Since the 1980s, I have been observing members of the Polish Górale community teaching their music and dance in Canada. Over these years I have witnessed several generations continuing or being initiated into a “so-called traditional music of a particular place” (Wolf 2009b:5), that is, the mountains of southern Poland, while otherwise participating in a local culture quite different from that being taught in Canada and the US. Both women and men have been devoting their valuable time to teaching children how to sing, dance, and play in the Górale style (po góralsku) in preparation for a variety of ensemble-based performances. Being variously involved in these activities over the years has led me to consider this transmission process. This paper builds from this experience to reflect more generally on music and dance learning in contemporary contexts and deliberately focuses on the ongoing human component in a process now greatly facilitated by new technologies. In particular, it considers music learning as it relates to paradigmatic gendered performance styles that have been recontextualized within evolving intercultural settings.

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The traditional singing of Górale from the Tatra mountain region of Podhale favours a single phrase of melody and two lines of text. The narrative significance of this singing is traced from homeland to diaspora: collectively, these songs constitute a regional narrative that in Poland provided the framework for personal expressions constructed spontaneously in performance and embedded in social discourse; in Canada, the individual story is subsumed in favour of a collective narrative that locates a meaningful space between these two worlds. Ultimately, the centrality of music in the experience and deliberate expression of difference within an evolving multicultural, transnational, globalized reality is reinforced.Le chant traditionnel des Górale de la région montagneuse des Tatra en Podhale se caractérise par une simple phrase mélodique et deux lignes de texte. L’importance narrative de ce chant est présentée, de ses racines à la diaspora : collectivement, ces chants constituent un récit régional en Pologne qui offre le cadre d’expressions personnelles construites spontanément dans l’action et intégrées au discours social; au Canada, le récit individuel est subsumé au profit d’une narration collective qui situe un espace significatif entre ces deux mondes. En dernière analyse, la centralité de la musique dans l’expérience et l’expression délibérée de différence est renforcée au sein d’une réalité multiculturelle, transnationale et globalisée