Matilda Kaiser Metis Jig Dancing Podcast

Matilda's Music Minutes is a podcast about music and dancing. Today, Matilda talks about Matisse jigs, lively dances from the Métis people of North America. These dances have been part of Métis culture for a long time and are present at their parties and celebrations. Métis music combines European and First Nations music, with the fiddle being a prominent instrument. The dances have changed over time, but the footwork and beat remain impressive. Jig dancing is now rare, but the music still plays a significant role in Métis identity. Hello everyone and welcome to Matilda's Music Minutes, the podcast about the world of music and dancing all around us. I'm your host Matilda and today we will be talking about Matisse jigs, a very jiggy subject. Matisse jigs are dances from the Métis people of North America and are often very lively with lots of footwork to coincide with the lively beat. Personally, I find Matisse jigs very fun to listen to and to watch, with lots of movement being involved. But before we dance, we need to do a bit of history. Matisse jigs have been around for as long as the Métis have. The Métis are people of Indigenous and European descent that live mostly in the lower part of the provinces but are spread out all over Canada. The Métis people have traditionally been descended from Algonquin people, Cree or Ojibwa, and live primarily as farmers or hunters all over Canada. The jigs are a large part of their culture and are present at all Métis parties and celebrations, and also a large part of the mythology, with lots of characters in their stories being described as dancers or full of music. For the Métis, everything was an excuse to dance and play their fiddles till they collapsed from exhaustion. The dances that were held were often done on special floors that had horsehair or straw underneath it to give it extra spring when the dancers danced on it. These floors were rather rare back then, but were well thought out. But what made Métis music so special? Well, let's talk about it. Métis music doesn't usually have a set time like traditional music and works around a central music beat or movement idea, like a sonata or sonatina. The jigs mix a special brand of European and First Nations music together. The fiddle is a big part of the Métis jigs and is often the main, if not only, music instrument played, with it holding the beat and melody while all the other instruments like piano or violin hold down the chords and bass. The violin was originally brought over by European settlers and the Métis people were quick to adopt it along with First Nations, Scottish, and French-Canadian beats, but changed them as they integrated it into the Métis way of life, making many traditional music pieces. This music varied in almost every way from the music of the time, as dances in European concerts were often ballets or marches with set beats that varied from the Métis jigs in a multitude of ways. There simply wasn't, and still isn't, a brand of music that could beat a Métis jig in liveliness and in the footwork and beat of music. These days, the Métis dances have changed in some ways from when they were most popular to today, while in other ways they have stayed the same. Métis dances have become rarer, and it would be hard to find a proper jig dancer in society today. The jig music is still a large part of the Métis identity and has really integrated itself into violin playing, with Métis jigs being the main music played on non-orchestral violins, making it some of the most played music in our country today. It's important to remember the dances, however, and their impressive and complicated footwork, which can only be found in large Métis communities, with proper jiggers being rare to find for these dances. The dances have been well-preserved for the most part, with jigs having hardly changed since the 1800s, when they were most played by Métis people. That's all for today, folks. I hope you have a wonderful week and enjoy music, with next week coming up, Inuit folk music. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. This has been Matilda's Music Minutes.