as gammaldans called (dance originating from the period before the 1930s) although he has emerged relatively late. The music is played in three-quarter time, with strong emphasis on the first beat at a brisk but not too fast tempo (100–120 beats, i.e. 33–40 bars per minute). The music is always a multiple of eight bars.
history
One of the possible origins of the hambo is the polka mazurka, a multi-twist dance that was very popular in the second half of the 19th century. The term polka-mazurka can also be found in early 20th century music books used by rural folk musicians. One of the rotating figures of the dance was developed into an independent dance in Sweden around 1900 and danced to older Polska music, for example hambopolska , but with a strong emphasis on the first beat. The word Polska in Sweden means, among other things, Polish dance . At the beginning of the 20th century there was a simpler version of the Hambo with two small steps; the first two steps were taken as forward steps, then came the turns. The variants of the hambo that are danced today, with the so-called dalsteg in the first two bars, originated in the middle of the 20th century.
It is characteristic of this dance that the dancers emphasize the steps differently during the turns, which gives the dance a certain dynamic - even at a moderate pace.
variants
In today's common form of the hambo, the dancer holds the dancer's left hand with his right hand. In the first bar, starting on the left, he dances a step forward and lifts his right foot diagonally in front of his left shin, this is the Dalsteg step. In the second measure he does the same with his right foot. The dancer performs the movements in mirror image. After the two Dalsteg steps, in the next bar, the couple dances three steps forward, followed by four turns with four hambo steps and finally three further small steps forward.
Competitions
In Sweden there are annual Hambo World Championships called "Hälsingehambo".