På Svenska tack!

In Russian please!

Runringen is a folk dance club. In addition to Swedish dances we also include dances from Karelia, Russia and the Baltic states in our repertoire.

Runringen is a small club, between 12 and 16 members depending on how you count them. We are about 12 active members, but sometimes previous members turn up, for example when we perform. We have nothing against other dancers joining us for different events. The size of the club suits us. It is an intimate gang that know each other and we can rely on each other in the dances. That said, we have nothing against new members. To bind us together even more we gather for parties a couple of times per year, preferably with a sauna.

The age range of our members is between 40 and 70. It is a variegated assembly with dancers from several of the Nordic countries and England. But what we have in common is that we enjoy dancing folk dances which demand something from the participants. We like quick dances which have complicated arrangements which require that we concentrate.

Even though we take our dancing seriously our main object is to have fun.

We have dance practice for a couple of hours every Sunday evening with a break for the summer. In the run up to a performance we might take a bit more time. At least once a year we change the repertoire. We keep 6-8 dances up to performance standard, but we also take up older dances.

We practice to taped music, but we get difference live musicians to help for performances.

Our skillful and enthusiastic dance leader is Kari Kettunen who has trained as a dance leader in Finland.

The majority of our performances usually come around Midsummer (a very important festival here in Sweden). One of our sites is Anundshög with its Viking remains. An audience of a couple of thousand people usually assembles on this occasion. Sometimes we have performances at Björnö (Bear Island, a nature park near Västerås) with their Midsummer festivities, and at a number of servicehus (sheltered flat accommodation for the old and disabled). Kulturnatten (Culture night) is a large annual event in Västerås, where we usually perform at a couple of places.

We try and fix exchanges with dance clubs in other countries. On the history page you can see where we've been.