We signed up for an after-dinner Tyrolean show, so right after our meal, our bus took us to Gasthaus Sandwirt am Inn owned by the Gundolf Family. They have been providing folk entertainment to Innsbruck visitors since 1967.
Dinner was over by the time we arrived (the inn offers dinner and show packages but we bought tickets only for the show). At the performance hall, the chairs were already arranged to face the stage. We were served apple cider drinks and beer before and during the performance. The program included Tyrolean folk dancing, traditional instrument-playing, singing, yodeling, shoe-slapping, and presentations highlighting the typical life, crafts, and traditions of the people of Tyrol.
I told my husband that if the performers would encourage audience participation, he should volunteer. When he was a little boy, his parents went to the German church in Montreal and had him and his sister join the German dance troupe. I remember looking at his dance photos in full costume when I was at his parents’ house, as his mom proudly reminisced about her little boy’s dancing days. I joked with them that from what I've seen with German traditional dances, it seems like the girls do all the hard work (all that jumping and twirling) and the boys had the easy job of just clapping and holding their partners' hands. My husband vehemently protested and said that is not true at all. The boys do perform some complicated moves...well, maybe not him, but the professional dancers.
As I was grinning mischievously, my husband warned me that if I volunteered him, he would deny even knowing me. Luckily, the performers didn’t pull people onstage, but the show was such a riot. The women, garbed in the traditional dirndls, and the men in their lederhosen (traditional country-style clothes worn by peasants in Bavaria, South Tirol, and Austria), gave the audience 40-minutes of music and slapstick dancing. The audience was alive with laughter, clapping, foot-tapping, and yodeling (yes, one could certainly feel like yodeling back to the performers). It was a combination of immersive cultural introduction and a little bit of comedy.
One example was when the ladies took centre stage and started singing a patriotic-sounding song in all solemnity...until the German-speaking people among the crowd (including my husband) realized that they were actually singing about a cow. The song, entitled, "Die Bless, mei Kuah" ("Bless my Cow"), sounded like a typical country song, but interspersed with "mooing" and yodeling from the men in the background, who held equally stoic facial expressions as they made these sounds. I don't speak German, but based on the laughter I was hearing, the song's lyrics must be pretty funny, and my husband confirmed it, but didn't have the time to translate it for me. In the latter part of the performance, the audience was even encouraged to join the "mooing" as one of the men took it upon himself to cue us when it was our turn to pay tribute to the cow. It was indeed hilarious.
I also enjoyed the shoe-slapping dance. Locally called, Schuhplattler, this involves a lot of stomping, kicking, clapping, and striking the thighs, knees, and soles of the shoes with the hands. The percussive performance earned a lot of applause because the dancers exhibited amazing rhythm, flexibility, and stamina, while making it look fun and easy. The movements were, of course, punctuated by a lot of yodeling. And since this was a men's dance, my husband was quick to say, "What did I tell you? The men are capable of doing fancy dance moves, too."
Since the performances also featured traditional musical instruments, I finally got to see authentic Alpine horns (called alphorns or alpenhorns), which are long, conical tubes (in fact, longer than a human) bent at the end like cow's horns. These wind instruments were originally used by shepherds to motivate the cows to cover the last steep stretch on their big climb up into the Alps and to communicate with fellow shepherds on the neighbouring Alps, as well as with the people in the valley below. Since then, the alphorn has been elevated and featured in many classical pieces, as well as recognized as a national symbol. The sound an alphorn makes is similar to a trumpet and I heard that despite the instrument's simple form, it is not easy to play, as it requires some special techniques. We were also treated to music coming from the accordion, the double-neck guitar, and even cow bells. It was a wonderful night of music.
In the end, the performers sang excerpts of folk songs from different countries and asked people from those countries to stand up and sing (or just clap) with them. One of the men held miniature flags of the different countries, and he put them up one by one, as the songs were sung to make them easier for the audience to recognize. They sang one from Canada, which didn't sound familiar to me. My husband said that it's technically not a folk song, but more of a silly ditty usually sung by tipsy Canadians on a weekend drinking spree in a crowded pub while watching a hockey game. I stood up anyway since there were only a few Canadians in the audience. I pulled my husband up three times, but he refused three times as well. I wasn’t sure whether he was just being shy or he was trying to get back at me for threatening to put him onstage.
After the show, I quickly ran up the stage to ask if I could have a picture with the performers. My husband took it and after the group shot, I took a picture of him surrounded by the Austrian ladies.
Photo Credits:
sandwirt.com, tiroler-abend.com
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