Aald Hielpen

Information about the Dutch folkloristic singing and dancing group "Aald Hielpen".

The history
The name of our group means old Hindeloopen, and we are native from Hindeloopen in the Netherlands. It is nowadays a small town with only 850 inhabitants. But in the 17 and 18 century Hindeloopen was an important seafaring and trading community with over 2500 inhabitants. The captains of Hindeloopen undertook their journeys to Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Russia. The town had strong connections over the see with the capital of Amsterdam and had hardly contacts with the hinterland of Friesland. That is probably the reason why this little town developed her own language, richly colored costumes and Hindeloopen painted furniture.

Because of an English war and the French domination, Hindeloopen could not carry on business any longer. The 19 century was an era of poverty for this town. Fortunately there were in the 19 and in this century a few people who became interested in the costumes, the Hindelopian painted fumiture, the history and the way of life in Hindeloopen.

One of the initiatives was the founding of Aald Hielpen in 1912. The group started with-the gathering of costumes. Later on they gave performances with singing and in the 60-ties we enhanced the program with dances from this region.

The costumes
The members of "Aald Hielpen" wear true copies of the costume, as it was worn in Hindeloopen in the early part of the 19 century. The dress of the woman was already unique in the 17 an 18 century, because this costume was only found in Hindeloopen.

The costume was very richly decorated and knew many variations; so you could easily see whether a woman was married or not, or if she was in mourning or not.

They used the dyed cotton stuff from India and also woolen and linen materials from Holland. The long or short coat is made of chintz with a flower-pattem and for example the apron and the headdress, they used a cotton material with a woven check pattern. The costume got complete with several omaments like bodkin, chatelain-bag, sewing-things like pin-cushion, a pair of scissors and a needle-case, all made of silver and some times of gold.

The men are dressed like the captains of the merchant fleet of Hindeloopen from the 19 century; This costume is a remnant of the fashion-dress from the 18 century. The costume is mainly black and only their shirts represent a blooming accent in the whole.

In the course of the 19 century, the Hindelopen costume died out and nowadays you can only see it at an appearance of this dancing-group and in the towns museum.

The performance
A performance consists normally of dances from the region, songs in the Hindelopian and Dutch language and an explanation about the history of Hindeloopen and our costumes. In a few occasions we produced a play in Hindeloopen, where one could see how a captain and his fiancé got married in the 19 century. We dance in old persons' homes, at street fairs, at party's, the opening of shops and so on. Once a year we go abroad, visiting a foreign dancing group or a festival.