VIDEO: It started with school children and spread all over Norway this year: Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK)’s annual friendship dance. Even the Army has since joined in, claiming that the dance’s promotion of integration and inclusion meets its own motto of “Respect, responsibility and courage.”
The project, which is also part of an anti-bullying campaign, resulted in the Norwegian defense department’s distribution of the following video featuring various divisions from the Army’s border patrol in Finnmark to the Telemark Battalion farther south in Hedmark and the King’s Guards in Oslo. It starts off with the following qualifier: “We’re not among those who dance most on the job, but here’s our contribution:”
This year’s original song and video for what’s called the BlimE-dans in Norwegian (short for bli med, or “join us”) were created by 16-year-old Stina Talling from Kolltveit. Newspaper Aftenposten has reported how she started blogging at the age of eight and wanted to campaign against bullying herself.
Lyrics include advice on how to “get up again” after you’ve felt like you’re failing or falling, or no one is listening when they should be. “We can make it together … you’re not alone, my friend …” sings Talling in Norwegian, and hundreds of thousands of Norwegians who have followed along. The refrain is the most important: “You are more than good enough.”
Below is NRK’s children’s version, which was followed by hundreds of local versions taken at schools and day care centers all over the country on September 6 when NRK declared that “all of Norway was dancing:”
newsinenglish.no staff
