Editor's Note: Loma, North Dakota, is a small, unincorporated community in Towner County, located in the north-central part of the state. Because no formal "Loma City" exists, this article examines the broader folk dance education history of the Loma area and surrounding Cando community, drawing on documented regional patterns and verified local sources.
On Saturday nights in the 1940s, the basement of St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Loma, North Dakota, filled with the squeeze of accordions and the rhythmic thump of boots on pine planks. Norwegian immigrants and their descendants gathered to dance the reinlender and halling, passing steps from one generation to the next over coffee and lefse. Those weekly gatherings—part social club, part informal classroom—laid the foundation for one of the most enduring folk dance education traditions in Towner County.
From Homestead Halls to Structured Instruction
The roots of organized folk dance in the Loma area stretch back to the early 1900s, when Norwegian and German-Russian homesteaders settled the flat prairie lands of north-central North Dakota. Dance was never mere entertainment. It was a way to preserve language, reinforce community bonds, and ease the isolation of rural life.
Informal gatherings took place in grange halls, church basements, and private farmhouses. According to regional historical records compiled by the State Historical Society of North Dakota, these events typically followed a predictable rhythm: a potluck supper, several hours of dancing, and instruction led by whoever in the community knew the steps best. There were no formal teachers, no tuition fees, and no printed curriculum—only memory, observation, and correction on the dance floor.
By the 1950s, this ad-hoc system began to change. The post-war population boom, combined with renewed national interest in ethnic heritage, created demand for more structured instruction. In nearby Cando—the county seat just eight miles south of Loma—several families began lobbying for organized dance classes that could prepare young people for regional festivals and statewide competitions.
The Rise of Formal Dance Education
The turning point came in 1957, when the Cando Community Club hired Ingrid Solheim, a Norwegian-American dance instructor from Minneapolis, to lead a summer folk dance program. Solheim, then 34, had trained with the Norwegian Folk Dance Association of America and brought with her a formal pedagogical approach that was new to the region.
"She didn't just teach the steps," recalled Harold Bjornstad, 82, whose parents enrolled him in Solheim's first class. "She taught us the why—why the springar has that particular rhythm, why you never turn your back to your partner in certain figures. We were farm kids from Cando and Loma, and she made us feel like we were carrying something important."
Solheim's summer program ran for six weeks and drew approximately 40 students, ranging in age from 8 to 60. Its success prompted the Cando School District to incorporate Scandinavian folk dance into its physical education curriculum for the 1958–59 academic year—one of the earliest known instances of formal folk dance instruction in a North Dakota public school.
Over the following decades, several dedicated institutions emerged. The Towner County Heritage Dancers, founded in 1964, offered year-round classes in Norwegian, German, and Ukrainian dance traditions. The Prairie Winds Folk Dance Center, which opened in Cando in 1978, expanded the repertoire to include Polish, Czech, and Metis dances, reflecting the region's increasingly diverse agricultural workforce.
Modern Adaptations on the Northern Plains
Today, folk dance education in the Loma-Cando area looks markedly different from the church-basement gatherings of the 1940s—but the core mission remains intact.
The Prairie Winds Folk Dance Center, now under the direction of Elena Vostrikov, a third-generation instructor whose grandmother studied under Solheim, has embraced digital tools to combat the challenges of rural accessibility. Since 2019, the center has offered hybrid classes: students attend in person when possible, and join via video conference when winter roads or farm obligations make travel impractical. An interactive app developed in partnership with the University of North Dakota allows dancers to review footwork patterns, listen to regional music archives, and submit practice videos for instructor feedback.
"We have kids who live 30 miles out on dirt roads," Vostrikov said. "Without the virtual option, we would lose them. And once you lose a teenager, you rarely get them back."
Community performances have also evolved. The annual Towner County Folk Dance Festival, held each June in Cando's city park, now draws an estimated 800–1,200 attendees—roughly double the county seat's permanent population
