(Nordic Experience (Ashgate (Firm) ) ) Vedel, Karen - Nordic Dance Spaces - Practicing and Imagining A Region-Routledge (2016)

Nordic Dance Spaces
THE NORDIC EXPERIENCE
Series editor: Jonas Harvard, Programme Manager, Nordic Spaces, Centre

for East European and Baltic Studies, Södertörn University, Stockholm, and
Department of Humanities, Mid Sweden University.
What makes a region unique? Be it Vikings or the welfare state, gender equality
or flat-pack furniture, for a long time the Nordic region has had a distinctive
profile, visible to inhabitants and outsiders alike. ‘The Nordic Experience’ book
series offers a critical narrative of how, during the last 200 years, this well-known
part of Europe has demarcated itself from other regions, and how it has been
stereotyped by outside observers. Through in-depth and comparative analyses
of heritage practices, polar science, transnational media structures, expressions
of cultural identity and the distribution of democratic ideals, the five volumes
explore the negotiation of which territories, activities, objects, traits or ideals
should qualify as Nordic.
www.nordicspaces.com
www.ashgate.com/thenordicexperience
Titles in the series:
1. Performing Nordic Heritage: Everyday Practices and Institutional Culture

Edited by Peter Aronsson and Lizette Gradén
2. Science, Geopolitics and Culture in the Polar Region: Norden Beyond Borders
Edited by Sverker Sörlin
3. Communicating the North: Media Structures and Images in the Making of the
Nordic Region
Edited by Jonas Harvard and Peter Stadius
4. Nordic Dance Spaces: Practicing and Imagining a Region

Edited by Karen Vedel and Petri Hoppu
5. Models of Democracy in Nordic and Baltic Europe: Political Institutions

and Discourse
Edited by Nicholas Aylott
Nordic Dance Spaces
Practicing and Imagining a Region
Edited by
Karen VedeL
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Petri Hoppu
University of Tampere, Finland
© Karen Vedel and Petri Hoppu 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys-
tem or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, re-
cording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Karen Vedel and Petri Hoppu have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street
Union Road Suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818
Surrey, GU9 7PT USA
England
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Nordic Dance Spaces: Practicing and Imagining a Region / edited by
Karen Vedel and Petri Hoppu.
pages cm. – (The Nordic Experience)
Includes index.
1. Dance – Social aspects – Scandinavia. 2. Dancers – Scandinavia.
3. Dance halls – Scandinavia. I. Vedel, Karen.
GV1665.N64 2014
793.30948–dc23 2013031143
ISBN 9781409470014 (hbk)

ISBN 9781409470021 (ebk-PDF)
ISBN 9781409470038 (ebk-ePUB)
III
Contents
List of Figures vii

List of Contributors ix
Series Preface xi
Series Acknowledgements xiii
Acknowledgements xv
1 North in Motion 1
Karen Vedel and Petri Hoppu
2 Rock Around the North 19

Inger Damsholt
3 Strategic Mobility and Wayfinding Artists:

Performing the Region 49
Karen Vedel
4 Folk Dance Competitions in the Twenty-first Century 79

Mats Nilsson
5 Dancing African–American Jazz in the Nordic Region 101

Lena Hammergren
6 Class Dimensions of Dance Spaces: Situating Central Agents

across Countries and Categories 129
Egil Bakka
7 Nordic Dance Performances in the

North American Marketplace 159
Inka Juslin
8 Working in Nordic Dance Venues 183

Anne Margrete Fiskvik
vi Nordic Dance Spaces
9 Together and Apart: All-Nordic Folk Dance Events

before 1975 207
Petri Hoppu
Index 233
List of Figures
1.1 The triadic dimensions involved in the production of

space according to Henri Lefebvre 7
2.1 Rock ’n’ roll riots in Helsinki portrayed by Kari Suomalainen 22

2.2 Winners in a rock ’n’ roll dance contest in Oslo, August 1958 30
2.3 Flying dancers in Copenhagen around 1950 36
2.4 Bugg at the Swedish Championships in BRR dances, 4 June 2011 40
3.1 Map of Barents Region 60

3.2 The team behind Touching Point, a Barents collaboration under
the artistic guidance of Finnish choreographer Maria Littow 66
3.3 Press photo taken in Nikel, Russia, showing dancers in costumes
from Russia (1991), designed by Anna Karpova 69
3.4 Stellaris DanceTheatre map of own performances and
co-productions played on tour in the Nordic and Barents
regions in 2011 70
3.5 Dancers/choreographers Simone Grøtte Pedersen and
Johanne Eltoft rehearsing for Reindans – Boazodánza 71
4.1 Hambo dancers competing on grass, the first of four heats

on different surfaces 83
4.2 Polska award dancing in Orsa Hembygdsgård 85
4.3 From the competitions at the Landskappleik in Voss, 2010 87
4.4 The Konkurrencedag in folk dance, held on the floor of a
sport hall 89
4.5 At the Tanssimania, the competition held on a theatre stage 90
4.6 From the Konkurrencedag in folkedans, Denmark 94
5.1 Talley Beatty teaches jazz dance at the Ballet Academy,

Stockholm, 1967 107
5.2 Doug Crutchfield teaching in 1975 109
5.3 Rehearsal of West Side Story in 1963 111
5.4 Randi Frønsdal in Gothenburg, 1960s 113
5.5 Monica Beckman teaches jazz gymnastics to teenagers, 1960s 120
viii Nordic Dance Spaces
6.1 Svae’s Dance School in the Rococo Hall at the Grand Hotel,
Oslo, 1930s 130
6.2 Jean Börlin, 13 years old (1906), surrounded by female
pupils and dancers of the corps de ballet137
6.3 On the dance floor 140
6.4 The Harvest Dance [Skördedansen], performed by the
Brage club in Stockholm, 1920 153
7.1 Tero Saarinen Company in Saarinen’s Borrowed Light, 2007 168

7.2 Carte Blanche in Sharon Eyal’s Corps de Walk, 2011 172
8.1 Ballerina Lillebil Ibsen and Ernest Marini pose as Spanish

dancers in 1921 190
8.2 Vaudeville act in Kristiania 1914 192
8.3 Unknown female dancer rope-dancing at the Tivoli Hagen
(Tivoli Garden) in Kristiania 197
9.1 Folk dance congress at Skansen, 1920 210

9.2 Schottis i turer in Helsinki, 1934 212
9.3 All-Nordic folk dance events, 1920–1939 216
9.4 The representatives of the NORDLEK partners after signing
the agreement in Biskops-Arnö, 1975 221
List of Contributors
Egil Bakka is a professor and Chair of the Programme of Dance Studies,

Department of Music, Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Trondheim. He is also Director of the Norwegian Centre for Traditional Dance
and Music. His research is based in ethnochoreology, with dance history and
analysis of dance movement as key topics. He coordinates an Erasmus Intensive
programme for 15 universities, is an Erasmus Mundus Master, has served on
boards of or chaired several international research organisations, and is often
called upon as an expert by UNESCO. Recent publications include ‘Writing a
Dance: Epistemology for Dance Research’, co-written with Gediminas Karoblis,
in Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 42 (2010): 109–135.
Inger Damsholt is an associate professor of Dance Studies at the Department

of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. The main focus of her
research is choreomusical relations and, more recently, social dance in Denmark
and the Nordic countries since 1950. Recent publications include ‘The One and
Only Music for the Danish Lanciers’, in Danish Yearbook of Musicology, vol. 36
(2008): 43–62, and ‘Nordic Night Fever’, in Dance and the Formation of Norden:
Emergences and Struggles (Tapir Academic Press, ed. K. Vedel, 2011). She was
Chair of the Nordic Forum for Dance Research from 2002 to 2006 and has been
Chair of the Board of the Danish Dance History Archive since 2007.
Anne Margrete Fiskvik works as an associate professor at the Programme of

Dance Studies, Department of Music, Norwegian University of Science and
Technology, Trondheim. Her research focuses are dance history, choreomusical
analysis and popular dance/music cultures. Her recent publications in English
include ‘Tracing Dance Fields’, in Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences
and Struggles (Tapir Academic Press, ed. K. Vedel, 2011) and ‘Halling as a Tool
for Nationalist Strategies’, in Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Music and
Dance (Ashgate, eds S. Dodd and S. Cook, 2013). She has been a member of the
Board of Directors of the Nordic Forum for Dance Research since 2004.
Lena Hammergren is a professor of Theatre Studies at the Department for

Musicology and Performance Studies, Stockholm University, and a professor of
Dance Studies at the University of Dance and Circus, Stockholm. Her research
x Nordic Dance Spaces
focus is dance history and cultural theory. Her recent publications in English
include ‘The Power of Classification’, in Worlding Dance (Palgrave Macmillan, ed.
S.L. Foster, 2009), and ‘Dance and Democracy’, in Dance and the Formation of
Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Tapir Academic Press, ed. K. Vedel, 2011). She
has been a member of the Board of Directors of the international organisation the
Society for Dance History Scholars since 2007.
Petri Hoppu is an adjunct professor in Dance Studies and a lecturer of Music

Studies at the University of Tampere. His areas of expertise include theory and
methodology in dance anthropology as well as research on Finnish–Karelian folk
dances and Nordic folk dance revitalisation. His recent publications in English
include ‘National Dances and Popular Education: The Formation of Folk Dance
Canons in Norden’, in Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and
Struggles (Tapir Academic Press, ed. Karen Vedel, 2011). He has been a board
member of the Congress on Research in Dance since 2011.
Inka Juslin is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Tampere, Department

of Music Anthropology. Her current project is on early twenty-first-century
European avant-garde performance and art, and is being funded by the Finnish
Cultural Foundation. Juslin has been a visiting scholar at New York University,
Department of Performance Studies, since 2007. Recent publications include
‘Angelwindow: I Dance my Body Double’, in Fields in Motion: Ethnography in the
Worlds of Dance (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, ed. Dena Davida, 2011). Juslin
was a board member of the Nordic Forum for Dance Research from 2002 to 2006.
Mats Nilsson is an assistant professor in Ethnology at the Department for Cultural

Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research focus is popular
and folk dance in contemporary Scandinavia. Recent publications in Swedish
include Dans – polska på svenska (Arkipelag, 2009) and, in English, ‘Participatory
Dancing: the Polska Case’, in Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and
Struggles (Tapir Academic Press, ed. Karen Vedel, 2011).
Karen Vedel is an assistant professor in Theatre and Performance Studies at the

University of Copenhagen, where she completed her PhD. Her most important
publications in English include, as editor, Dance and the Formation of Norden:
Emergences and Struggles (Tapir Academic Press, 2011) and the jointly edited
volume Religion, Ritual, Theatre (Peter Lang Verlag, 2008). She has also published
a book on Danish dance historiography and several articles on site specificity
in the performing arts. Current research interests include regionalism and the
production of locality in relation to dance and performance.
Series Preface
What makes a region unique? Be it Vikings or the welfare state, gender equality
or flat-pack furniture, for a long time the Nordic region has had a distinctive
profile, visible to inhabitants and outsiders alike. Much like the Mediterranean,
the Balkans or even America, it has often been portrayed as something more
than a geographical area. Over the last few centuries different groups with
various agendas have promoted the idea of a Nordic specificity. Xenophobic
nationalists have sought demarcation against otherness. Proponents of borderless
brotherhood have rallied for solidarity in times of war. As political alliances and
cultural connections between nations and continents continuously change, so
do the meanings of labels such as ‘the North’, ‘the Nordic region’ or Norden.
The book series ‘The Nordic Experience’ takes on this dynamic between
geopolitics and identity. It offers a critical narrative of how, during the last 200
years, stereotypes and definitions of this well-known part of Europe have been
established and challenged, reused and circulated in places as diverse as Scotland,
Estonia, North America, Antarctica and South Africa.
Through in-depth and comparative analyses of heritage practices, polar
science, transnational media structures, expressions of cultural identity and
the diffusion of democratic ideals, the five volumes explore the negotiation of
which territories, activities, objects, traits or ideals should qualify as Nordic. The
scope of the series is a testament to the value of studying Norden, just like any
region, as an example of the inevitable tensions between the idea of a coherent
community rooted in language and history, and the diverse and unsettling
catalogue of scattered experiences it consists of. The result is a series of refreshing
insights into how a region can become something beyond physical place – a
notion distributed in space.
Jonas Harvard
Programme Manager, Nordic Spaces, Centre for East European
and Baltic Studies, Södertörn University, Stockholm
and Department of Humanities, Mid Sweden University
This page has been left blank intentionally
Series Acknowledgements
The research presented in the book series ‘The Nordic Experience’ has been
conducted within the framework of the research programme Nordic Spaces,
generously funded by a consortium of research agencies. For this research
support and for additional grants enabling among other things numerous book
workshops, language editing, the purchase of image rights and professional
indexing, the volume authors wish to express their deepest gratitude to the
following:
NordForsk
The Estonian Research Council
The Finnish Cultural Foundation
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies
The Foundation for Swedish Culture in Finland
The Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters History and Antiquities
The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland
The programme was coordinated from the Centre for Baltic and East European
Studies at Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Acknowledgements
The editors wish to thank the members of the project Dance in Nordic Spaces
for their contribution to this book, which sums up almost five years of intensive
collaboration. They have actively and sparing no effort participated in seminars
and workshops, in which the various aspects of this study have been examined
and debated.
We are also grateful for the critical and constructive feedback we have been
offered by colleagues at our home institutions as well as peers in the larger
field of dance studies. They have all been an enduring inspiration in our work.
In addition, we would like to express our deep gratitude to the leader of the
programme and series editor of the Nordic Experience Dr Jonas Harvard for his
patience in guiding and supporting our editorial process.
We acknowledge and appreciate the help granted us by the archives,
associations, libraries, theatres and individuals who have provided documents
and photographs for the research. We would also like to extend our thanks to
our affiliate universities, which have given us the facilities for our work on the
volume at hand.
Finally, we wish to acknowledge the funding from The Swedish Literal
Society in Finland, The Finnish Cultural Fund, as well as the valuable support
from the Nordic Spaces programme. Their backing our research and the ensuing
book project gave us a unique chance to develop dance scholarship in the Nordic
countries as an equal part of the human sciences, and for this we would like to
express our very great appreciation.
Copenhagen and Tampere
Chapter 1
North in Motion
When one deals with dance, one also deals with suspicious attitudes towards
the phenomenon itself: Is this really serious business? Does dance really matter?
Closely integrated into culture and society in the Nordic countries, dance
has been connected to the practices and ideologies of a Nordic region for more
than a century. Various kinds of dance spaces have been co-constitutive in the
formation of a larger regional space, just as notions of a Nordic region have
played a significant role in the distribution and dissemination of diverse dance
forms, dance events and professional opportunities.
As cultural geographers have argued, the region is an imagined and temporary
rather than a fixed and stable geography.1 A similar temporality characterises
dance spaces whether dance is considered as art, leisure or a form of popular
entertainment: they emerge, and are appropriated and appreciated only to be
redistributed and dissolve again. Within the timeframe of the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries this book examines the intersecting modes of existence
of dance spaces in their multiple forms and geographical imaginaries such
as the Nordic region. Written by dance scholars, it aims to bring a critical
understanding of the interplay between the practices of dance and other aspects
of cultural and political life to the fore together with new insights into the role
of dance in shaping Nordic spaces.
Making enquiries into the nature, dissemination and embodiment of what
might – or might not – be considered ‘Nordic’, we engage with contemporary
aspects of dancing as well as some of the historical tenets that have structured
dance activities in the region. We also trace dancers and dance forms as they move
between different locations, organisations and networks of individuals. And
perhaps most importantly, we return again and again to the corporeal dimension,
analysing and writing in depth about the movement practices involved.
Like the contributing authors themselves, coming together across the
national boundaries of the four Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway
1
John Allen, Doreen B. Massey and Allan Cochrane, Rethinking the Region (New
York, 1998), p. 50.
2 Nordic Dance Spaces
and Sweden, the investigations travel across boundaries and genres most often
studied in separate realms. Here popular dance practices such as ballroom, folk
dance and rock ’n’ roll are discussed alongside theatrical forms such as ballet,
contemporary dance and African–American jazz dance. Where studies restricted
to separate generic and national realms often isolate certain dimensions of the
practice, for instance the aesthetic or the organisational, each of the chapters in
the collection considers several dimensions at once, for example the individual
and the collective, the pedagogical and the performed, the participatory and the
presentational.
Dance in the Larger Nordic Spaces Programme
Previously published results from more or less the same group of authors
have already shown the significance of dance in the Nordic region as a way of
constructing and distributing embodied culture that is itself integrated into
its political history.2 In looking to the motions of dance across and beyond
the Nordic countries, this volume deepens the discussions, placing emphasis
on the idea that dance cannot be separated from its socio-cultural context but
rather brings a mobile and shifting perspective to society and politics. Or, as the
performance scholar Randy Martin proposes in his writing on the sensibility to
motion in the corporeal practice of dance and its relation to politics,
The seemingly minor mobilizations in life may reveal more about the weak
linkages or mediations that allow our sensibilities to relate to one another within
the body politic than may the ways in which we are accustomed to perceiving and
evaluating politics. If we are used to seeing politics as a stable inscription on the
social terrain, as something written into the social contract, then what actually
moves the political way may be missed altogether.3
In a similar fashion to dance as a societal practice, Martin suggests that politics

should be seen as activity in motion rather than as having a solitary form or
a unitary object. Mobilisation and mobility are therefore critical concepts,
situating dancing as generating a grid of time and space: dancing bodies
constitute contexts for movement, and identity building occurs as a practical
effect of their activities. Martin insists that politics involves a similar dynamics of
mobilisation, although it is seldom made explicit. However, actualised through
Inka Juslin is a contributing author in this volume only.
2
Randy Martin, Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics (Durham, NC,
3
1998), p. 182.
North in Motion 3
the concepts of mobilisation and movement, dance could act as an inspiration

for politics in general.4
Moreover, there are cases where dance can be considered overtly political.
While there is no simple correlation between dance and politics, one can, as
Mark Franko (among several renowned dance scholars) has suggested, speak of
dance as political in circumstances where dance and socio-political life occur
simultaneously, though independently. Dance can project the ideals and values
of society, but it can also take a distance from the established powers and provide
critical perspectives on society.5
Moving through the Nordic Region and beyond
As shown in the larger book series from the Nordic Spaces programme, the
geographical and imagined scope of the Nordic region has shifted through
the centuries. Following the most commonly perpetuated historical narrative,
the core of the region consists of the three old kingdoms Denmark, Norway
and Sweden, usually described as Scandinavia, while the ‘edges’ consist of the
independent republics of Finland and Iceland as well as the autonomous areas
of Åland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Taken together these countries form
what is known as the Nordic countries or – in Scandinavian languages – Norden.
Dance has been an integral part of countless forms and contexts in the
ongoing practice of the Nordic region since around the start of the twentieth
century. Not only have cross-border contacts and liaisons been forged
through the travels of professional dancers looking for work or sharing dance
performances with audiences in neighbouring countries, but repeated Nordic
encounters have also been set up with the explicit purpose of dancing for, with
or against one another. Sharing, among other characteristics, the historical
practices of organising around personal and communal interests in leisure,
sport and politics, the large number of dance organisations at the national level
form dance spaces in themselves. Interconnected with Nordic civil society and
the emerging democratic structures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, they have played and continue to play an important role in the
shaping of active citizenry. While some dance organisations operate as NGOs at
the level of voluntarism, others have enjoyed official status since the latter part
of the twentieth century, and are represented in, among other places, the Nordic
collaborative structures in arts and culture.
Ibid., pp. 4–6.
4
Mark Franko, ‘Dance and the Political’, in Susanne Franco and Marina Nordera (eds),
5
Dance Discourses: Keywords in Dance Research (London, 2007), pp. 11–29.

Various forms of Nordism have been articulated in the period at hand. In

the early years, Nordism was strongly linked to similarities in language, because
all the Nordic countries had and still have a Scandinavian language as an official
language. In the case of Finland, however, the vast majority of the population
speak Finnish, whereas Swedish, despite its official status along with Finnish,
is spoken by merely five per cent of the inhabitants. On the topic of language
it should also be noted that among the languages holding either minority or a
similarly recognised status are also different Sámi languages belonging to the
indigenous peoples of Norway, Sweden and Finland.
After World War II, the political dimensions of a perceived Nordic
community were strengthened with the establishment of inter-parliamentary
platforms for collaboration such as the Nordic Cultural Commission (1947),
the Nordic Council (1952) and the Nordic Council of Ministers (1966)
wherein arts and culture played and continue to play an important part.6 The
focus on culture in the inter-Nordic structures reflects the standing of culture
at the national level, where the post-war years also saw the beginnings of state
cultural policies as a fundamental dimension of the Nordic welfare states.
Declared democratic objectives, ideals of equal access, and the differentiation of
arts and culture from consumer goods in state policies were among the defining
characteristics in what the cultural sociologist Peter Duelund has called the
Nordic Cultural Model.7 Another basic element was, as Duelund points out,
an anchoring of these policies in a ‘cultural construction of national identity
and a national monoculture’.8 For obvious reasons, the increasingly diverse
configuration of ethnicities and cultures in the Nordic countries has challenged
such notions since the latter decades of the twentieth century.
In terms of the position of dance in cultural politics, it should be noted
that, although there are strong similarities among the Nordic countries, there
are differences as well, for instance in how and when dance becomes visible in
official state policies.9
Dancing in itself is a product of cultural and social contacts that go well
beyond the Nordic region. Social dances have found their way to Norden from
Central and Western Europe, from Russia and, since the early twentieth century,
especially from North America. Regardless of whether those on the dance floors
6
Karen Vedel, ‘Dance and the Formation of Norden’, in Karen Vedel (ed.), Dance and
the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Trondheim, 2011), pp. 18–19.
7
Peter Duelund, ‘Cultural Policy: An Overview’, in Peter Duelund (ed.), The Nordic
Cultural Model (Copenhagen, 2003), p. 18.
8
Ibid.
9
Karen Vedel, ‘Strategically Nordic: Articulating the Internal Logic of the Field’, in
Vedel (ed.), p. 117.
North in Motion 5
have been aware of it or not, their dancing activities perpetuate motions on

a larger cultural scale and reveal – when studied more closely – cross-border
contacts stretching far beyond the Nordic realm. For example, one dance form,
or rather a group of forms, in the Nordic countries called pols, polsk or polska
represents a connection to Central and Eastern Europe (Poland) at some point
in history. However, the names alone can be misleading, as the pols(ka) dances
include diverse dance forms from different areas. The implications of such
extended cultural contacts are thus by no means unambiguous, but they may
generate, together with older traditions and other contacts, a whole set of dance
practices and traditions that have moved far from the original ones.10 Cultural
processes of contact and exchange such as those suggested here are highly
susceptible to structural differences that tend to reveal themselves in how ‘new’
dance forms translate into local discourses.
While the contacts and channels through which social dance forms have
been introduced in the Nordic region to a large extent remain unexamined,
the narratives belonging to folk dance and theatrical dance concerning starting
points and crucial moments in history are rather better known. Theatrical dance
achieved an established position first as royal ballets in Copenhagen, Denmark,
and Stockholm, Sweden, and later through a broad spectrum of dance theatres,
independent groups and freelance artists, whose existence often relies on
extensive travelling across national borders. Strongly interconnected and with
an international outlook, new forms of expression in dance have continuously
been generated within the frameworks of the performing arts.
Illustrating the importance of the influence of individual artists on the
historiography of performance practices and aesthetic ideals is the case of
Isadora Duncan, who visited Copenhagen and Stockholm in 1906 and Helsinki
in 1908.11 Duncan’s tours have retrospectively been credited with introducing a
new aesthetics as well as new formats for showing theatre dance in the Nordic
countries. As the narrative has it, Duncan was perceived as a serious threat to the
status of the dominant ballet aesthetic. It should, however, be noted that at the
time Duncan was but one among an impressive number of female solo dance
10
A large compilation of articles concerning pols(ka) dance and music is included in
Märta Ramsten (ed.), The Polish Dance in Scandinavia and Poland (Stockholm, 2003).
11
Lena Hammergren, Ballerinor och barfotadansöser: Svensk och internationell
danskultur runt 1900 (Stockholm, 2002), pp. 21–27; Tiina Suhonen, ‘Duncan tanssi
Helsingissä’, in Päivi K. Pakkanen, Jaana Parviainen, Leena Rouhiainen and Annika Tudeer
(eds), Askelmerkkejä tanssin historiasta, ruumiista ja sukupuolesta (Helsinki, 1999), pp. 14–
29; Karen Vedel, En anden dans: Moderne scenedans i Danmark 1900–1975 (Copenhagen,
2008), pp. 89–102.
artists who travelled widely among the Nordic capitals, introducing forms of
dancing that had very little to do with ballet.
New dance forms have also emerged through the interaction between
different genres of dance. Theatrical dance and social dance have found common
denominators in the form of so-called national dances, popular on Nordic
stages throughout the nineteenth century. Ballet masters in Copenhagen and
Stockholm found inspiration from folk tales, folk costumes, and even folk
dances. The Danish ballet master August Bournonville’s (1805–79) Sylfiden
and Napoli refer to European folklore outside the Nordic region, while other
ballets choreographed by him, such as Livjægerne på Amager [The King’s
Volunteers on Amager], favour more local dance material. Important to note in
the case of Livjægerne, however, is that it involves festive traditions of immigrant
farmers imported from the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. The Swedish
ballet master Anders Selinder (1806–74) also created theatre pieces containing
Swedish national dances.12 In Finland a Swiss ballet master can be found who not
only introduced his Swiss national dances but is also believed to have composed
a Finnish national dance.13 While interest in national dances gradually decreased
in a theatrical context, some of those created during these decades found their
way into the repertoires of Nordic folk dancers by the late nineteenth century.14
The brief background on the intertwined histories of folk dance and ballet is
included here as a reminder that the categories of genre are neither absolute nor
constant. It also shows how dances, dancing and dancers were crossing borders
not only of nations, but also of institutions and genres before the 1900s.
Theoretical Framework
As indicated in the title, this book is about dance spaces. A shared point of
theoretical departure is an interest in space as defined by Henri Lefebvre in his
classic work The Production of Space (1991).15 According to Lefebvre, space is
an ongoing process between spatial relations subsuming things produced and
encompassing their order and disorder.16 Space is thus historically or socially
produced and serves a purpose. It has material prerequisites, but these are not
a sufficient definition: space is a space of activities as well as discourse and lived
Petri Hoppu, ‘National Dances and Popular Education – The Formation of Folk
12
Dance Canons in Norden’, in Vedel (ed.), pp. 42 and 46.

13
Gunnel Biskop, Dansen för åskådare (Åbo, 2012), pp. 52–53 and 64.
14
Hoppu, ‘National Dances’.
15
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford, 1991).
16
Ibid., p. 73.
North in Motion 7
experience.17 In Lefebvre’s thinking, the production of space is divided into

three dialectically interconnected dimensions or processes – formants of the
production of space. They refer to ‘perceived,’ ‘conceived’ and ‘lived’ dimensions
of space. This triad is presented in Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1 The triadic dimensions involved in the production of space

according to Henri Lefebvre. Drawing by Petri Hoppu.
Spatial practices are routines and activities to which people attend in their
everyday life. Dance events, performances, rehearsals and lessons may be named
among practices perceived in time and space that contribute to the production
of social spaces. Representations of space refers to the explicit shaping of spatial
experiences in more abstract terms. In the context of this volume, the dimension
may be seen, for example, in dance manuals, notations and the planning of
dance spaces but also in official policies governing, for instance, the parameters
of dancers’ cross-border mobility. Representations of space are conceived
by those who have the authority over – and often also define the discourse
relating to – space. Representational spaces refers to the lived and – in Lefebvre’s
phenomenological terms – richest and most symbolic space, experienced, for
example, in the arts, where cultures, narratives and traditions of dance combine
17
Ibid., p. 403.
to create a socially produced space. These discourses of space, as Rob Shields

defines them, are challenged and appropriated by the users of space.18
A key to Lefebvre’s theory is that social space is produced repeatedly through
the dynamic interrelationships of these three dimensions. It is a continuing
process rather than a stable condition or product. The ‘triple dialectic’ has been
challenged by scholars who note that Lefebvre has little to say about questions
of discrimination, a highly relevant point when discussing, for example, the
freedom or lack of freedom for dance practitioners to move without restriction
across national borders. As Shields notes, ‘he tends to conceive of the state
as a once-authentic instrument of a single people which has been seized by
the capitalist class for itself.’19 As we all know, this is far from the case today,
when much more complex structures of economic and ethnic privileges are
played out between the levels of the national, the international and the global.
Complementing the theoretical framework of this volume are therefore ideas
and concepts developed by, among others, scholars writing from a feminist
perspective such as cultural geographer Doreen Massey and Rosi Braidotti, as
well as scholars of postcolonial theory with an interest in geopolitical questions
of space and motion, such as Arjun Appadurai and Rustom Bharucha.
In Rethinking the Region, co-written by John Allen, Doreen Massey and Alan
Cochrane, the authors ask, ‘When is the South East?’ and ‘Where is the South
East’?20 Phrased concisely, their answer replaces the distinction between space and
place with a dialectic suggesting that ‘spaces/places are constructed both materially
and discursively and … each modality of this construction affects the other’.21 It
follows that the geographical imaginary of the Nordic region in a manner similar
to the South East, in this case, of England has been materially consolidated through
the repeated exchange of goods, wealth and people. The century-long history of
trading across changing borders and intermarriages of royal families between the
kingdoms Denmark, Sweden and Norway are but two among many examples to
which we now add the cross-border exchanges of dances, dancing and dancers. At
the same time, the region has been discursively constructed in that the notion of
the North (and thereby implicitly the Nordic) is endowed with meanings conjured
not only through its role as the cardinal compass point and the geopolitical binary
of North–South, but also through the repeated narrations of shared historical
pasts, imminent presents and possible futures.
18
Rob Shields, Lefebvre, Love and Struggle (London, 1998), p. 163.
19
Rob Shields, ‘Henri Lefebvre’, in Anthony Elliott and Bryan S. Turner (eds), Profiles
in Contemporary Social Theory (London, 2001), p. 235.
20
Allen et al., pp. 9 and 32.
21
Ibid., p. 9.
North in Motion 9
In reminding us that ‘space is the product of social interaction, uneven

development is about the “geography of power” and places/spaces are about the
nature of the social relations which link them together’, Allen et al. call attention
to the fact that shifts in power also imply shifts in discourse.22 To illustrate
this point the rapidly growing focus on what were previously considered the
peripheral edges of the Nordic countries in the far North suggests that the
‘power geometry’ is changing as a result of economic and political interest in
the natural resources of the Arctic and Barents Seas. So when and where is – or
perhaps was – the Nordic region?
Following the postcolonial thinking of Arjun Appadurai, a region may be
examined as an initial context for themes that generate variable geographies.
Appadurai refers to the variable and constantly shifting modes of region
formation using the term ‘process geographies’, emphasising mobile modes of
human action such as trade, travel and vagrancy. Process geographies are not
permanent geographical facts but analytical devices for the study of global
socio-cultural processes or ‘global flows’.23 Appadurai suggests that global flows
are characteristically disjunctive and unpredictable and that they can replace
traditional geographical thinking when a region is examined from a cultural
perspective. The main tenet of Appadurai’s theoretical framework can be found
in his contrasting fluid ‘flows’ with stable ‘landscapes’. According to Appadurai,
the flows of people, money etc. look like stable landscapes. Within different
spheres of their lives, people navigate along a multitude of such ‘scapes’, which
in turn become part of their imagined worlds. Appadurai differentiates between
five dimensions of global ‘scapes’ flowing across cultural boundaries: ethnoscapes,
technoscapes, financescapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes.24 The different scapes
emphasise the global flows and their impact on society and culture. Related to
dance, they address how innovations are introduced through the overlapping of
these flows. For example, television and the Internet present dance phenomena
from around the world, and these can be adopted and exploited by anyone using
the media. Thus mediascapes can be seen as a channel for the distribution of
‘movementscapes’, as Lena Hammergren terms it in Chapter 5.
While the notions of global flows and movementscapes point to similarities
in terms of how a Nordic region is practised through dance at a given time,
there are numerous differences as well. In putting forward ‘intraculturality’ as
an analytical approach, Rustom Bharucha has pointed to the need to discern
22
Ibid., p. 51.
23
Arjun Appadurai, ‘Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination’, Public
Culture, 12/1 (2000), pp. 6–7.
24
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
(Minneapolis, MN, 1996), pp. 27–33.
such differences and acknowledge how they are situated in relation to social
differences and questions of power.25 In the project at hand we have navigated
not only between several languages but also between multiple national histories.
The practice of translating from one to another while trying to stay alert to
semantic nuances and outright differences has been an ongoing endeavour. This
holds true at the level of interpersonal exchanges and interactions, but above all
at the collective level of ‘shaping of an intracultural narrative’26 with which we
have been engaged in the context of the larger Nordic Spaces project.
As has already been suggested, the dynamic concepts of space and the notions
of process geography, global flows and the intracultural are in this volume
interwoven with close readings of mobility and movement. This trajectory is
aligned with the idea of a ‘new mobility paradigm’ identified by the sociologists
Mimi Sheller and John Urry as a shift in the social sciences that undermines
the previous predominance of sedentarist theories based on forms of ‘territorial
nationalism’ and favouring stability, meaning and place.27 The new mobility
paradigm emphasises instead the interconnectedness of place, as shown by
historians such as Braudel writing on the Mediterranean world and Gilroy in his
discussion on the Black Atlantic.28 It is also aligned with theories of postnational
deterritorialisation processes, such as Bauman’s theory of ‘liquid modernity’ and
Braidotti’s feminist work on nomadic subjects.29 Warning against simplistic uses
of nomadic theory, Sheller and Urry note that ‘the new paradigm suggests a set
of questions, theories and methodologies rather than a totalising or reductive
description of the contemporary world.’30 The research questions and analytical
approaches employed in this book give an idea of the kinds of complexity
involved when studying the motion of people, ideas and specific cultural forms
such as dance from one locality to the next.
Moreover, what is implied in the multifaceted cultural study at hand
is the notion that dance, as a special form of movement culture and cultural
movement, is seen neither as a mere reflection of its socio-cultural context nor
Rustom Bharucha, The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in an

25
Age of Globalization (London, 2000), pp. 62–63.

26
Ibid.
27
Mimi Sheller and John Urry, ‘The New Mobilities Paradigm’, Environment and
Planning A, 38 (2006), pp. 209–210.
28
Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age
of Philip II (Berkeley, CA, 1996); Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double
Consciousness (London, 1993).
29
Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge, 2000); Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic
Subjects. Embodiment and Sexual difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York, 1994).
30
Sheller and Urry, p. 210.
North in Motion 11
as unilaterally individualised experience and ‘pure’ movement.31 There is no gap

between the movement and its context, because movement is always actualised
and experienced within a context. The context, whether one refers to history,
culture, society or geography, does not determine the movement. On the
contrary, dance is in itself a meaningful and constructive part of society and
culture; and thus, analysing movement can be integrated in a larger analytical
framework of cultural studies. Following Martin, this kind of perspective
presumes that dance is not examined as an object, but as a practice, dancing,
that emerges as an amalgamation between constantly variable social structures
and different forms of agency at particular historical moments.32 Conflating
this with the thesis of this volume, spaces are not considered as separate from
movement; rather, dance is considered as a part of spatial processes and as such
it contributes to the construction of social and embodied spaces.
The corporeal dimension is addressed in several ways, for instance at the level
of individual dancers and choreographers, whose voices speak in the empirical
data. The authors also draw on their own embodied experience of the various
phenomena with which they engage.
The Scope of the Book
Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles (2011) created a
Nordic space through the juxtaposition of discussions on dance and its related
practices, institutions and terminologies. Rather than exhausting the topic,
it suggested some of the ways in which these aspects may be explored. It also
identified a number of areas for further research, some of which are taken up and
examined in this volume, such as dance in the Nordic countries in the interwar
years, topics relating to the global flow of cultural practices, and questions about
the agency of dancing individuals and institutions relative to larger social and
political movements.
Pivoting between discussions based on contemporary and historical data,
the chapters are focused on interconnected thematic tenets. Among these are
questions relating to mobility and movements within the borders of the Nordic
countries, the notion of process geography, ethno- and movementscapes, the
import and dissemination of dance from the US to the Nordic countries, and the
export of dance from the Nordic countries to the global marketplace. In every
instance, the focus is kept on various forms of dance spaces, be they instigated
31
Martin, p. 186.
32
Ibid., pp. 204–205.
through films and performances, the press, the activities of NGOs, state and
regional cultural policies, or by individual dancers and dance artists.
While references to material, new and old, from Denmark, Finland,
Norway and Sweden are plentiful, references to dance research from Iceland
are more sporadic, since there is much less available as yet. However, the larger
geographical scope of the book stretches not only across the Atlantic into North
America, but also reaches across the Baltic Sea into the Baltic states and along
the shores of the Barents Sea into Russia. Forming part of the Nordic region’s
historical narrative, attempts to re-affiliate the Baltic states with the Nordic
community have been ongoing since the end of the Cold War. Whereas the
Baltic states today constitute a bridge between the northern and central parts
of Europe, the Barents region or European High North constitutes a bridge to
the Arctic community. In both instances, person-to-person exchanges in culture
play an important role in forming the fabric of the region.
How? Disciplines and Scholarly Approaches
Integrating three complementary perspectives, the volume looks at the interplay

between politics, larger global flows, and the movements of dance and dancers.
The fields of dance in the Nordic countries are marked by the presence of a
myriad of voices, and new forms of cultural political engagement have developed,
especially in the latter part of the twentieth century. This study highlights some
of the processes connected with this development and strives to address the
active roles dance plays in different domains of society.
Another perspective looks at the contribution of localised activities to
the transnational movements within dance. According to Steven Vertovec,
transnationalism refers to multiple ties and interactions, long-distance
networks, linking people or institutions across the borders of nation states.
One of its conceptual premises is a reconstruction of ‘place’ or locality, which
entails a grounding of translocal understandings in places and not just in modes
of human communication.33 Transnational movements in this context refer to
both Nordic and global non-state phenomena such as artistic efforts, popular
cultural trends and ideological aspirations that may be characterised by their
heterogeneous composition. Activities such as dance festivals, competitions
and residency programmes are thus seen as spaces for multifaceted encounters
Steven Vertovec, ‘Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism’, Ethnic and Racial

33
Studies, 22/2 (1999), pp. 447–462.

North in Motion 13
between different agents with varying aims and motives but acting in the same
context for purposes often unknown beforehand.
As our discussions show, the reality and impact of the transnational may be
supported, or resisted, and are often commented on either by the general public, in
the dance itself, or by the dancers. The third perspective grants focus to the tensions
and problems encountered within differently scaled dance spaces, from the local
festival to the larger movementscape. Following this perspective, the chapters
build an argument for a more expansive and hybrid conception of transnationality.
The study is based on a plethora of empirical findings, most of which were
produced during the project and not previously discussed. The manner in
which the individual authors approach their material combines the analysis of
empirical findings generated through ethnographic fieldwork, such as interviews
of dancers and participant observation of dance activities, with close readings of
historical documents, such as archival material, policy papers, filmed footage of
dance and published materials.
The Progression of the Chapters
Centred on the imagining and practising of a Nordic region, the chapters unfold
the discussions of the role of dance and its associated activities with the aim
of enhancing an understanding of the underlying processes and structures.
Spanning a period of more than a hundred years, the point is not to provide a
chronological history of dance in the Nordic countries. Rather than having been
subsumed under an overarching idea of historical progression, the chapters have
been sequenced in such a manner as to retain the complexity of the discussions
while facilitating juxtapositions and comparisons. Sometimes perspectives
carry over from one chapter to the next, at other times not. The thread that
nevertheless ties them together is their overall focus on the role of dance in the
cultural fabric that has constituted the Nordic region over and over.
Opening with a discussion of external influences on Nordic dance spaces,
Inger Damsholt investigates the introduction of American popular dances, rock
’n’ roll and swing dances in the Nordic countries between 1930 and 1960, and
looks at their later development into new forms of participatory and competitive
dance. Engaging ideas related to ‘moral panic’, she examines the events around
the Nordic premieres of the film Rock Around the Clock (1956) and establishes
how they drew attention to public space as a domain in which social values
associated with youth culture and dance were asserted and contested. Looking
as well at the discourse around swing dances developing in the printed media,
she argues that social and psychological communalities contributed to the

subsequent production of a Nordic space of rock ’n’ roll and swing dancing.
Next Karen Vedel examines how the mobility of dance artists has played out
in the realm of official Nordic collaborations and deepens the discussion with a
case study on the role of dance spaces in the emerging Barents region. The chapter
identifies diverse forms of transnational activities within the Nordic countries
and addresses how artist-driven mobility and person-to-person relationships
contribute to building the backbone of a region. Cultural and artistic mobility
not only plays a strategic role in the larger political schemes of the region, but
has also become a structural necessity in the lives of many dance professionals,
who are forced to be mobile if they want to find work, and – in the sparsely
populated North – if they want to find an audience as well. By juxtaposing a
study of the mobility of dance practitioners in the ‘old’ Nordic and the emerging
Barents regions, the chapter sheds light on the role it plays in a regional project
otherwise defined in political and economic terms.
Mats Nilsson’s study of contemporary competitions in folk dancing discusses
this contemporary and popular phenomenon as a presentational expression
within its Nordic context. His analysis of dance performances in the Nordic folk
dance domain places the emphasis on competitive events in ethnographically
documented live situations between 2009 and 2011. The chapter explicates
what the shift from a participatory to a presentational mode of dancing signifies
to the dances and dance spaces, and how it is explained in the discourses around
these phenomena. In scrutinising the concept of folk, he argues that folk dance,
as a form of competitive activity, is transformed from local dance phenomena
into non-localised dancing communities, on their part producing folk dance
spaces that both maintain and challenge ideals in dancing, dress, music and
gender roles.
Lena Hammergren resumes the investigation of the impact of dance forms
from North America on cultures in the Nordic region. With a focus on the
introduction of African–American theatrical dance, also known as jazz dance,
in the 1960s and 1970s, her chapter shows how the genre was transformed
once it migrated to new geographies and how moving from one country to
another entailed interacting with and articulating a different set of local, socio-
cultural and ideological spaces. Making comparisons between public events,
educational discourses and cultural policies, the analysis shows not only how
the arrival of African–American jazz dance created a new movement diversity
that complemented the earlier dominance of ballet and European dance, but
also how migrating pedagogues and dancers have been integral to Nordic dance
history. Last but not least, it highlights a discussion of how cultural diversity was
articulated at the time and negotiated in dance and its related practices.
North in Motion 15
Based on a comprehensive study of the social backgrounds of ‘leading

individuals’, Egil Bakka’s chapter compares and discusses the significance of class
in how dance was established in the Nordic countries in the early 1900s and
the social spaces it created. Bakka’s reading adds important information to our
understanding of differences and similarities between the Nordic countries as
regards the social backgrounds and cultural capital of central agents in the most
commonly used categories of theatre dance, folk dance and ballroom. Adding
a fourth category of ‘dancing crowds’, he also identifies and discusses the most
important organisations behind the construction of venues such as assembly
buildings in which the ‘dancing crowds’ would meet.
With Inka Juslin’s chapter, the focus of the volume shifts to the reception
of Nordic dance performances in North America. Juslin looks at the media’s
interpretations of works presented by different Nordic companies and individual
artists during their performance visits to North America during 2007–2011. She
situates performance reviews in relation to an idea of ‘economy of experiences’,
which includes a larger cultural context. The selected contemporary dance
productions have been regarded as representing an ‘official’ voice in their home
country. The companies and artists enjoy a certain national status, since they
have been supported by the state in various ways in their home countries.
Moreover, in juxtaposition to the reception of these contemporary tours, the
chapter examines how the Nordic aesthetics were reviewed in conjunction with
a major exhibition of Nordic fine art that toured various North American cities
a century ago. The chapter reveals how the reception of today’s performances
attests to persisting notions of cultural characteristics. At the same time, it
demonstrates that cultural specificities, with both national and intercultural
elements, have a place in the globalised world.
Pursuing the topic of dancers working cultures in the early decades of the
twentieth century, Anne Margrete Fiskvik’s focus is on social spaces as tools of
thought, action and power. Arguing that dancers contribute to building dance
spaces not only by their physical participation but also by their behaviour, she
discusses the often unspoken cultural codes negotiated by professional dancers,
whose mobility includes navigating between so-called serious and popular
venues. Leaning on previous research from Finland, Sweden and Denmark,
Fiskvik adds important details from Norway, unveiling an altogether rich and
versatile professional dance culture in which the few built an actual career while
the many filled the ranks of the corps de ballet and the chorus girls. It is her
contention that the extent of dancers’ mobility at the beginning of the twentieth
century was determined not only by the need to find a job but also by issues of
hierarchical power related to professional status.
Linking to the earlier discussions on emerging regions, Petri Hoppu’s chapter

examines the constitutive aspects of the Nordic folk dance movement from its
first convention in 1920 to 1975, when the NORDLEK agreement, steering the
relations between Nordic folk dance organisations and the setup of all-Nordic
folk dance events, was signed. He considers how one could see a historically
specific way of imagining and practising the Nordic region by participating in
Nordic folk dance events. Within the forums of Nordic folk dance cooperation,
both discursive and embodied activities have created dance spaces in which
transnational cultural forms of interaction have emerged. In this, the closing
chapter, Hoppu also summarises the volume’s contributions to a deepened
understanding of the corporeal dimensions of cultural practices relative to the
larger social phenomena of the Nordic countries.
Bibliography
Allen, John, Doreen B. Massey and Alan Cochrane, Rethinking the Region (New
York: Routledge, 1998).
Appadurai, Arjun, ‘Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination’,
Public Culture, 12/1 (2000), pp. 6–7.
Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).
Bauman, Zygmunt, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).
Bharucha, Rustom, The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in
an Age of Globalization (London: The Athlone Press, 2000).
Biskop, Gunnel, Dansen för åskådare (Åbo: Åbo Akademis förlag, 2012).
Braidotti, Rosi, Nomadic Subjects. Embodiment and Sexual difference in
Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York: Columbia University Press,
1994).
Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of
Philip II (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996).
Duelund, Peter, ‘Cultural Policy: An Overview’, in Peter Duelund (ed.), The
Nordic Cultural Model (Copenhagen: Nordic Cultural Institute, 2003).
Franco, Susanne and Marina Nordea (eds), Dance Discourses: Keywords in Dance
Research (London: Routledge, 2007).
Franko, Mark, ‘Dance and the Political’, in Susanne Franco and Marina Nordera
(eds), Dance Discourses: Keywords in Dance Research (London: Routledge,
2007).
Gilroy, Paul, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London:
Verso, 1993).
North in Motion 17
Hammergren, Lena, Ballerinor och barfotadansöser: Svensk och internationell

danskultur runt 1900 (Stockholm: Carlsson, 2002).
Hoppu, Petri, ‘National Dances and Popular Education: The Formation of Folk
Dance Canons in Norden’, in Karen Vedel (ed.), Dance and the Formation of
Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Trondheim: Tapir, 2011).
Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).
Martin, Randy, Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1998).
Ramsten, Märta (ed.), The Polish Dance in Scandinavia and Poland (Stockholm:
Svenskt visarkiv, 2003).
Sheller, Mimi and John Urry, ‘The New Mobilities Paradigm’, Environment and
Planning A, 38 (2006), pp. 207–226.
Shields, Rob, ‘Henri Lefebvre’, in Anthony Elliott and Bryan S. Turner (eds),
Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory (London: Sage, 2001), pp. 226–237.
Shields, Rob, Lefebvre, Love and Struggle: Spatial Dialectics (London: Routledge,
1998).
Suhonen, Tiina, ‘Duncan tanssi Helsingissä’, in Päivi K. Pakkanen, Jaana
Parviainen, Leena Rouhiainen and Annika Tudeer (eds), Askelmerkkejä
tanssin historiasta, ruumiista ja sukupuolesta (Helsinki: Taiteen
keskustoimikunta, 1999).
Vedel, Karen, ‘Dance and the Formation of Norden’, in Karen Vedel (ed.), Dance
and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Trondheim: Tapir,
2011).
Vedel, Karen, En anden dans: Moderne scenedans i Danmark 1900–1975
(Copenhagen: Multivers Academic, 2008).
Vedel, Karen, ‘Strategically Nordic: Articulating the Internal Logic of the Field’,
in Karen Vedel (ed.), Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and
Struggles (Trondheim: Tapir, 2011).
Vedel, Karen (ed.), Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles
(Trondheim: Tapir, 2011).
Vertovec, Steven, ‘Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism’, Ethnic and
Racial Studies, 22/2 (1999), pp. 447–462.
Chapter 2
Rock Around the North
Inger Damsholt
Throughout the twentieth century, the Nordic region was subject to an ever-
increasing Americanisation, and various transnational flows of swing dance were
negotiated in relation to issues of moral panic. In 1956 the arrival of rock ’n’ roll
gave rise to considerable debate and triggered passionate feelings: Was the dance
yet another expression of a general decay of morality? Was the dance too wild,
untamed and uncivilised? And did it suit the bodies and minds of the Nordic
region? According to Stanley Cohen, who indentified the concept of ‘moral
panic’ in his study of Mods and Rockers, a ‘moral panic’ occurs when a condition
‘emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests’.1 Cohen
notes that after the Second World War moral panic was typically tied to youth
culture and in the 1950s to rock ’n’ roll in particular. Nevertheless, the moral
panic surrounding the arrival of rock ’n’ roll in the Nordic region seemed to
perpetuate moral concerns that earlier dances such as the Jitterbug had induced.
The main thesis of this chapter is that rock ’n’ roll and other swing
dancing practised, and continues to practise, a Nordic region. Initially the
chapter looks at the ways in which the impact of the transnational context is
supported, resisted or commented on by the general public as well as the dancers
themselves. After some general notes on the introduction of rock ’n’ roll, the
chapter takes as its point of departure the observation of a specifically Nordic
discursive space located in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab [Nordic
Journal of Criminology], namely a comparative analysis of rock ’n’ roll riots in
the Scandinavian capitals in 1956 and 1957. Continuing the focus on discursive
spaces, the chapter then shows, from a comparative perspective, how rock ’n’
roll was negotiated in the Scandinavian press of 1956 in relation to issues of
moral panic and how an imagined Nordic region emerged in the notion of a
specifically quiet, modest Nordic psychological profile. Keeping the focus on
the three Scandinavian countries, the chapter goes on to identify a number of
national rock ’n’ roll agents as well as moral entrepreneurs, going into more detail
1
Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (St Albans, 1973), p. 9.
with a Danish case.2 The final section of the chapter looks at the contribution of
localised activities to the transnational movements within dance. In this last part
of the chapter, the perspective is widened to include Finland, and the chapter
shows how a Nordic region is practised in the mobility of national dance agents
prior to 1960 and in contemporary events such as the Nordic championships in
Bugg and Folkeswing.
A Nordic Space of Rock ’n’ Roll
One of the most dramatic introductions to swing dancing in the Nordic region
was the arrival of rock ’n’ roll, which coincided with the premiere of the film Rock
Around the Clock in 1956. This topic has been researched in different national
contexts – primarily from a musicological perspective3 and more recently
from a more general historical perspective focusing on rock ’n’ roll in the daily
press of 1956 and 1957.4 In retrospect it is apparent that rock ’n’ roll signified
important changes in the production and consumption of both music and film.
From a musicological perspective, rock ’n’ roll has been highlighted as the first
distinctive ‘youth music’ – an early example of a style-based youth culture that
has given rise to many subsequent derivatives. It also seems clear that the cultural
significance of rock ’n’ roll music for young people extended around the world
and that rock ’n’ roll was a central defining feature of the growing post-war youth
consumer market in the 1950s.5
Rock Around the Clock gave a highly fictionalised account of how rock ’n’ roll
was discovered, and it was later stressed that the film was shot over a short period
of time in order to capitalise on the popularity of Bill Haley’s multimillion-
2
The limitation of my discourse analysis to Sweden, Norway and Denmark is due
partly to the comparative analysis in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab and partly to
my understanding of the similar Scandinavian languages.
3
In Denmark primarily Niels W. Jacobsen, Jens Allan Mose and Egon Nielsen, Dansk
Rock ’n’ Roll: Anderumper, ekstase og opposition. En analyse af dansk rockkultur 1956–63
(Tappernøje, 1980). In Sweden primarily Per-Erik Brolinson and Holger Larsen, När rocken
slog i Sverige: Svensk rockhistoria 1955–1965 (Stockholm, 1984). In Norway primarily Odd
Skårberg, Da Elvis kom til Norge: Stilbevegelser, verdier og historiekonstruksjon i rocken fra
1955 til 1960 (Oslo, 2003).
4
In Denmark Sissel Bjerrum, ‘Rock’n’roll: Mødet mellem dem og os’, in Klaus Petersen
and Nils Arne Sørensen (eds), Den kolde krig på hjemmefronten (Odense, 2004), pp. 81–93.
In Norway Lene Løland, Unge rebeller i rock’n’roll-rus: En studie av norske avisers omtale av
rock og ungdomskultur 1955–1960 (Bergen, 2007).
5
Andy Bennett, Cultures of Popular Music (Buckingham, 2001).
Rock Around the North 21
selling recording ‘Rock Around the Clock’.6 From a film studies perspective, the
film is typically seen as an early example of the ever-growing presence of popular
music in film. Thus the variety of ways in which popular music and dance
provide narrative, aesthetic and commercial opportunities and the consequences
of the increasing displacement of the traditional film score by such music are
highlighted as significant developments in recent cinema practice.7
Within a more general history of teenage culture, it needs to be emphasised
that dancing was a central feature of the rock ’n’ roll flow. Dancing was an
important form of music consumption in teenage culture, thus ‘it is no
coincidence that dance and dancers are featured prominently in the films and
television programs aimed at the new teen market’.8 Rock Around the Clock
featured a wealth of dance scenes and reportedly caused its audiences to jive in
cinema aisles and continue their dancing in the city streets. Not only did the
dancing unfold in public urban space as opposed to a controlled dance space
(a dance hall or dance school), but it also contributed to the function of streets
and public spaces as diverse democratic places. Rock ’n’ roll seemed to occupy
public urban space and insist on its belonging to the youth. With its different
bodily movements, energy and power, rock ’n’ roll seemingly transgressed a
normatively described use of the space exclusive of youth culture and, at the
same time, expressed feelings of difference within society. In other words, rock
’n’ roll dancing changed the public space and highlighted it as a domain in which
social values were asserted and contested.
The youthful occupation of urban spaces in the late 1950s entailed some more
delinquent behaviour, thus in 1956 a transnational flow of what were called ‘rock
’n’ roll riots’ swept through the West in connection with the premieres of Rock
Around the Clock. In his 1959 book on ‘rioting youth’ the German criminologist
Günther Kaiser listed 107 events, most of which seemed to have started in
connection with rock ’n’ roll events of different sorts.9 Allegedly the London
premiere of Rock Around the Clock in early September 1956 led to a violent riot,
causing national outrage and a ban on the film in a number of cinemas. Thus by
the time the film reached the Nordic capitals, the local youth were prepared to
6
The song had already been featured in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle – in Norwegian
Vend dem ikke ryggen and in Swedish Vänd dem inte ryggen. For a more complex history of
the song, see for instance Jim Dawson, Rock Around the Clock: The Record that Started the
Rock Revolution! (San Francisco, CA, 2005).
7
See Ian Inglis (ed.), Popular Music and Film (London, 2003).
8
Tim Wall, ‘Rocking Around the Clock’, in Julie Malnig (ed.), Ballroom, Boogie,
Shimmy, Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader (Urbana, IL, 2009), p. 183.
9
Günther Kaiser, Randalierende Jugend; eine soziologische und kriminologische Studie
über die sogenannten ‘Halbstarken’ (Heidelberg, 1959).
Figure 2.1 Rock ’n’ roll riots in Helsinki portrayed by Kari Suomalainen.
Helsingin Sanomat, 30 September 1956.
Note: The subtitle reads: ‘All right, all right, I made a mistake. This was not the music film
with Arthur Rubinstein and Lily Pons’. The man is presumably alluding to the American
film Carnegie Hall (1947), in which a brigade of classical music names appears including the
famous pianist and singer.
perpetuate the transnational flow of juvenile delinquency, and the local police
forces were prepared to control the presence of young people coming out of the
cinemas. Rock Around the Clock premiered in the Nordic region in September
1956: in Stockholm on 17 September, in Oslo on 20 September, and in Helsinki
on 28 September. The film did not premiere in Copenhagen until a year later,
on 5 August 1957 – a delay due to the so-called ‘American film blockade’ of
Denmark from October 1955 to July 1957.10
According to Gronow, the immediate effect of the Rock Around the Clock
premiere in Finland ‘was the enthusiastic reception of the new music by certain
Since the US film industry, represented by the Motion Picture Export Association
10
(MPEA), decided that rental payments for US films were too low, and Danish distributors
refused to pay more, the MPEA imposed a boycott in an attempt to force the country to
accept trading conditions. As a result Rock Around the Clock did not premiere in Denmark
until 1957. See Peter Schepelern, Danish Film History 1896–2009 (Copenhagen, 2010).
sectors of urban youth’.11 However, according to other sources, ‘the anticipated

reaction never came … some rowdy youngsters were baiting the police in the
streets and urging each other to turn vehicles upside down. Direct action reached
its dramatic climax when one Moskvich automobile was moved by a metre or
so’.12 Nevertheless, by the late 1950s it seemed clear that the Nordic region had
witnessed a series of rock ’n’ roll riots similar to those in the rest of Europe. What
is of particular interest in the context of this chapter is that riots in Stockholm,
Oslo and Copenhagen were subject to a comparative analysis published in
1964 by the Danish criminologist John Andersson in Nordisk Tidsskrift for
Kriminalvidenskab, and as such produced a Nordic space of rock ’n’ roll.
According to Andersson, after the Copenhagen riots in the autumn of
1957, discussions were initiated between the Psychological Laboratory and the
Department of Criminology at University of Copenhagen on the organisation
of a study of the events,
partly because of a general interest in a more detailed description of the events

that had unfolded, and partly because of the desirability contingent on the
comparison of such a study with similar studies made in Oslo and Stockholm of
riots of a superficially similar nature that had taken place both in 1956 and at the
end of 1956/beginning of 1957.13
In two different articles of the second volume of Nordisk Tidsskrift for

Kriminalvidenskab (1957), ‘the scope and character of the rock ’n’ roll riots in
Oslo, 20–22 September 1956’ had been analysed.14 According to these studies,
11
Pekka Gronow, ‘Popular Music in Finland: A Preliminary Survey’, in Ethnomusicology,
vol. 17, no. 1 (1973), p. 64.
12
S. Bruun et al., Jee Jee Jee: Suomalaisen Rockin Historia (Porvoo: WSOY, 1998), quoted
in Antti-Ville Karja, ‘Ridiculous Infantile Acrobatics, or Why They Never Made Any Rock’n’roll
Movies in Finland’, in Inglis (ed.), Popular Music and Film, p. 130. For further reference, see also
‘Bill Haley villitsi Erottajalla 1956’, in which Finnish Kaj ‘Rock Jerry’ Järnström talks about
his experiences on 28 September 1956: http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/bill_haley_villitsi_
erottajalla_1956_15029.html#media=15034 (accessed 9 May 2012).
13
‘[D]els på grund af den almene interesse, der kunne være i en nøjere beskrivelse af
de stedfundne begivenheder, og dels på grund af det ønskelige i eventuel sammenligning
af en sådan undersøgelse med tilsvarende undersøgelser, som var blevet foretaget i Oslo og
Stockholm over optøjer af overfladisk samme karakter, som havde fundet sted dels 1956 og
dels ved årsskiftet 1956/57’. John Andersson, ‘“Rock and Roll”-begivenhederne i København
5.-10. August 1957’ in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab, vol. 52. (Copenhagen,
1964), p. 175 (my translation).
14
Elg Elgesem, ‘Rock’n Roll opptøyene i Oslo 20–22 September 1956: Opptøyenes
omfang og karakter’ and Knut Sveri, ‘Rock’n Roll opptøyene i Oslo 20–22 september 1956:
the premiere of Rock Around the Clock in Sentrum Kino on 20 September had
been followed by a spate of vandalism. A group of young people had gone on a
raid through the central streets of Oslo – windows were broken in shops and
cars, electrical wiring was ripped out, and bottles and stones were thrown at
the police. On the second and third night a crowd of 3,000 people gathered in
the streets surrounding the cinema, and a similar chain of events unfolded. In
the third volume of Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab (1957) ‘the street
fights in Stockholm at the end of 1956/beginning of 1957’ were analysed.15 In
the context of the Nordic space practised in Andersson’s comparative analysis, it
should be noted that these riots were not connected to the Stockholm premiere
of Rock Around the Clock in September 1956, but were ‘events of a similar
type’.16 However, on New Year’s Eve 1956/New Year’s Day 1957, a group of
young people gathered in Kungsgatan and threw firecrackers and old light bulbs
into the street. Several buses were stopped and smashed, after which the police
proceeded to clear the streets. The interference of the police caused further
vandalism; thus bicycles were thrown onto the roads, a parked car was rolled
over, and eventually regular barricades were formed.
According to Andersson, ‘the Rock ’n’ Roll events in Copenhagen 5–10
August 1957’ unfolded in connection with the premiere of Rock Around the
Clock in the Bristol cinema, close to the Town Hall Square. The riot mainly
consisted of people gathering at the Town Hall Square, and the crimes were
confined for the most part to shouting, slowing down traffic, and the occasional
forced entry into the Tivoli Gardens. On the second night a group of 300–400
people gathered outside the cinema and on the third night several hundred
‘troublemakers rode their motorbikes and mopeds up on the Town Hall Square
ready for the events of the evening’.17
The Nordic space produced in Andersson’s comparative analysis reveals itself
as a place of commonality through demographic parameters such as age, gender
and social conditions. From the systematic tables showing exact numbers of
offenders in Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen, it is clear that more than 95 per
cent of the offenders in all the countries are male and that ‘there is an aggregation
Opptøyenes omfang og karakter’, both in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab, vol. 2

(Copenhagen, 1957).
15
Carl Holmberg, ‘Gatubråken i Stockholm vid Årsskiftet 1956–57’, in Nordisk
Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab, vol. 3 (Copenhagen, 1957).
16
Curiously Andersson does not mention any analyses of Swedish rock ’n’ roll riots
from 17 September. However, according to Brolinson and Larsen, the media ‘paid attention
to the Swedish premiere of Rock Around the Clock – the carnival atmosphere, police chains,
fights and intervention’ (my translation). Brolinson and Larsen, p. 17.
17
Andersson, p. 175 (my translation).
in the younger generation’.18 Only one considerable difference undermining the

commonality of the Nordic rock ’n’ roll riots is revealed in ‘the comparison of
prosecutions in the Scandinavian countries. In Denmark charges were raised for
all detainees … In Norway and Sweden in a number of cases no actions were
taken against the defendants’.19
The Press, the Dance and the Moral Panic
While Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab seems to conclude that none of

the Scandinavian rock ’n’ roll riots had much to do with the film, it also highlights
that the massive media coverage of riots in other countries in connection with
the film had created certain expectations among the youth as well as the police.20
In the context of this chapter, the focus is now directed at the way in which the
delinquent behaviour of the Nordic youth was connected to rock ’n’ roll dancing
within the discourse of the Scandinavian press. As mentioned earlier, the press
treatment of the arrival of rock ’n’ roll in Denmark and Norway has recently
been investigated from a historical perspective.21 From Bjerrum’s analysis, it is
apparent that rock ’n’ roll was wildly debated in Denmark at two periods of time:
the first being September–October 1956 and the second in connection with the
premiere of Rock Around the Clock in August 1957. Bjerrum’s analysis challenges
the traditional notion that rock ’n’ roll was simply received with condemnation
and shows how the phenomenon was also met with understanding and
widespread tolerance.22 While no historical analysis of the press treatment of
the arrival of rock ’n’ roll in Sweden has been located, it should be noted that
Brolinson and Larsen make an observation similar to Bjerrum’s in their study
of Swedish rock history, claiming that rock ’n’ roll ‘washed over Sweden in two
waves in the 1950s’. The first wave came ‘as a fad dance’ primarily in the second
half of 1956, whereas in the autumn of 1957 ‘amateur competitions for rock
singers crowded out the dance competitions’.23 Løland’s analysis shows that
the general discussion of rock ’n’ roll in the Norwegian press was primarily
negatively charged, expressing fear of moral decay and despair over the youthful
18
Ibid., pp. 181–182 (my translation).
19
Ibid., p. 214 (my translation).
20
Ibid., p. 226.
21
Bjerrum, Løland.
22
In this context Hans Hertel’s understanding of the matter represents the traditional
notion. See Hans Hertel, ‘Kulturens kolde krig – Polarisering, antikommunisme og
antiamerikanisme i dansk kulturliv 1946–60’, in Kritik, vol. 35 (August 2002), p. 21.
23
Brolinson and Larsen, p. 15 (my translation).
enthusiasm for rock ’n’ roll and the excesses that accompanied it. Løland also
emphasises that the press seems to have had a dual role in the coverage of the
Oslo rock ’n’ roll riots in September 1956 – on the one hand communicating
what happened, but on the other hand inciting Norwegian youth to riot.
When Rock Around the Clock caused riots in London in early September
1956, the events were instantly reported in the Scandinavian news. The
Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet observes that when the music started in the
London cinema the temperature rose among the youngsters: ‘Young girls and
boys went completely crazy during the show. They began to clap and stomp,
and danced between the rows of seats’.24 In this quotation the riots are described
as a youthful dance performance; however, the notion of dance also seems to
function as a source domain for a metaphorical transfer of structures onto a
target domain of juvenile delinquency.25 Thus phrases such as ‘cannibals or
Indians in war dance’ are used in the Danish newspaper Information,26 while the
Norwegian Aftenposten described the London events as a ‘witch dance’ and ‘pure
jungle dance in the streets’.27 More generally, however, rock ’n’ roll was seen as a
genre of music that was able to intoxicate, exalt and inflame young people, thus
causing them to behave badly. As such, a causal linear development from music
to dance to delinquency is outlined.
The notion of rock ’n’ roll as a primitive rather than civilised dance is found
in several of the Nordic newspapers. An article from the Norwegian newspaper
Verdens Gang notes how rock ’n’ roll melodies ‘eventually developed into a
special, rather uncivilised dance’ and that ‘rock ’n’ roll parties degenerated into
pure sex orgies’ that the US eventually reacted to but ‘without having produced
any significant results in the direction of stopping this dance’.28 In another
context it is stated that ‘modern dance music intensifies the unhealthy craving
for ecstasy on a low level’, and rock ’n’ roll is described as ‘primitive rhythm music
intended to whip up the senses in bestial intoxication’.29 In September 1956 the
Danish newspaper Berlingske Aftenavis describes rock ’n’ roll as an illness or an
obsession causing aggressive behaviour and bad morality. The music is depicted as
Dagbladet, 12 September 1956, quoted in Løland, p. 44 (my translation).

24
This terminology is used in reference to a larger area of metaphor theory in which

25
metaphorical mapping is an activity that charts a specific domain by means of another

domain – a transfer of structures from a source domain to a target domain. See for instance
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (Santa
Cruz, CA, 2008).
26
Information, 25 September 1956, quoted in Bjerrum, p. 83 (my translation).
27
Aftenposten, 12 September 1956, quoted in Løland, p. 42 (my translation).
28
Verdens Gang, 8 September 1956, quoted in Løland, p. 38 (my translation)
29
Sunmørsposten, 1958, quoted in Skårberg, p. 10 (my translation).
primitive and without melody and the dancing as uncivilised; however, it is noted
that ‘it happens in the US and Britain. Large parts of the youth of two civilised
countries plunge into music orgies never seen before’.30 In a later Danish article in
Berlingske Aftenavis, a policeman compares rock ’n’ roll to a ‘witch doctor dance
in Zululand’, underlining that it seems ‘completely absurd and rather shameful for
a cultured country’.31 While the notion of primitivity is connected to the notion
of ‘a low level’ of culture, the references to primitivity are not all negative. The
Swedish weekly Bildjournalen describes rock ’n’ roll as ‘the Jungle’s shout of joy in
the dance halls’32 and the Danish publication Politiken sees rock ’n’ roll as a sign
of health, noting that in the Belgian Congo and Hawaii ‘the children of humanity
rock and roll themselves through life’.33 As such, the dance hysteria is diagnosed as
a disease of malnutrition with many precedents.
The notion of rock ’n’ roll as a form of disease or fever is a widespread metaphor
seen in a number of articles at the time. In September Bildjournalen announces
that ‘the rock ’n’ roll fever has reached Sweden’.34 In the Danish newspaper
Social-Demokraten rock ’n’ roll is construed as a germ, although it is emphasised
that it will not contaminate the Danes, who are described as a stylish people
with modest traits, in contrast to England and the US, which are contrasted
as exotic countries.35 The notion of the Nordic people as a group with modest
traits is reinforced a few days later when rock ’n’ roll dancing is launched at the
fashionable Arena dance hall in central Copenhagen. The evening is reviewed in
the newspaper BT the following day: ‘the music started and gradually people’s
legs began to twitch … A possession had grabbed hold of them … However, it
was all quite peaceful, although three measures of rock ’n’ roll seemed like three
bottles of champagne. Copenhageners do not easily lose their heads’.36
When Rock Around the Clock was reviewed in the Danish newspapers, the
idea that the film might have had the power to provoke riots was rejected, one
review arguing that the reason ‘the quiet Norwegians’ rioted was simply because
30
Berlingske Aftenavis, 8 September 1956, quoted in Bjerrum, p. 82 (my translation).
31
Berlingske Aftenavis, 5 October 1956, quoted in Bjerrum, p. 87 (my translation).
32
Bildjournalen 1956 (36), quoted in Brolinson and Larsen, p. 17 (my translation).
33
Politiken, 7 October 1956, quoted in Bjerrum, p. 87 (my translation).
34
Bildjournalen 1956 (36), quoted in Brolinson and Larsen, p. 17 (my translation).
35
Social-Demokraten, 11 September 1956, quoted in Bjerrum, p. 83 (my translation).
36
‘Så tog musikken fat, og folk begyndte så småt at få skruptudser i benene … En
besættelse havde grebet dem … Endda var det altsammen ret fredeligt, selv om tre takter
rock’n’roll virkede som tre flasker champagne. Københavnerne er ikke sådan at bringe ud af
fatningen’. BT, 13 September 1956 quoted in Jacobsen et al., p. 107 (my translation).
they wanted to follow the latest trend.37 In the context of this chapter it seems
significant to note that none of the Scandinavian newspapers identified any
possible explanations for why the Scandinavian countries would have similar
psychological profiles for their – expected – modest reactions to rock ’n’ roll.
Nor did they refer to any historical, social, political, economic or cultural
factors that could be seen as background influences leading to links between the
Scandinavian countries in terms of their psychological profiles. To a non-Nordic
resident, the notion of the uncivilised barbarian in a war dance might in fact
seem compatible with an image of ‘the Nordic Viking’ as a historical antecedent.
However, the cultural stereotype invoked in the Scandinavian press refers to an
understanding of the Scandinavian people as quiet, modest people who do not
easily lose their heads.
A crucial element of moral panic is that disagreement is difficult in this
controversy because the matter at heart is taboo. A major concern about rock
’n’ roll at the time was the ability of the music and dance to cause unrestrained
sexuality, and since sex, sexuality, pregnancy and contraception were taboo topics
in the Scandinavia of the 1950s, this was certainly a problematic element of the
controversy. Another concern was the ability of the music and dance to ‘set back’
or ‘lower’ the level of culture so that the Nordic countries would degenerate
into a region of primitivity. In this context it ought to be noted that only a few
newspapers referred directly to rock ’n’ roll as a phenomenon having to do with
something ‘African American’. More importantly, the references to rock ’n’ roll
as something ‘African’ (as in ‘Zululand’ and ‘the Belgian Congo’) are not all
negative. So in some cases primitivity is seen as a sign of health.38 Needless to say,
by the time rock ’n’ roll and other swing dances arrived in the Nordic region prior
to 1960, they had already filtered through the English ballroom industry and had
been thoroughly ‘white-washed’ by Hollywood. Bill Haley and the white dancers
in Rock Around the Clock provide an excellent example of that.39
37
Berlingske Aftenavis, 1 October 1956, quoted in Bjerrum, p. 84 (my translation).
Note that the film was reviewed from a showing in another country.
38
Similarly, in her study of ‘other’ theatrical dance in twentieth-century Denmark,
Karen Vedel has proposed that in the 1920s notions of primitivity in ‘negro dance’ (the
uncontrolled, the jungle, the sexuality) had both followers, who hailed it as a positive sign
of integrity and authenticity, and detractors, who saw it as a sign of moral decay. See Karen
Vedel, En Anden Dans: Moderne Scenisk Dans i Danmark 1900–1975 (Copenhagen, 2007),
pp. 259–303.
39
Whereas the notion of a fundamental blackness of swing dance is not the focus of this
chapter, the question of race will be discussed in the context of theatrical African–American
jazz dance in Chapter 5. Nevertheless, a good example of Hollywood’s ‘white-washing’ of swing
dancing is found in the historical account of the Jitterbug provided in the Groovie Movie of
1944. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iYVppEdyNY (accessed 9 May 2012).
Local Agents and Moral Entrepreneurs
On a more general note, the media seem to have operated in part as agents of moral
indignation, or as moral entrepreneurs in Scandinavia. In the following section
a number of specific rock ’n’ roll agents and moral entrepreneurs are located on
the national level and, as such, reveal similarities as well as differences between
the Scandinavian countries. In all three Scandinavian capitals, it seems that
certain dance agents, dance schools and dance halls were specifically connected
with the new rock ’n’ roll dance. In Stockholm Tembert’s Dance School stands
out as an institution particularly concerned with rock ’n’ roll; a textbook on
rock ’n’ roll dancing was published by the school in the late 1950s.40 Despite his
age, Gustaf ‘Topsy’ Lindblom (1891–1960) seems to have been a central agent
connected to rock ’n’ roll dancing. Prior to the arrival of rock ’n’ roll, Lindblom
had long been involved with ballroom dance and was later credited with being
the one who introduced dance sport competitions in Sweden in 1936.41 This
introduction took place at the National Scala dance palace – referred to as
‘Nalen’ – of which Lindblom was managing director from 1933 to 1960. An
example of someone who was able to use the media to promote his own agenda,
Lindblom often allied himself with Bildjournalen.42 At the opening of the new
season at Nalen in 1956, a national Swedish rock ’n’ roll dance tournament was
launched in cooperation with Bildjournalen and Columbia Film.43 In the final
round in late November, thirteen dancers from different cities participated, and
the local Nalen couple Bent Hansen and his partner Anita won the contest.44
Other agents worth mentioning are Gote Arnbring and Margaret Thorlin, who
introduced rock ’n’ roll dancing at Lorry.45
A similar dance contest took place in Oslo in the summer of 1958. The
rock ’n’ roll contest was held at the Kontraskjæret esplanade – in the dance tent
owned by Oslo Journalistlag [the Oslo Journalist Association] – and was won by
Else Marie Johannesen and Willy Hagberg.
40
Brolinson and Larsen, p. 16.
41
See Kerstin Katz, Sportsdansen i Sverige, http://www.ssdk.nu/danshistoria.html
(accessed 9 May 2012).
42
K.G. Bäckman et al., Nalen. Festligt, Folkligt, Fullsatt. Boken om Nalen: Historien om
en nöjesepok (Stockholm, 1967), p. 104.
43
44
Bäckman et al., p. 104.
45
Figure 2.2 Winners in a rock ’n’ roll dance contest in Oslo, August 1958.
Source: NTB Scanpix.
By the summer of 1958 rock ’n’ roll music and dancing were well established
in Oslo. The first Nordic championship in rock ’n’ roll was held at Jordal Amfi;
prior to this a final qualification round was held at Bygdøy Sjøbad.46 In retrospect
it seems that so-called leisure clubs [fritidsklubber] – such as Hammersborg
Fritidsklubb – functioned as the main venues for rock ’n’ roll dancing, rather
than dance schools. However, Richter’s Dance School stands out as an institution
Rockemuseet,
46
http://www.rockemuseet.no/Jordal%2058%20og%2059%20
historien.html (accessed 9 May 2012).
willing to engage in rock ’n’ roll.47 Nevertheless it seems clear that Norwegian
dance teachers were well aware of the new dance craze as early as 1956; in an
interview with Verdens Gang a Norwegian dance teacher describes rock ’n’ roll
dancing as well established: ‘Smart English dance teachers have launched new
dance steps associated with these tunes and today one could argue that rock ’n’
roll is described as a dance in the same category as the Charleston, the quick step,
the tango, etc.’48
In Copenhagen Børge Kisbye (1912–1966) stands out as the key rock ’n’
roll agent in Denmark, launching the new dance and music at events that took
place in the course of more than a month and included venues in Copenhagen
and Silkeborg in Jutland as well as Landskrona in southern Sweden.49 Kisbye had
long been involved with ballroom dance and dance sport and since 1950 had
run his own Kisbye Dance School in the old meatpacking district – known as
Kødbyen. The school also functioned as a dance hall where young people could
go to dance the Jitterbug – often to live music performed by new orchestras
from the Copenhagen music scene, similar to the events at Richter’s Dance
School in Oslo. Rock ’n’ roll in Copenhagen was launched at three events: at
National Scala on 12 September, at Folkets Hus in Enghavevej on 16 September,
and in KB-Hallen on 4 October. Soon after the launch at National Scala, the
establishment decided to arrange a weekly rock ’n’ roll evening in Arena Dancing
– an arrangement that continued for a year.50 It was later noted that Kisbye’s
Jitterbug dancers were among the first to embrace the new rock ’n’ roll dance,
but it could also be inferred that it was Kisbye’s dancers who introduced it to
the Danish public.
Similar to Lindblom in Sweden, Kisbye often cooperated with different
organisations and newspapers such as BT and Ekstra Bladet in the organisation
of shows and competitions that would attract an audience. In retrospect Kisbye
stands out as an agent who was able to use the media to promote rock ’n’ roll
dancing. In an article prior to his rock ’n’ roll event in KB-Hallen, Kisbye is
quoted as saying: ‘To everyone in every era, the latest dance form has been
the most sinful expression of the decay of morality. Why would we be better
47
The Norwegian band Lucky Boy and his Crazy Rockets performed here in 1958. See
‘“50-årsmarkering” av Norsk Rock / Rocke–Oslo 1958–1959’, http://www.rockmag.info/
femtijubileum08.html (accessed 9 May 2012).
48
Verdens Gang, 8 September 1956, quoted in Løland, p. 40 (my translation).
49
According to Jacobsen et al., Kisbye’s month-long launch ended in ‘cancellations and
bans of different kinds, caused by riots’. Jacobsen et al., p. 105 (my translation).
50
Ibid., p. 110. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Arena (or Nalen) in Copenhagen was
an important dance restaurant, constantly mentioned as the place where ‘it happens’.
or different? The waltz was seen as heretical. The tango was hated. Jazz dances
outraged. The Jitterbug aroused fury’.51
Apart from rock ’n’ roll dancing, the event in KB-Hallen in October
actually presented a ‘dance cavalcade of forbidden dances through time’ that
included the Viennese waltz, the tango, the Charleston and the jitterbug,
so Kisbye’s comment seems to have functioned as much as a commercial as a
precautionary defence.52 In the context of this chapter, it is of particular interest
that one way of negotiating the moral panic surrounding rock ’n’ roll was to
‘historicise’ it, showing that it was not a foreign phenomenon but in fact well
known as a ‘forbidden dance’. In other words, claiming that rock ’n’ roll was a
‘historical dance’ made it less easy for moral entrepreneurs to uphold its position
as something that might threaten prevailing social or cultural values. In the
following section, more detail is provided in the case of Børge Kisbye’s rock ’n’
roll agency and his moral entrepreneur opponent, which illustrates how the
debate about rock ’n’ roll seems to be a continuation of previous negotiations on
the Jitterbug and other swing dances.
Kisbye versus Jensen
While the previous section identified national rock ’n’ roll agents, the following
pages focus on the controversy between Kisbye and Kaj Jensen (1900–1961),
a key ‘moral entrepreneur’ in Denmark. In retrospect it seems clear that, while
Kisbye was considered ‘the most American dance teacher in Copenhagen’,53
Jensen, chairman of the dance teacher organisation Danse-Ringen [the Dance
Circle] from 1938 to 1961, acted as a key ‘moral entrepreneur’. Kisbye’s launch
of rock ’n’ roll coincided with the new season of the dance schools, and the
question arose whether rock ’n’ roll would be taught there or not. In an article
in Social-Demokraten Kisbye blames Danse-Ringen for having talked Danish
Television out of transmitting Kisbye’s rock ’n’ roll event in KB-Hallen.54 In
another article in BT, Jensen is quoted as saying that ‘rock ’n’ roll is smashing
the furniture, getting naked and having uninhibited sex’. Moreover he states
that if ‘television should be so bold as to present this new dance, Danse-Ringen
51
‘Til alle, alle tider har den nyeste danseform været det syndigste udtryk for sædernes
forfærdelighed. Hvorfor skulle vi være bedre eller anderledes? Valsen blev forkætret. Tangoen
hadet. Jazzdansene forargede. Jitterbug vakte raseri’. Information, 29 September 1956, quoted
in Bjerrum, p. 84 (my translation).
52
Jacobsen et al., pp. 106–108 (my translation).
53
Aftenbladet, 14 September 1956, quoted in Jacobsen et al., p. 105 (my translation).
54
Bjerrum, p. 84 in reference to Social-Demokraten, 10 October 1956.
will immediately exclude television from all future tournaments’.55 In this

connection Bjerrum notes that Kisbye’s voice seems to dominate the debate in
the newspapers, while Jensen and Danse-Ringen only appear in the one article,
which the other newspapers largely interpret as personal mud slinging.56
In retrospect it seems clear that throughout the 1940s and 1950s the
relationship between Kisbye and Danse-Ringen grew increasingly tense. Kisbye
himself considered it his task since 1942 ‘to launch all the new dances that came
out’.57 According to the interview referred to in Jacobsen et al., these dances
included the Lambeth Walk, the Boomps-a-Daisy, rollerskate dancing and the
Jitterbug. In this context it seems important to underline that, up until the spring
of 1956, Kisbye had been a member of Danse-Ringen and as such had witnessed
and/or participated in the negotiation of swing dances through the years since
Jensen took over as chairman. The Jitterbug had been introduced in Denmark in
1939, although Jensen reassured the readers of Ekstra Bladet that Danse-Ringen
would be teaching a ‘subdued Jitterbug’: ‘There will be no throwing each other
around. We are not talking about American Jitterbug horrors’.58
In 1943 Kisbye conducted an interview for Danse-Avisen in which he addressed
the two opposing figures in the Danish organisation of dance teachers – Kaj
Jensen, chairman of Danse-Ringen, and Carl Carlsen, chairman of Terpsichore.
When Carlsen, one of the founding members of Danse-Ringen in 1917, was asked
why he eventually left the organisation and started Terpsichore, he said:
It was almost forbidden to dance something that was not authorised. American
rhythms were particularly in favour among the audience then, and these were
not in favour with the members of Danse-Ringen … Rhythm dance belongs to
my heart more than the sedate dances. I distinguish between beautiful and fun
dancing. Fun dancing is rarely pretty in the eyes of older people. But of course
ballroom dances represent the real education.59
55
BT, 4 October 1956, quoted in Bjerrum, p. 85, and Henning Urup, ‘Danselærerne
og selskabsdansen i Danmark’, in Bjarne Ibsen and Jytte Kristensen (eds), Sportsdans – i takt
og utakt (Copenhagen, 1994), p. 63 (my translation).
56
See Bjerrum, p. 85.
57
Kisbye, quoted in Jacobsen et al., p. 105 (my translation).
58
Ekstrabladet, 9 September 1939, quoted in Henning Urup, Dans i Danmark:
Danseformerne ca. 1600 til 1950 (Copenhagen, 2007), p. 287 (my translation).
59
‘Der var næsten forbud mod at danse noget der ikke var autoriseret. Det var særlig
amerikanske Rytmer, der gjorde sig blandt Publikum dengang, og de faldt ikke i god Jord
hos Danse-Ringens Medlemmer … Rytmedansen har mere af mit Hjerte end de adstadige
Danse. Jeg skelner mellem smuk Dans og morson Dans. Morson Dans er i de ældres Øjne
sjældent smuk. Men selvfølgelig er Standarddansene den virkelige Opdragelse’. Danse-Avisen,
December 1943, quoted in Urup, Dans i Danmark, p. 288 (my translation).
It is apparent that Carlsen and Terpsichore at the time represented a position

that favoured American dancing. The following year Carlsen included sections
on rhythm dance in his Dancebook including swing, the Jitterbug and boogie-
woogie, Jitter Swing and Jive.60 Nevertheless, by the mid-1950s Kisbye came to
transgress even Carlsen’s limits of ‘fun dancing’.
When the Swedish film Swing it Magistern [Swing it Professor] premiered
in Denmark in 1941, it started a dance craze known as the ‘the popping
finger’, which involved raising one’s index finger in the air during the dance.61
The Swedish film was later identified as one of the events that initiated the so-
called swingpjat [swing-foolery] culture that flourished throughout the rest
of Denmark’s occupation; the word is a loan from the Swedish swingpjatt. A
swingpjatte was later identified as ‘a young person who listened and danced to
jazz music in the 1940s’ and the swingpjat culture was considered ‘the earliest
clear example of the commercialisation of youth culture via movies, fashion and
colourful magazines’ – as such, preceding the teenage culture of the 1950s.62 In
Copenhagen swingpjat youngsters enjoyed swing dancing to jazz music at their
preferred dance venues Arena in National Scala and Glassalen [the Glass Hall]
in Tivoli.63 And while it is not clearly documented, it seems highly likely that
Kisbye was one of the swingpjat dancers who frequented Glassalen. According
to the interview referred to in Jacobsen et al., Glassals-swing was one of the
dances he launched in 1942.64 Among the other markers of swingpjat culture was
the trend in oversized long jackets for men, which seems to have been the style
of jacket Kisbye wore in the 1940s. Thus in the 1942 publication marking the
twenty-fifth anniversary of Danse-Ringen, Kisbye is portrayed as a swingpjatte.
One humorous article notes that ‘Lindgreen is a swingpjatte and wears knees in
his jacket, but then Kisbye ought to have feet in his’.65
Denmark was occupied by the German Nazis from 1940 to 1945, and as was
the case with the rest of Nazi-occupied Europe – including Norway – jazz music
and swing dancing quickly became the soundtrack of the resistance movement.
Carl G.V. Carlsen, Dansebogen (Copenhagen, 1948).

60
See Mette Worm Borch, Take it Easy: En kulturhistorisk analyse af swingpjat under
61
besættelsen I Dnamark 1940–45 (Odense, 1997). The Swedish singer Alice Babs, who was
probably the first teenage idol in Denmark, also gave a concert in KB-Hallen in 1941.
62
See ‘Swingpjatte’, Den Store Danske: Gyldendals åbne encyklopædi, http://www.
denstoredanske.dk/Samfund,_jura_og_politik/Etnologi/Persontyper_og_historiske_
erhverv/swingpjatte (accessed 9 May 2012) (my translations).
63
A brilliant source of documentation is an article from the magazine Billed Bladet in
a volume from August 1943. See ‘Swingpjatter danser i Tivoli’.
64
Kisbye, quoted in Jacobsen et al., p. 105 (my translation).
65
Danseringen 25 år 1917–42 (Copenhagen, 1942) (my translation).
Since the Nazis considered modern art and jazz music ‘a threat to societal values
and interests’ – which, like the famous Degenerate Art exhibition mounted in
Munich in 1937, could be said to induce moral panic – the swingpjat culture
and Glassals-swing were seen as signs of resistance. Thus in 1944 Glassalen
was bombed, presumably by a Danish volunteer army corps and branch of the
German SS called the Schalburgkorps, which carried out most of the retaliation
actions as revenge for resistance activities between 1944 and 1945. After the war,
Dansetten [the Dancette] in Tivoli became the new preferred venue for swingpjat
and the Jitterbug, and Kisbye was hired as the venue’s dance inspector in 1948.
Throughout the latter half of the 1940s, Dansetten grew increasingly popular and
Kisbye launched the so-called Tivoli championships. Needless to say, Dansetten
was not popular with Jensen and Danse-Ringen. In 1949, when that teachers’
organisation decided to make a push for American swing dancing, Jensen
emphasised that their intention was ‘not to copy the dance in Tivoli, but rather
to show that rhythm dance can be performed in a civilised manner’. In the same
article Jensen threatened Kisbye that he would be excluded from Danse-Ringen.66
In partnership with BT, Kisbye was in charge of a large event in KB-
Hallen in 1950 that included performances by students from Kisbye’s dance
school as well as a Copenhagen championship in Jitterbug, won by a couple
from Dansetten. In 1950 Kisbye also introduced what was called Youth Park
Dance [Ungdommens Parkdans] in collaboration with the Police Youth Clubs
[Polititets Ungdomsklubber/PUK].67 The competition that Jitterbug dancing at
these clubs triggered in the dance schools led to broad discussions among the
teachers of Danse-Ringen as well as Terpsichore by the mid-1950s. Carlsen
is quoted on behalf of the teachers of both organisations, saying, ‘we are not
against the Jitterbug, but we are against the acrobatic movements where the girls
have their legs flung in the air – in short, the acrobatics’.68 Kisbye’s expanding
business eventually increased the lopsided relation between him and the rest
of the Copenhagen dance teachers and their organisations. In Danse-Ringen’s
1955 general assembly, members of the board encouraged Kisbye to give
up his membership, particularly because he had rented out his dance hall to
the Police Youth Clubs. Much to the great chagrin of Danse-Ringen, Kisbye
had also been appointed an advisor to the government’s Youth Commission
[Ungdomskommisionen] and was thus publicly considered an authority when it
66
Urup, Dans i Danmark, p. 290 in reference to Dansesporten, 7 April and 4 May 1949
(my translation).
67
Documentation of this can be seen in Anderumper og Parkdans (1961), http://www.
dr.dk/kroeniken/1950erne/ferie_fritid/kultur_oproer.asp (accessed 9 May 2012).
68
Urup, ‘Danselærerne’, p. 63 in reference to Aftenbladet, 26 September 1955 (my
translation).
Figure 2.3 Flying dancers in Copenhagen around 1950. Source: The Museum
of Copenhagen.
Note: Research suggests that it is two of Kisbye’s dancers in the photograph, and they are
most likely dancing in Kødbyen in the early 1950s.
came to youth and dance.69 The situation exploded at the general assembly in
May 1956 and was later referred to as a ‘dance war’.70
In retrospect it seems that the moral panic expressed by Jensen and Danse-
Ringen was a direct consequence of a controversy that can in fact be traced back
to the late 1930s or even to the split between Danse-Ringen and Terpsichore
in 1923. Thus in many ways the moral panic surrounding rock ’n’ roll dance
seemed no different from the questions that had been asked ever since the flow
of modern social dances from the US had begun to enter the Nordic region in
the early twentieth century. Moreover, the structural movement content of the
dance seemed no different from other swing dances, so the dance was frequently
recognised as ‘nothing more than the Jitterbug’.71 When Carlsen revised the
second edition of his dance book in 1948, he introduced a section on swing
dances with this historical explanation:
Modern young people tend to say that swing is swing (they only know the swing
we dance today), but the truth is that swing is a common name for the rhythm of
the dance we’ve danced since 1936 … Swing step became swing, swing became
the Jitterbug, the jitterbug became boogie-woogie, boogie-woogie became Jitter
Swing, Jitter Swing became Flying Jitter, and now – yes, now the American swing
dance is called ‘Jive’.72
When the rock ’n’ roll dance was launched in Denmark in 1956, it was in
fact, according to Børge Kisbye’s wife, just a variation of the Jitterbug.73 From
a contemporary perspective, this description of the dancing is highly plausible
given the movement content in the filmed documentation of many of these
events.74
69
See Bjerrum, p. 85.
70
Jacobsen et al., pp. 106–108 (my translation).
71
For example Berlingske Aftenavis, 10 October 1956, quoted in Bjerrum, p. 84;
Verdens Gang, 8 September 1956, quoted in Løland, p. 37.
72
‘Moderne unge mennesker er tilbøjelige til at sige, at swing er swing (de kender kun
den swing vi danser I dag); men sandheden er den, at swing er en fællesbetegnelse for den
rytmedans, vi har danset siden 1936 … Swing step blev til Swing, Swing blev til Jitterbug,
Jitterburg blev til Boogie Woogie, Boogie Woogie blev til Jitter Swing, Jitter Swing blev til
Flying Jitter, og nu – ja nu hedder den amerikanske Swing dans “Jive”’. Carlsen, p. 145 (my
translation).
73
Jacobsen et al., p. 105.
74
A comparative analysis of the dance structures in the Jitterbug contest sequence in the
Danish film Det var på Rundetårn (1955), film footage of Kisbye’s ‘Rock’n’roll premiere’ on
12 September at National Scala (1956) and of ‘“Gummi” Jørn and Inge-Birthe Pedersen’, who
won a World Championship of rock ’n’ roll dancing (1957) shows no dramatic differences.
A Nordic Region of Swing Dance
Both before 1956 and after, rock ’n’ roll and other swing dancing in the Nordic
countries seem to figurate somewhere in a range between the global, the regional
and the local. From a general perspective the ten years between 1955 and 1965
are an interesting time when social dance floors changed dramatically. In the
course of this period, the moral panic surrounding swing dancing gradually
diminished and in 1968 the Jive was finally included as one of five obligatory
dances in the official Latin–American dance sport category.75 And yet during
the same ten years, social dancing became more and more distinct from the
repertoire of the dance schools and teacher organisations. As was underlined
in the previous section, the Jitterbug and rock ’n’ roll dancing in youth and
leisure clubs provided fierce competition for the dance schools. But by the mid-
1960s the twist and other freestyle dancing nourished by the new discotheques
had conclusively robbed the dance schools of their traditional roles as social
educators. Couple dancing with complicated footwork and a dance hold was
no longer standard on the social dance floor and ‘dance school dancing’ became
a specialised sport activity, hence the name ‘dance sport’. Nevertheless, over the
past 50 years, swing dancing has been and is still practised in a variety of dance
contexts and genres, ranging from national variations of the Swedish Bugg and
the Norwegian Folkeswing to the broader transnational contexts of the World
Rock’n’Roll Confederation and the ‘modern Jive’ and ‘neo-swing’ movements.
The point is that swing dancing practised a Nordic region prior to 1956 and has
continued to do so way into the twenty-first century. This happens in different
ways, although the last section of this chapter will confine the discussion to a few
aspects: the way dance school teachers and the dance sport environment have
continued to practise a Nordic dance space in their collaborations and travels,
and the way the transnational neo-swing movement creates particular Nordic
dance spaces through their collaboration across the region and beyond.
As is apparent from the rest of this book, the transnational mobility of
dancers across the Nordic region is a characteristic way in which Nordic dance
The rock ’n’ roll dancing of 1956 and 1957 can generally be described as a non-progressive
couple dance, with a variety of dance holds and acrobatic features similar to Jitterbug dancing
in 1955. In all three cases the basic step of the dancing takes up 6 beats, equivalent to 1½
measures of music in 4/4. The only difference appears to be that in a section of the Kisbye
premiere the dancers seem to be introducing the jump-kick version of the 6-count step. See
Internet Sources in the bibliography for references to the film material.
75
See ‘Jive’, Den Store Danske: Gyldendals åbne encyklopædi, http://www.
denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_og_kultur/Dans/Stilarter_og_danse_fra_ballet_til_hiphop/jive
spaces have been practised throughout the twentieth century within a variety
of genres, including modern theatrical dancing as well as ‘folk dance’. In the
dance school environment, collaboration between the Nordic countries has
been known to exist since the 1930s and from the onset has been closely related
to the concepts of competition, contest and national matches. In Finland,
dance competitions were initiated in 1933 and in Norway a Norwegian dance
championship was arranged in the early 1930s. Denmark is credited in several
sources for having had a special status among the Nordic countries, having been
well trained in the English style by the mid-1930s. In 1933 Denmark initiated
so-called national dance matches [danse landskampe] – events that seem to have
practised Nordic spaces including agents from several Nordic countries. Thus
when ‘Topsy’ Lindblom launched dance sport at Nalen in 1936, he invited two
Danish dancers to meet some of the dancers at Nalen in a national match, at
which Karl Merrild, the chairman of Danse-Ringen prior to Kaj Jensen, was
a referee.76 Ten years later, after the war, when the English dancers John Wells
and Renée Sissons visited Nalen in Stockholm, Lindblom wrote: ‘The fact that
these British world champions accepted our invitation is not because we are
paying them high wages but because of our old relations with the leading dance
instructors of Denmark and Europe, Kaj Jensen and his wife, who under the
circumstances think a trip to Stockholm is pleasurable relaxation’.77
In several cases, agents from more than two of the different Nordic countries
took part in the national dance matches, as such practising an imagined
Nordic space. The best example of this is the ‘three-nation dance match’ in
1946 between Finland, Sweden and Denmark at Konserthuset in Stockholm
arranged by Lindblom – a contest that initially was intended to be a ‘four-
nation match’ including Norway.78 But in the more traditional national matches
between two countries as well, agents from more than one Nordic country took
part. Thus when a national dance match between Norway and Sweden was
held in Samfundshuset in Oslo in 1949, Carl Carlsen from Denmark served
as the referee.79 It is not known whether the national Jitterbug match between
Denmark and Sweden that took place in Copenhagen in 195080 or the national
rock ’n’ roll match between Denmark and Finland that took place in Helsinki in
76
See Katz.
77
Lindblom, quoted in Katz (my translation).
78
See Katz.
79
Ibid.
80
See ‘Jitterbug Landskamp – Danmark/Sverige’ (1950), http://www.dr.dk/
kroeniken/1950erne/ferie_fritid/kultur_oproer.asp (accessed 9 May 2012).
Figure 2.4 Bugg at the Swedish Championships in BRR dances, 4 June 2011.
Photographer: Andreas Åhlin.
195881 included referees from other Nordic countries. Nevertheless the Nordic
championship in rock ’n’ roll held at Jordal Amfi in Oslo in 1959 included
Kisbye from Denmark on the jury as well as the Swedish journalist Kåge Sandell
from Bildjournalen.82
In the context of this chapter it is particularly interesting that Nordic spaces
are frequently practised within a more contemporary organised dance school
environment that focuses on swing dance. On a larger transnational scale, the
World Rock’n’Roll Confederation awards international championships, issues
international guidelines and regularly examines the assessment judges for rock ’n’
See ‘Suomi-Tanska Rock’n’Roll Dance Match Finland vs Denmark 1958’, http://

81
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofjg2HnXb30&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL
493EBE31B5E0FC65
82
Yngvar Holm, Swing it: Tidsbilder fra de glade 50-60 årene (Oslo, 1990). The Nordic
championship in rock ’n’ roll was in fact primarily a music competition, and many of the
contemporary Nordic rockers can be experienced in the Finnish movie Iskelmäkaruselli pyörii
[The Schlager Carousel Spins] from 1960. See ‘Nordic Rock Kings’, http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=hdDwnv9LhZU&feature=g-vrec (accessed 9 May 2012).
roll, boogie-woogie and the Lindy Hop.83 Nevertheless the Nordic championship
in so-called ‘Bugg and rock ’n’ roll dances’ – abbreviated as BRR – provides a
good example of a space in which a Nordic region is practised.84 Bugg is generally
referred to as a Swedish dance, although it is gradually becoming more and more
popular in the other Nordic countries. According to popular media, the Swede
Nils-Hakan Carlzon is considered a key pioneer of the Bugg. Having trained
as a qualified dance teacher in England, he returned to Sweden in 1964 and
started Nerikes Dance Institute, where he experimented with a new form of
swing dance.85 In the category of BRR dances, Svenska Danssportförbundet [The
Swedish Dance Sport Association] includes Bugg, Dubbelbugg, the Lindy Hop,
boogie-woogie and rock ’n’ roll.86
According to popular media, the Bugg is quite popular in Norway. However
in a national context, Folkeswing is considered especially Norwegian, having
been developed in the context of bygdedans and gammaldans.87 Since 1999
Folkeswing has had its own category in Norges Danseforbund [The Norwegian
Dance Association]. Similar to the Swedish BRR dances rock ’n’ roll, the Lindy
Hop and boogie-woogie are swing dances organised by Norges swing og rock’n’roll
forbund [The Norwegian Swing and Rock ’n’ Roll Association] – a subdivision
of Norges Danseforbund.88 Until 2007 Bugg was danced in the same category as
Folkeswing, but in 2008 the two dances were separated.89
Outside the competitive dance sport environment, couple dancing with
dance holds has seen a remarkable revival on the social dance floors since the
late twentieth century.90 Alongside the transnational flows of salsa and the
Argentinean tango, modern Jive and the ‘neo-swing’ movement have moved
83
World Rock ’n’ Roll Confederation, http://www.wrrc.org/?mandant=wrrc.org&
actualMode=Public&mainRessort=69&subRessort=387&homePage=0 (accessed 9 May
2012).
84
Danspalatset: Dans-NM 2011 BRR, http://danspalatset.se (accessed 9 May 2012).
85
See Danspalatset: Dansa Bugg (danssport), http://danspalatset.se (accessed 9 May
2012).
86
Ibid.
87
See ‘Swingdans’, Wikipedia (Norwegian), http://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swingdans
(accessed 9 May 2012). Bygdedans [village dance] is considered the oldest and most distinctive
among the Norwegian folk dances. Gammaldans [old dance] is a small set of Nordic dances
that became broadly popular in the late nineteenth century.
88
Kenneth Jacobsen, Swingdansens historie, http://www.aktivioslo.no/swinghistorie.
php (accessed 9 May 2012).
89
See ‘Swingdans’, Wikipedia.
90
In this context it ought to be underlined that many of the jitterbuggers and rock ’n’
roll dancers of the 1950s have kept dancing ‘their’ dances, and continue to do so, oblivious of
any freestyle or club dancing paradigms – much in the same organisational framework as that
into the Nordic region as ‘new’ versions of swing dancing. A good example of
collaboration across the region in the neo-swing environment is the organisation
HepTown.com, which has established itself as ‘the centre of retro culture and
swing dancing in the Öresund Region’ (Skåne in southern Sweden and Sjælland
in Denmark).91 Curiously, the transnational flow of neo-swing dancing has
brought with it a focus on African American dancing of the 1930s and 1940s,
as the authentic culture that provides the source for what is ‘retro’. In the context
of the neo-swing culture in southern California, it has recently been argued that
‘it is within the American swing era past – known through its representation in
popular culture as a predominantly white phenomenon – that the American
(read white) youth in neo-swing are able to connect to a heritage that implicitly
fosters a sense of identity akin to ethnicity’.92 Thus Eric Usner characterises
neo-swing as ‘a nostalgic practice that can exist only because of the power of
whiteness, and forgetting the fundamental blackness of “American” culture’.93
In the context of the Nordic region it seems that the situation is quite different:
it is through the film snippets of iconic African–American dancers such as
Frankie Manning that the fundamental blackness of swing dancing is repeatedly
remembered in the Nordic neo-swing movement. Notably, as a highly regarded
surviving member of the American swing era, Manning taught dance classes at
the annual Herräng Swing Dance Camp in Sweden every year from 1989 to
2007.94 As such Nordic neo-swing dancers seem remarkably uninterested in the
blond swingpjat dancers of the Nordic 1940s but instead focus their attention in
the direction of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers.95
of the Gammaldans associations. See for instance Dansettens Venner, http://www.youtube.

com/watch?v=f TOK0kzovVg (accessed 9 May 2012).
91
‘Hep Town – Retro Culture & Swing Dancing in the Öresund Region’, http://www.
heptown.com/clubhepcat/index.php (accessed 9 May 2012).
92
Eric M. Usner, ‘Dancing in the Past, Living in the Present: Nostalgia and Race in
Southern California Neo-swing Dance Cult’, Dance Research Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, Winter
(2001), pp. 89–90.
93
Ibid.
94
‘Herräng Dance Camp’, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Herr%C3%A4ng_Dance_Camp (accessed 9 May 2012).
95
See ‘Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers – history’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnEC
H77wL5c&feature=endscreen&NR=1 (accessed 9 May 2012).
Conclusion
In what ways did rock ’n’ roll and other forms of swing dance contribute – and
still contribute – to the production of Nordic dance spaces? Departing from
a broader notion of rock ’n’ roll dancing as a practice that changed the public
space, and highlighting it as a domain in which social values were asserted and
contested, this chapter has pinpointed Andersson’s comparative analysis of rock
’n’ roll riots in Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen as a specific Nordic dance
space. The chapter also showed how an imagined Nordic region emerged in the
notion of a Nordic profile of ‘quiet, stylish and modest traits’ in the context of
the moral panic communicated and/or induced by the press. On a more local
level, the chapter has identified a number of national rock ’n’ roll agents and, in
the Danish example, the controversy between Kisbye and Jensen revealed how
a case of moral panic could be seen as a continuation of a negotiation of swing
dancing that had been going on since the 1930s. Finally the chapter has shown
how swing dancing has practised, and continues to practise, a Nordic region.
Prior to 1960 the mobility and cooperation of dance teachers in the ballroom
dance and dance sport environment contributed to the production of Norden
and since then a Nordic region has been practised in spaces ranging from Nordic
Championships in Bugg and Folkeswing to the Hep Town connection in relation
to the neo-swing movement.
As a general characteristic, contemporary rock ’n’ roll and swing dancing
in the Nordic region could be seen as a ‘historically new’ form of dancing, in
its simultaneous reference to something old (the past of the 1930s, 1940s and
1950s) and something new (both in reference to the moral panic it caused in
the past, but also in its ‘neo’ revival culture). Moreover it implicitly points to
the US as the place that seems to own its authenticity – black or white. Last but
not least, swing dancing carries with it a notion of rebellion. In the case of 1950s
rock ’n’ roll, the dancing is connected to more or less violent riots and juvenile
delinquency with the emergence of teenage culture and the later rocker/biker
movements. In the case of the 1940s swingpjat culture, the dancing is connected
to the more or less violent activities of the anti-Nazi resistance movement. In
the case of the neo-swing movement of the late twentieth century, the broad
historical consciousness of the African American civil rights movement seems
inherent in the Nordic neo-swing.
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Gronow, Pekka, ‘Popular Music in Finland: A Preliminary Survey’, in
Ethnomusicology, vol. 17, no. 1 ( January) (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press, 1973), pp. 52–71.
Hertel, Hans, ‘Kulturens kolde krig: polarisering, antikommunisme og
antiamerikanisme i dansk kulturliv 1946–60’, in Kritik, vol. 35 (August
2002).
Holm, Yngvar, Swing it: Tidsbilder fra de glade 50–60 årene (Oslo: Ypsilon
Forlag, 1990).
Inglis, Ian (ed.), Popular Music and Film (London: Wallflower Press, 2003).
Jacobsen, Niels W., Mose, Jens Allan and Nielsen, Egon, Dansk Rock ’n’ Roll:
Anderumper, ekstase og opposition. En analyse af dansk rockkultur 1956–63
(Tappernøje: Mjølner, 1980).
Karja, Antti-Ville, ‘Ridiculous Infantile Acrobatics, or Why They Never Made
Any Rock’n’roll Movies in Finland’, in Ian Inglis (ed.), Popular Music and
Film (London: Wallflower Press, 2003).
Løland, Lene, Unge rebeller i rock’n’roll-rus: En studie av norske avisers omtale av
rock og ungdomskultur 1955–1960 (Bergen: University of Bergen, Master’s
Thesis, 2007).
Skårberg, Odd, Da Elvis kom til Norge: Stilbevegelser, verdier og historiekonstruksjon
i rocken fra 1955 til 1960 (Oslo: University of Oslo, PhD dissertation, 2003).
Urup, Henning, Dans i Danmark: Danseformerne ca. 1600 til 1950
(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2007).
Urup, Henning, ‘Danselærerne of selskabsdansen i Danmark’, in Bjarne Ibsen
and Jytte Kristensen (eds), Sportsdans: I takt og utakt (Copenhagen: DHL/
Systime, 1994).
Usner, Eric M., ‘Dancing in the Past, Living in the Present: Nostalgia and Race
in Southern California Neo-swing Dance Cult’, Dance Research Journal, vol.
33, no. 2, Winter (2001), pp. 87–101.
Vedel, Karen, En anden dans: Moderne scenisk dans i Danmark 1900–1975
(Copenhagen: Multivers, 2007).
Wall, Tim, ‘Rocking Around the Clock’, in Julie Malnig (ed.), Ballroom, Boogie,
Shimmy, Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader (Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press, 2009).
Internet Sources
All accessed 9 May 2012.
‘50-årsmarkering’ av Norsk Rock/Rocke-Oslo 1958–1959 [private

website announcing a 2008 photo exhibition in Oslo celebrating the
fiftieth anniversary of Norwegian rock], http://www.rockmag.info/
femtijubileum08.html
‘Anderumper og Parkdans’ (1961) [homepage of Danish National Television],
http://www.dr.dk/kroeniken/1950erne/ferie_fritid/kultur_oproer.asp
‘Bill Haley villitsi Erottajalla 1956’ [Yle, Finland’s national public service
broadcasting company], http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/bill_haley_
villitsi_erottajalla_1956_15029.html#media=15034
‘Dansettens Venner’ [YouTube, film clips of Danish Jitterbug dancers], http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f TOK0kzovVg
Danspalatset [Swedish website related to the Dance Camp in Kärrasand], Dansa
Bugg (danssport)
Dans-NM 2011 BRR online http://danspalatset.se
‘Det var på Rundetårn, 1955 ( Jitterbug konkurrencen)’ [YouTube, clip from
the Danish movie Det var på Rundetårn, a comedy directed by Poul Bang],
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mms00n2KmUA
‘Groovie Movie’ [YouTube, a short film about Jitterbug from 1944 by Metro
Goldwyn Mayer], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iYVppEdyNY
‘“Gummi”’ Jørn og Inge-Birthe Pedersen VM 1957’ [YouTube, Danish rock ’n’
roll dancers at the world championship], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=KTywNRfNTZ0&feature=relmfu
Hep Town – Retro Culture & Swing Dancing in the Öresund Region, http://
www.heptown.com/clubhepcat/index.php
‘Herräng Dance Camp’ [Wikipedia], http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Herr%C3%A4ng_Dance_Camp
Jacobsen, Kenneth, Swingdansens historie: En dans med spreke variasjoner og
sprelske tradisjoner [Active in Oslo, a website of cultural events in the Oslo
area], http://www.aktivioslo.no/swinghistorie.php
‘Jitterbug Landskamp – Danmark/Sverige’ (1950) [homepage of Danish
National Television], http://www.dr.dk/kroeniken/1950erne/ferie_fritid/
kultur_oproer.asp
‘Jive’, Den Store Danske. Gyldendals åbne encyklopædi [Danish publisher
Gyldendal’s online encyclopedia], http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_
og_kultur/Dans/Stilarter_og_danse_fra_ballet_til_hiphop/jive
Katz, Kerstin, Sportsdansen i Sverige [Swedish Solna Dance Sport Club], http://
www.ssdk.nu/danshistoria.html
‘Nordic Rock Kings’ (1960) [YouTube, clip from the Finnish film Iskelmäkaruselli
pyörii (The Schlager Carousel Spins) from 1960], http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=hdDwnv9LhZU&feature=g-vrec
‘Rock’n’roll premiere’ (1956) [homepage of Danish National Television],
‘Rock’n’roll stævne i Lorry’ (1956) [homepage of Danish National Television],
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Jordal%2058%20og%2059%20historien.htm
Schepelern, Peter, Danish Film History 1896–2009 [Danish Film Institute],
http://www.dfi.dk/Service/English/Films-and-industry/Danish-Film-
History.aspx
‘Suomi–Tanska Rock’n’Roll Dance Match Finland vs Denmark 1958’ [YouTube,
Danish and Finnish rock ’n’ roll dancers], http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=ofjg2HnXb30&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL493EBE3
1B5E0FC65
‘Swingdans’ [Wikipedia (Norwegian)], http://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Swingdans
Swingpjatter danser i Tivoli [EMU, portal for the educational world in
Denmark initiated by the Ministry of Children and Education], http://
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‘Swingpjatte’, Den Store Danske. Gyldendals åbne encyklopædi [Danish publisher
Gyldendal’s online encyclopedia], http://www.denstoredanske.dk/
Samfund,_jura_og_politik/Etnologi/Persontyper_og_historiske_erhverv/
swingpjatte
‘Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers – history’ [YouTube, film clips of the dancers in Hot
Chocolates (1941) and A Day at the Races (1937)], http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=xnECH77wL5c&feature=endscreen&NR=1
World Rock’n’Roll Confederation [homepage of the World Rock’n’Roll
Confederation], http://www.wrrc.org/?mandant=wrrc.org&actualMode=
Public&mainRessort=69&subRessort=387&homePage=0
Chapter 3
Strategic Mobility and Wayfinding Artists:
Performing the Region
Karen Vedel
Histories of theatre dance abound with artists whose border crossings have been
voluntary, a consequence of political conflicts, for reasons of discrimination or
inadequate work options. Faced with an oversupply of trained professionals,
increasingly temporalised jobs and other uncertainties characteristic of the
present socio-economic condition, today’s dance practitioners are also on the
move, navigating a liquid modernity that fixes neither space nor time and is
further characterised by the need for flexibility and adaptability.1
In focusing on dance artists’ mobility, I shall address the aspect of this
volume’s thesis that pursues the motion of dance and dancing between different
locational, organisational and artistic spheres. I propose that dance artists’
transnational mobility constitutes a spatial practice in the Lefebvrian sense by
providing specific spatial competences and a special way of deciphering space.2
Coming from a perspective in the cultural policies and collaborative structures
of the Nordic countries, the focus will centre on the manner in which dance
artists’ mobility has contributed and continues to contribute to the ongoing
production of the Nordic region and – not least by extending well beyond –
also contests it.
Defined as ‘temporary, cross-border transfer of cultural workers and their
products’,3 mobility has been at the heart of cultural policies and community
development programmes of the European Economic Community since
around the turn of the millennium. The financial support for artists’ mobility
in the EU tends to be linked to a discourse on cultural cohesion, intercultural
dialogue and diversity – and be motivated by the added value of enhanced
1
Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge, 2000), p. 161.
2
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford, 1991), p. 38.
3
Tony Addison, ‘The International Mobility of Cultural Talent’, in Andrés Solimano
(ed.), The International Mobility of Talent: Types, Causes and Development Impact (Oxford,
2008), p. 255.
intercultural competences.4 A countless number of reports on the mobility

of artists and cultural professionals5 supports the observation made by the
Portuguese sociologist Cristina Farinha, that the arts sector is valorised with
terms such as flexibility, adaptability, innovation and collaboration. Echoing
the language of Bauman’s notion of liquidity, she contends that the mobility of
artists and cultural workers has become a laboratory for labour market experts to
study and develop guidelines for general changes in other professions and lines
of employment.6
The investigations structuring my discussions combine complementary
perspectives and different sets of data. Relying on policy papers, a brief historical
overview is first provided situating mobility programmes of relevance to dance
practitioners in the development of the larger framework of formal collaborative
structures between the Nordic countries. The discussion next shifts to the
practitioners’ perspective, identifying different modes of mobility from artistic
vagrancy or wayfinding at one end of the continuum, through reciprocal
partnerships to the touring of dance productions at the other. This tentative
typology is based on a pilot survey with supplementary interviews examining the
transnational activities of dance practitioners in five Nordic countries.7 Lastly,
taking as a starting point the potential conflict between strategic mobility in
cultural political terms and mobility that is artist driven, the third and localised
perspective rests on a case study of a region partly overlapping the geographical
delimitations of Norden. Stretching from the Norwegian Sea in the west to the
Ural Mountains in Russia in the east, the Barents Euro-Arctic region (henceforth
the Barents region) is alternately known by the more diffusely defined terms
Ibid.
4
See for example Sarah Gardner, ‘Dialogue or Diplomacy? Public Policy and
5
International Artist Mobility Programmes’, in Biserka Cvjeticanin (ed.), Dynamics of

Communication: New Ways and New Actors (Zagreb, 2006), pp. 137–145; Ericarts,
Mobility Matters: Programmes and Schemes to Support the Mobility of Artists and Cultural
Professionals. Final Report (Bonn, 2008); Cristina Farinha, ‘Why Artists Need (Networks) to
Go European? Artists in between Individuality and the Community’, in European Festivals
Association, Give, Get or Get Off !: Challenges of Cultural Networking Today (Gent, 2008), pp.
88–93; and Joris Janssens and Bart Magnus, Travelogue: Mapping Performing Arts Mobility
in Europe (Brussels, 2011).
6
Cristina Farinha, ‘Performing in Europe. Conditions for Artists in the Scope of
Mobility: A Picture from the Baltic and Nordic Angle’. Lecture notes from Mobility and
Touring within Contemporary Dance, Kedja Encounter, Vilnius, 2008.
7
The data from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden were collected in
2009 and discussed in a paper in the Choreography and Corporeality Working Group of
FIRT/IFTR at the Lisbon conference, ‘Silent Voices – Forbidden Lives: Censorship and
Performance’, 14–17 July 2009.
Strategic Mobility and Wayfinding Artists 51
the European High North (or simply the High North) and Nordkalotten [The
North Calotte], the latter in reference to the north of Norway, Sweden and
Finland only. The case study on the emerging region named for its proximity to
the Barents Sea suggests that the scope and extent of dance artists’ and cultural
workers’ mobility has been enhanced in recent years through the co-presence
of global players with political and economic interests in its natural resources.
Probing the interplay between artistic and geopolitical factors, the case study
discusses their significance in the production of regional dance spaces.
In its focus on north–north relations, the localised perspective breaks
with customarily posed binaries such as East–West, North–South, and the
concomitantly perpetuated idea in the Nordic countries that less is happening in
the periphery of the High North, as a result of which creative and free-thinking
artists supposedly all move south to be closer to the capitals and the European
continent. In recent years the tendency has been somewhat reversed. Following
the effects of climate change8 and the financial prospects of oil and gas finds in the
Arctic Sea, the Barents region has become increasingly ‘hot’, attracting political
and economic attention on the one hand, while on the other raising concerns
about security, sustainable development, the rights of indigenous peoples and
the vulnerability of the natural environment. By looking to a region that is very
much ‘under construction’ alongside the Nordic region, the case study provides
an opportunity to consider the impact of dance practitioners’ mobility on the
processes through which these regions are shaped and reshaped.
Added Nordic Value: The Cultural Political Perspective
In a discussion of the paradigm associated with Bauman’s concept of liquidity,

sociologists Mimi Sheller and John Urry note that all mobilities entail specific,
often highly embedded and relatively immobile infrastructures.9 In the
context of the Nordic countries, what is today known as the Nordic Council
of Ministers (henceforth the NCM) provides the all-important infrastructure
for both funding and strategising around the mobility of artists and cultural
8
The effects of climate change are seen in the opening of the Northeast Passage or
Northern Sea Route, the shipping route running along the Russian Arctic coast connecting
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Due to climate change and the retreating pack ice in the
Arctic waters, it is increasingly seen as an alternative transport route. See Rune Gjertin
Rafaelsen, ‘The Barents Cooperation and the Delimitation Line’, in Atle Staalesen (ed.),
Barents Borders: Delimitation and Internationalization (Kirkenes, 2012), pp. 25–31.
9
Mimi Sheller and John Urry, ‘The New Mobilities Paradigm’, Environment and
Planning, vol. 38 (2006): pp. 207–226.
workers. While it is not exactly cast in stone, the NCM has proved to be quite a
sustainable structure, celebrating its sixtieth birthday in 2012. In the following,
a brief outline of the intermittent years gives an idea of the critical role played by
artists’ mobility and exchange programmes in the history of the Nordic region
since the end of World War II.
Initiatives aimed at enhancing inter-Nordic mobility and educational
collaborations in the arts were an immediate priority when the first steps of
revitalising the Nordic collaboration were taken in 1947. Underlying the support
for touring music, theatre and various forms of dance was the intention to build
an understanding of the history, culture and languages of the neighbouring
nations. Notions of ‘Nordic relevance’ and ‘added Nordic value’ have been more
or less explicit in the criteria for supporting intra-Nordic mobility from the joint
Nordic structures since these early days.
In 1952, when the Nordic Council was formed as an inter-parliamentary
platform,10 mobility was made a key principle in terms of arts and culture. The
soon-to-follow Passport Union made not only the artists’ but also the general
public’s border crossings easier within the region. In 1966, cultural activities were
granted a separate budget,11 and with the establishment of the NCM in 1971,
an actual Agreement on Cultural Collaboration was signed.12 Inwardly it aimed
to build bonds among the countries in order to develop and intensify a sense of
affinity in the Nordic cultural community. Outwardly it aimed to build a base
for coordinated activity in international terms.13 With separate funding set aside
for travel grants, the support for individual artists’ intra-Nordic mobility was
thus in place by the mid-1970s.
Over the next three decades, artists’ committees counting representatives
from each of the Nordic countries reviewed the applications for tours, mobility,
joint workshops etc. Within this structure dance was considered a part of the
10
The Nordic Council was established at a consultative inter-parliamentary level
following a proposal by the Danish Prime Minister Hans Hedtoft in 1951 and agreed by the
governments of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Finland joined in 1955.
11
The Nordic Cultural Foundation has maintained a semi-independent status within
the NCM with a separate board and advisory committees of artists. The board of the Nordic
Cultural Foundation comprises one member from each of the five Nordic countries and, as
of 2003, from the three autonomous areas as well.
12
For the latest version of the agreement, see Nordic Council of Ministers, Aftale
mellem Danmark, Finland, Island, Norge og Sverige om kulturelt samarbejde [Agreement
between Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden on Cultural Cooperation], http://
www.norden.org/da/om-samarbejdet/aftaler/aftaler/kultur/aftale-om-kulturelt-samarbejde
(accessed 2 November 2010).
13
Claes Lennartsson and Jan Nolin, Nordiska kulturfonden: En utvärdering och
omvärldsanalys (Copenhagen, 2008), p. 6.
theatre committee apart from a short span of three years in the late 1980s.14
When the committees were abolished in 2002, the new structural unit in the
performing arts adopted a more proactive role as producer of interdisciplinary
projects, symposia and various other forums for performing artists.15 Reflecting a
more general reorientation of the Nordic collaboration after the fall of the Soviet
regime and the increasing relevance of the European Economic Community,
these initiatives were typically contextualised in an extra-Nordic frame with
partners invited from outside the region. Still, mobility survived as a priority
alongside the curated activities, as seen for instance in the Sleipnir programme.
Named after the eight-legged horse in Norse mythology, the programme aimed
to increase Nordic mobility among artists aged 35 and under.16 The explicit focus
on the young artists suggests that their involvement in intra-Nordic mobility
needed extra encouragement.
In the reorientation of the NCM’s priorities in the 1990s, the Baltic States,
emerging from behind the Iron Curtain, constituted an area of particular
interest.17 As regards the north-western parts of Russia bordering on Finland
and Norway, the NCM hesitated longer before showing initiative. It was
not before the Barents Region had gained political momentum of its own,
that collaborations were instigated with the Barents Euro-Arctic Council
(henceforth the Barents Council) on projects relating to indigenous peoples, the
environment, climate change, economic development and entrepreneurship.18
The most recent structural reform of the Nordic cultural collaboration in
2007 was preceded by a report underlining the ‘decreasing interest in Nordic
collaborations among artists – in favour of wider transnational initiatives’.19
Pointing to a possible conflict of interest between strategic and artistic incentives
14
See Karen Vedel, ‘Strategically Nordic: Articulating the Internal Logic of the
Field’, in Karen Vedel (ed.), Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles
(Trondheim, 2011), pp. 105–132.
15
The name of the Theatre Committee was changed in 1990 to Theatre and Dance in
the North [Teater og Dans i Norden] and in 2002 to Nordscen. See Terkel Skårup, Nordscen:
Creating New Space (Copenhagen, 2006), p. 20.
16
Riitta Heinämaa, ‘De fyra modulernas modell. Ett nytt nordisk mobilitets- och
residense program’, TemaNord, 2006:516, at http://applications.kknord.org/files/files/
DeFyraModulernasModell.pdf (accessed 7 August 2013), pp. 43–44.
17
Ibid., p. 57.
18
On the NCM’s engagement in the Barents region, see Samarbejde i Barentsregionen,
http://www.norden.org/da/nordisk-ministerraad/samarbejdsministrene-mr-sam/rusland/
samarbejde-i-barentsregionen/ (accessed 6 February 2012).
19
Illka Heiskanen and Ritva Mitchell, Renovation of the Nordic Mobility and Artists-
in-Residence Programme in 2005–2007, http://www.mobility-matters.eu/web/mobility-
trends.php (accessed 1 July 2009), p. 3.
for mobility, the report called for a support system that would ‘provide better
coordination of the council’s activities and favour comprehensive policy
considerations over the interests and professional needs of individual artists’.20
Among numerous changes resulting from the reform, three are especially
illustrative of the priorities that came to govern the considerably more centralised
policies after 2007. Prior to the reform, successful applications required the
involvement of a minimum of three Nordic nations or autonomous areas. After
the reform, the number was reduced to a minimum of two, while cooperation
outside the Nordic countries was encouraged. Moreover, funding for residencies
and mobility was extended to include the Baltic nations and in some cases
Belarus. Last but not least, a new joint mobility and artists-in-residence
programme was launched in an attempt to revitalise the cultural programmes of
the NCM while taking into account the changing working conditions for artists
in the increasingly multi-sited age of globalisation.21 ‘Nordic relevance’ remained
a key criterion together with the implicit notion of ‘added Nordic value’. In the
context of the mobility programme, individual project applications were to be
assessed on their ability to promote Nordic co-operation and increase contacts
between the Nordic countries; to improve understanding of the similarities and
differences between the Nordic countries and the autonomous territories; to
strengthen the Nordic dimension in the cultural life of the countries and the
autonomous territories; and, last but not least, to improve knowledge of the
Nordic artists and their work as well as revealing ‘other Nordic identities’.22
While the first three items are almost identical to previously stipulated criteria,
the last is an attempt to embrace the increasingly diverse populations of the
Nordic countries.
The various revisions of the NCM’s cultural programmes show how the
cultural spaces in the official Nordic context underwent a repositioning from
the realm of the nation-state relative to the region, to the realm of the region
relative to the distributed Nordic, the near European and ultimately more global
sphere. These shifts not only point to the precarious and processual nature of
the geographical imaginary, but they also highlight the recognition of artists’
and cultural workers’ mobility as integrative to larger global flows in terms of
political and economic interests.23 Moreover, it is noteworthy that support
for artists’ mobility has remained a priority through the various reforms and
reorientations of the official Nordic collaboration.
Ibid., p. 1.
20
Ibid., p. 5.
21
22
Ibid., p. 14.
23
The Dance Practitioners’ Perspective
With or without economic support from the official structures, the mobility
and collaborative activities of dance practitioners have generated Nordic dance
spaces and as such contributed to the social and cultural production of the
Nordic region. Moving from the cultural political to the dance practitioners’
perspective, the discussion moves now to a survey of the mobility of twelve
independent choreographers residing in five Nordic countries.24 The data,
sourced from a close reading of expanded CVs, have been found on the artists’
own web pages, provided directly by the choreographers or downloaded from
the national Dance Information Centres’ websites. In several instances the
information has been further explored in telephone interviews. It goes without
saying that a study of this limited size does not carry significance in statistical
terms. It serves merely as a background template on which to tentatively
differentiate among modes of dance artists’ mobility.
Having said this, the first thing that springs to mind is a structural condition
relating to education in that only three of the choreographers received their
professional training exclusively in their country of birth. Six pursued at least
some of their studies in New York, two in Amsterdam, one in Dresden and one
in Paris. Three completed their education in a Nordic country not their own. In
terms of the place they currently call home, three have made a more permanent
move from one country in Norden to another, while two have immigrated to a
Nordic country from outside the region.
The material also points to the need to distinguish between several types
of mobility, each of which constructs the region in a slightly different manner.
Three distinct practices relating to the choreographers’ work-related and border-
crossing travels emerge: wayfinding, reciprocal partnerships and touring of own
performances. The types will be discussed in a progression that moves from the
more ‘liquid’ to the more ‘solid’.
Wayfinding is a term coined by the British anthropologist Tim Ingold based
on his study among indigenous peoples, most notably the Sámi, to discuss the
travels of people who make up their paths as they go rather than navigate along
preset routes from A to B. He writes:
24
The twelve choreographers have been chosen from a larger selection on the basis of
the level of detail in their CVs. They are: Sara Gebran, Lene Boel (Denmark); Reijo Kela,
Favela Vera Ortiz, Tero Saarinen (Finland); Katrin Hall, Peter Anderson (Iceland); Emma
Nordanfors, Virpi Pahkinen, Örjan Andersson (Sweden); and Ingun Bjørnsgaard, Øyvind
Jørgensen (Norway). They appear in the text with their initials only.
In wayfinding people do not traverse the surface of a world whose layout is fixed
in advance – as represented on the cartographic map. Rather they feel their way
through a world that is itself in motion.25
Akin to cross-border vagrancy, wayfinding is used here to characterise the

mobility of choreographers who have changed their country of residence thrice
or more in their professional lives. As it is used here, the term may be understood
in conjunction with Rosi Braidotti’s discussion of nomadism, in which she
effectively delinks the notions of ethnic origin, nationality and citizenship in
order to reconfigure the same ‘belongings’ in different combinations.26
Looking at the Nordic material from a point of view in Braidotti’s charting
of new, non-unitary models of subjectivity adds three-dimensionality to the
discussion of wayfinding choreographers. Among these we find a British-born
dancer and choreographer (PA), male, who has lived and worked between one
and three years in France, Germany and Belgium respectively before moving
to Iceland, where he was working as a freelance choreographer at the time of
the interview. Similarly arriving from outside the region is SG, female, born in
Venezuela, who trained as a dancer in New York before moving to Denmark in
the 1980s, where she still has a base. In terms of her professional activities, over
the past ten years they have been distributed between Copenhagen, Stockholm,
Ramallah on the West Bank and residencies in various European countries.
Transformed and shaped through relations with others, Braidotti’s nomadic
subject is always in the process of becoming. Subjectivity, moreover, is envisioned
as corporeal, and situated. Viewed in these terms, the named wayfinding
choreographers of this chapter may be seen to transgress the categories of mobile/
immobile and resident/foreigner regardless of where they are at a given time.27
Corporeally and imaginatively they are shaped and reshaped through the dance
training and choreographic encounters with professionals in various parts of the
world. Prepared to move again for either personal reasons or more challenging
professional opportunities, they seem to settle only temporarily. When viewed
in more general terms of gender and lifespan, however, this observation glosses
Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and
25
Skill (London and New York, 2000), p. 155. It should be noted that Ingold in later works
uses the term ‘wayfaring’ in a similar manner to ‘wayfinding’: see for instance Tim Ingold,
Lines: A Brief History (London and New York, 2007), pp. 72–103.
26
On Nomadism: Interview with Rosi Braidotti, http://www.euroalter.com/2010/on-
nomadism-interview-with-rosi-braidotti/ (accessed 6 January 2013).
27
Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary
Feminist Theory, 2nd edition (New York, 2011), p. 7.
over important differences, since parenthood and especially motherhood tends

to settle artists during child rearing.
Shifting the focus from nomadic subjects in their processes of becoming to
the spatial dimension, the journeys of wayfinding artists may be perceived as
contributing to what Ingold discusses as an ever-evolving weave of the land’.28
With Mazzullo, his discussion of everyday practices associated with reindeer
husbandry and how they produce space suggests that individually and collectively
defined region(s) are created through the continuously unfolding meshworks
of the journeys made.29 The combined temporal and spatial dimensions in
the analysis is productive as well when looking at the implications of dance
practitioners’ mobility.
Reciprocal partnerships is the term suggested here for a kind of mobility
that engages the choreographers in bilateral, cross-border partnerships, co-
productions and choreographic residencies.30 Several choreographers in the
survey have long professional histories of reciprocal partnerships involving co-
choreographing, engaging in each other’s works and exchanging performances.
The sustained duration characteristic of the long-distance partnerships testifies
to Lefebvre’s observation that the ‘mastering and appropriation’ of space is a slow
process.31 Reciprocal partnerships generate flows of information and funding,
performances, artistic inspiration, dance knowledge and gestures extending
well beyond the Nordic region. In terms of space, they make up idiosyncratic
and temporary regions that wax when they are active and wane when they are
not. An important development in this type of mobility is that it is less and less
determined by proximity in physical space alone. As noted by Jonas Larsen and
John Urry among others, new technologies for social networking and internet-
based communication have allowed for ‘complex combinations of face-to-face
and face-to-interface interaction, at-near and at-a-distance’.32
28
Ingold, The Perception of the Environment, pp. 219–242
29
Nuccio Mazzullo and Tim Ingold, ‘Being Along: Place, Time and Movement among
Sámi People’, in Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt and Brynild Granås (eds), Mobility and Place:
Enacting Northern European Peripheries (Burlington, VT, 2008), pp. 27–39.
30
Hanneloes Weeda, Report of the European Cultural Foundation–Fonds Roberto
Cimetta. Mobility Meeting held 28th September 2006, ECF Amsterdam, http://www.
eurocult.org/uploads/docs/421.pdf (accessed 28 October 2009), p. 7.
31
Lefebvre, p. 38.
32
Jonas Larsen and John Urry, ‘Networking in Mobile Societies’, in Bærenholdt and
Granås (eds), pp. 89–103. See also Judith Staines with Ghislaine Boddington, Excited
Atoms: An Exploration of Virtual Mobility in Contemporary Performing Arts. On the Move:
An OTM Cultural Mobility Information Dossier (2010), www.on‐the‐move.org (accessed 10
March 2011).
Finally, there is the most frequent form of choreographers’ international

mobility – the touring of own performances. While guest performances in one
or several of the neighbouring Nordic countries are listed by all choreographers
involved in the survey, the ground covered on international tours is much wider,
ranging from a broad swath of Europe to performances played in North and
South America, the Middle East, Australia, South East Asia and Africa. This
said, the CV lists of international tours show a strong bias towards the Western
hemisphere with only two of the involved choreographers having had their
work performed on the African continent and in Asia. One is Finnish born,
VP, now residing in Sweden and the choreographer in the material whose work
has been toured most widely. Of more than 100 tours outside Sweden in the
previous ten years, only sixteen took place in the Nordic countries. Once again
a structural condition co-determines the scope of her spatial practice since VP
always performs solo and therefore travels more lightly than those touring a cast,
for example, of three, six or twelve dancers plus technical staff and a set.
Tours of own productions not only involve the navigation of maps and
transport from A to B to C, but they also leave behind a network of lines
connecting nodes on a map. In this sense the region produced through
tours is seen as qualitatively different from the one constituted through the
meshworks of wayfinding, where the path of the artist is made up en route. It is
likewise different from the region produced in reciprocal partnerships as well,
characterised as they are by interpersonal and artistic investments over time.
In addition to the support structures within the political dimension of
the Nordic region already mentioned, dance artists’ mobility is economically
sustained by national, bilateral and multilateral support. Enhancing cross-
border movement, the various funding bodies stimulate a flow between and
travel to areas where artists would not necessarily go if there were no funding.
While a few of the choreographers in the survey ‘do not do forms’, as one put
it with reference to the administrative work involved, most have considerable
entrepreneurship skills required for writing applications, be it for international
residencies, touring performances, or travel and mobility grants.
In the distinction between different types of dance practitioners’ mobility,
it has been suggested that each produces regional spaces in a slightly different
manner. The types identified here do not exclude one another. In fact, all the
choreographers involved operate in a combination of several types of mobility as
they engage in a professional field that is at the same time national, regional and
global. It should also be noted that choreographers constitute but one ‘category’
of dance practitioners, whose conditions often require a large degree of flexibility
and adaptability. If the survey were extended to include larger material, for
instance, of more established dance companies, dancers, dance pedagogues and
producers, it is hypothesised that other types of mobility would be revealed and

that the different professional categories would be distributed differently across
the typology.
Case Study of the Barents Region
Localising the discussion of dance practitioners’ mobility and the production of

regional dance spaces, the focus now turns to the High North or Barents region,
in geographical terms overlapping with the north of the Nordic countries but
also extending into Russia. Still young in political terms, the Barents region has
been in the making since 1993, when the Kirkenes Declaration was signed by
Norway, Sweden, Russia, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, the European Commission
and the Nordic Sámi Council.33 Marking a new era of international relations in
Northern Europe and conceived as a parallel to ongoing endeavours around the
Baltic Sea, the Kirkenes Declaration aimed to contribute to stability and progress
in all sectors in the region.34 Cultural relations (implicitly including arts) and
person-to-person contacts were once again mentioned as the ‘soft’ component
accompanying the political focus on business, climate change, security and
natural resources. The intergovernmental cooperation, since its outset overseen
by the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, operates at the ministerial level in a similar
manner to the NCM, with the chairmanship rotating between the involved
countries for two years at a time. Policy work is delegated to working groups,
among these the Joint Working Group on Culture and the Working Group for
Indigenous Peoples in the Barents Region.
As noted in the Action Plan for the Working Group for Indigenous Peoples,
the area stretching across the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia,
also known as Sápmi, was perceived for countless generations as one land ‘with
ancient traditions for habitation and traditions for usage of the areas’ resources
in a trade context from the times before the national states were established’.35
33
The Kirkenes Declaration from the Conference of Foreign Ministers on Co-
operation in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region, http://www.unep.org/dewa/giwa/areas/
kirkenes.htm (accessed 10 November 2011).
34
Rafaelsen, p. 28.
35
Working Group for Indigenous Peoples in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region (WGIP),
Action Plan for Indigenous Peoples in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region 1913–1916, http://
www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tab=mw#bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=bf817561d3e5
4975&hl=en&q=action+plan+for+indigenous+peoples+in+the+barents (accessed 22
February 2012).
Figure 3.1 Map of Barents Region. © Lantmäteriet – the Swedish Mapping,

Cadastre and Land Registration Authority.
Relying heavily on reindeer husbandry, the Sámi communities36 were seriously

affected when the Iron Curtain was drawn and families were forced to decide
on which side of the border to live.37 Based on a unified understanding of the
area and intimately tied to a nomadic lifestyle, the narrative of ‘a region of free
36
It should be noted that the Sámi population is made up of several subgroups, each
with its own language and varied livelihoods.
37
The Sámi Information Centre, ‘Forcible Displacements’, http://www.eng.samer.se/
GetDoc?meta_id=1281 (accessed 20 March 2012).
mobility’ runs deep in the veins of the indigenous population, according to

Norwegian historian Einar Niemi.38
Another important narrative, at least in the Norwegian High North, is
that of ‘a region of warm reciprocal partnerships across the Russian border’.
Historically rooted in the nineteenth century, this narrative relates to the
Pomor trade routes. Literally meaning Peoples from the Sea, the Russian term
‘Pomor’ refers to the people living around Kvik Lake in north-western Russia. In
the late seventeenth century Pomor traders travelled to Norway with goods to
be exchanged for fish, and the trade developed with increasingly diverse goods
from the coastal towns of Norway. To those living in the Norwegian High
North, who were subject to the trading monopolies imposed by governments in
the south for centuries, the Pomor trade provided a much-needed, albeit illegal,
supply of goods and services.39 After having been legalised in 1903, the ‘Russian
trade’ [russehandelen] waned in the early twentieth century. As a result of the
long history of bartering and the fact that there was never open war between
the Soviet Union and Norway even though relations were tense during the Cold
War, bilateral relations have remained friendly in the Norwegian High North.
Some shared vocabulary since the Pomor days has even survived in local dialects.
According to Niemi, the surfacing nostalgia for the days of the Pomor trade
after 1990 suggests that the Soviet era was a mere parenthesis in an otherwise
prosperous relationship between the Norwegian High North and Russia.40
As John Allen et al. remind us, not only do narratives play an important
role in the imagining of regions, but the same geographical region may also be
constituted differently in different narratives.41 In addition to the narrative of
the Barents region as a region of free mobility among the Sámi and a region of
friendship across borders sustained through Norwegian nostalgia for the Pomor
days, a certain re-enchantment has been taking place since the early 2000s. In
a discussion of the role of spiritual symbols and discourse in constructing a
region, Norwegian sociologist Willy Guneriussen notes that the High North
is undergoing a transformation from a negatively labelled ‘backward, poor,
weakly-developed and mostly pre-modern periphery’ to a ‘new, vital, and
“dynamic” area’ associated with notions such as ‘Arctic Wilderness’, ‘magic’ and
38
Author’s notes from Prof. Einar Niemi’s lecture on the Pomor trade at the
Resurrection Museum in Hammerfest, 10 November 2011.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
41
John Allen, Doreen B. Massey and Allan Cochrane, Rethinking the Region: Spaces of
Neo-liberalism (London and New York, 1998), pp. 13–15, 99.
‘mystical landscapes’.42 The global branding of Finnish and Swedish Lapland

as the home of Father Christmas are blatant commercial examples of this
development. Exploiting spiritual dimensions of the Sámi heritage as well as the
beauty of nature, the overlapping narratives form a template for representations
of the Barents region in arts and culture. Bridging from identity building and
art to tourism and creative industries, the narratives are furthermore linked to a
promise of progress and growth that goes hand in hand with increasing political
and economic interests. The geopolitical dimension is exemplified by the
adoption of Arctic strategy documents by the governments of the four largest
Nordic countries and Russia since 2006.43
The question pursued in the following is whether dance practitioners’ mobility
plays a part in the ongoing process of building a Barents region, and if so, how?
Opening the Iron Curtain
Acknowledging the role of person-to-person relations in the shaping of the

High North, Norwegian Minister of Cultural Affairs Anniken Huitfeldt wrote
in the introductory notes to the Barents Spektakel festival programme in 2012:
The High North Strategy is the government’s most important project in terms of
foreign affairs. It has a lot to do with coasts and fish, oil and gas, environmental
issues and global warming, but it also has to do with person-to-person
collaboration, arts and culture. Those who live in the North, close to the border
to our great neighbour in the East, know that it was trumpet music, sports and
cultural exchange that forged the first openings in the iron curtain.44
As will be shown in the examples of cross-border activities between northern

Norway and Finland and Russia in the 1980s, dance also played a part in the
Willy Guneriussen, ‘Modernity Re-enchanted: Making a “Magic” Region’, in

42
Bærenholdt and Granås (eds), pp. 233–245.

43
The Norwegian High North Strategy was released in 2006 with a follow-up in 2009.
The Russian government adopted an Arctic policy document in September 2008. Finland’s
Strategy for the Arctic Region was adopted by the Finnish Government in June 2010. Sweden’s
Arctic Strategy was adopted by the Government in 2011 and the Denmark, Greenland and the
Faroe Islands: Kingdom of Denmark Strategy for the Arctic 2011–2020 was adopted in 2011,
Arctic Strategy Documents, http://www.geopoliticsnorth.org/index.php?option=com_cont
ent&view=article&id=159&Itemid=69 (accessed 22 February 2012).
44
Anniken Huitfeldt in the printed programme Barents Spektakel 2012. Kirkenes 8–12
February. Dare to Share (Kirkenes, 2012), p. 5.
early days of the thaw in Cold War relations through cultural exchanges with
Russia.
A brief look at the demographic features of the Barents region is needed to give
an idea of the context within which the various forms of cross-border activities
in dance take place. Covering an area of 1,755,800 km2, the geographical region
comprises four nations and thirteen administrative units (alternatively named
counties, provinces, regions, republics and oblasts). With a population of about
5.5 million, the density is a mere 3.1 people per square kilometre.45 Given the
distances travelled, whether an artist is looking for work, performing on tour or
collaborating, such efforts are costly in time as well as money.
The scattered audiences for dance were a strong motivating factor in the
1980s when Solveig Leinan-Hermo, Artistic Director and Choreographer of
Stellaris DanceTheatre,46 made it a priority to tour the productions of Norway’s
northernmost dance theatre in the neighbouring countries. While seamless
access to Sweden and Finland was facilitated through the Nordic Passport
Union, the difficulties of obtaining visas and actually crossing the border into
the Soviet Union were substantial at the time. In financial terms, these tours
were typically made possible through the bilateral county or municipal funds of
friendship cities (a.k.a. twin cities).
The year that the Barents political cooperation was formalised, 1993, also
saw the launch of the Barents Dance Collaborations. The idea to form a network
that crossed national borders in the Barents region was fostered in northern
Sweden following meetings with Russian dancers on an official visit. Swedish
dance consultant47 Maria Rydén contacted colleagues in northern Norway,
Finland and Russia and a provisional dance council was formed; she also held the
chair while plans to create a broader platform for cross-border cooperation were
laid. Combining joint pedagogical workshops and co-produced choreographic
works, the activities were aimed at strengthening the dance infrastructure across
the Barents region by facilitating collaborations at various levels of the dance
profession. Collaborations were set up, for example, between dance schools in
Rovaniemi, Lapland (Finland), and Petrozavodsk, Karelia (Russia).48 Yet another
45
Thomas Nilsen, ‘Barents Roadmap towards Visa-Freedom’, in Staalesen (ed.), pp.
31–45.
46
Previously named Hammerfest Balletverksted.
47
Dance consultants operating at the regional level of Sweden have been part of the
country’s cultural political infrastructure since 1992, when Maria Rydén was appointed in
Norrbotten as the first. Today there are 18 regional dance consultants spread across Sweden.
48
The collaboration with the dance school in Russian Karelia was set up by Virpi
Virlander from the Rovaniemi Ballet School [Rovaniemi Ballettiopisto], Finland, and later
followed by another collaboration with the ensemble Drusba in Arkhangelsk.
result was the founding of a Barents Dance Ensemble based in Luleå, Sweden,
with dancers from the wider region and Maria Rydén as artistic director. During
its six years of existence from 1996–2002, the ensemble toured the Barents region
from Tromsø on the coast of Norway in the west to Arkhangelsk in the east. It
is important to note that the organisation of a transnational dance network in
the High North to a large extent was built on person-to-person contacts and
informal networks between practitioners, especially dance teachers, already in
existence.
Although part of the national infrastructures of dance, the activities running
north–north across the Nordic borders on the North Calotte were not always
considered important in the south, where the network funding was issued. For
instance, when Sweden became a member of the European Union, the support
for cross-border arts networks from a base in the north dwindled in favour of
heightened interest in collaborations on the continent – not unlike the shift
in political priorities seen in the NCM’s cultural programmes in the 1990s.
But the tide turned again and from around 2000 there has been support for
establishing a strong platform for dance in the northernmost Swedish counties.
Becoming involved in the Barents networks and nurturing lateral structures
for artistic and pedagogical collaboration has become once again a priority.49
Similar developments can be seen in both Finland and Norway.50
The Barents Dance Council
In 2001 the Barents Dance Council (henceforth the BDC) replaced the loosely
defined Barents Dance Collaboration with a more formalised collaborative
structure and an extended mandate to establish contacts and exchange
information between dance artists, dance teachers, organisations and educational
institutions in the Barents region; to plan and run collaborative projects; and to
create shared arenas in the region for dance and related art forms.51
Finnish choreographer Pirjo Yli-Maunula, founder of Oulu Dance Centre
and a significant person in developing the infrastructure for dance in northern
Finland since the early 1980s, held the council chair from 2001 to 2003.52
Among the initiatives taken in these early days was raising funds and collecting
a wealth of information about dance in the Barents region for the first and quite
Interview with Maria Rydén (3 September 2011).

49
E-mail from Solveig Leinan-Hermo (24 May 2012).

50
51
At http://www.barentsdance.com (accessed 20 February 2012).
52
Yli-Maunila was the co-founder of the JoJo–Oulu Dance Centre and later of Flow
Productions with choreographer Maria Littow.
ambitious BDC website.53 Addressing the impact of the Barents collaborations

in northern Finland in more general terms, Yli-Maunula points to the sustained
importance in terms of opening up the horizons of dancers, choreographers and
teachers, whose professional opportunities are enriched when visiting colleagues
in the network.54
Following the decision to rotate the council chairmanship after two years
in order to share responsibilities and costs, the council chair next went to
Solveig Leinan-Hermo of the Stellaris DanceTheatre in northern Norway.
When it was time for the chair to move again, it became clear that none of the
Russian institutions in the partnership at the time could afford to assume the
responsibility. The bulk of the administrative responsibilities, including the
website have thus remained with Stellaris in Norway.
The independently issued historical accounts of Rydén, Yli-Maunula and
Leinan-Hermo concur that, just like in the beginning, the BDC and its diverse
activities continue to rely on the commitment of individual dance practitioners
to the larger idea of artistic exchange and cross-border collaborations.55 The
habit of scheduling council meetings in connection with one or another of the
region’s many festivals is perceived as a ‘bonus’ that allows council members
to combine strategising and project planning with the opportunity to take
classes and work together. Other than that, their motivations for engaging
in professional activities across the region complement each other. Besides
reaching a scattered audience, some underline the similar living conditions and
a desire to explore these in artistic terms, while others stress the opportunity
to meet the cross-border Other and the inspiration it provides. They share not
only the vision of a vibrant and professional dance space in their region, but also
the lived experience of what it takes to sustain a dance practice in the sparsely
populated High North. After roughly two decades of existence, the sustenance
53
Attesting to the precarious economic realities of project-funded initiatives, the website
had a much too brief life as the project was discontinued when funds dried up. A new website was
launched under the Norwegian chairmanship and is regularly updated with news about members,
links and schedules of events in the region: Barents DanceCouncil, http://www.barentsdance.
com (accessed 20 February 2012).
54
Interview, Pirjo Yli-Maunula, Oulu, Finland (12 May 2012).
55
Additional artists active in the early days of the collaboration include Helle
Saltermark, Trine Saltermark and Helle Levang Moum from Norway. Among those from
Russia are Galina Shaliova and Sergei Pribitkov, a dance teacher and choreographer for the
dance ensemble Spolohi in Murmansk and the ensemble Drusba in Arkhangelsk under the
directorship of Svetlana Korepanova and Elena Panova. The driving force in political terms
in the early years was John Henrickson from the Swedish Barents Secretariat. (Interview with
Maria Rydén (03 September 2011) with additional information from Helle Levang Moum
(e-mail 27 February 2012) and Solveig Leinan-Hermo (e-mail 22 May 2012)).
Figure 3.2 The team behind Touching Point, a Barents collaboration under
the artistic guidance of Finnish choreographer Maria Littow.
Dancers from the left: Nikolay Schetnev (Russia), Pirjo Yli-
Maunula (Finland), Titta Court (Finland), Solveig Leinan-Hermo
(Norway) and Patrik Häggström (Sweden). Co-produced by Flow
Productions (Finland) and Stellaris DanceTheatre (Norway),
2008. Photographer: Pirjo Lempeä.
of person-to-person relationships through repeated mobility remains a decisive

factor, although the increasing number of institutional members, especially
from Russia, suggests that this may soon change.
Members of the BDC have realised numerous artistic projects together, many
of which thematise the experience of living in the Barents region and coming
together across borders. To name a few: Kola drøm (1998), addressing the topic
of radioactive pollution from nuclear waste on the Kola Island in Russia;56
Handshake (2004), produced with economic support from the JoJo–Oulu
Dance Centre in Finland, Norwegian funding and the work hours of freelance
Kola Drøm. Created by Helle Levang Moum for Stellaris DanceTheatre. Printed
56
programme and review, Klassekampen (24 June 1998).

dance artists; and Touching Point (2008), produced by Flow Productions

(Finland) and Stellaris DanceTheatre.
Tours across the Barents region have typically been made possible through
local organisers’ provision of in-kind support, for instance accommodation and
technical assistance. At the time of writing, all the Nordic partners in the BDC
have some form of dance resource centre in the North.57 Each of the centres
plays an important role as well in the Barents collaboration through offering
residencies and/or providing facilities for workshops, meetings and productions.
The rather detailed account of the different levels involved in the Barents
dance collaborations is provided to give an idea of the complex microstructures
involved as well as the depth of the created meshworks of lines drawing up dance
spaces through the extended mobility of the artists and their activities.
The initiatives taken by the BDC in later years include a series of performances
showcasing dancing and choreographic works from the four Barents countries
and produced in partnership with venues across the region. It is worth noting
that representation of the indigenous population in the joint programmes tends
to be mostly in musical terms, although their legacy occasionally shines through
in thematic content.58 An example of this was seen in Geidosis by Solveig Leinan-
Hermo premiered in the Barents Performance in 2007. Inspired by the Sámi
tradition of drum travels, the piece was performed live by musician and joik
singer Halvdan Nedrejord and danced by the choreographer herself.59
Complementing the activities of the BDC, various forums for showcasing
the artists’ own work while engaging with dance artists from abroad are provided
in annual festivals spread across the region. Among the oldest is DanceFestival
Barents, another child of Stellaris DanceTheatre, in existence since 2003 in
Hammerfest in the North of Norway.60 The North of Finland features the Full
Moon Festival and Dance Abundance Festival, while the IKRA Dance and
Performance Art Festival in Haparanda (Sweden) is a newcomer since 2009.
57
The JoJo–Oulu Dance Centre (1998), one of four partners in the Regional Dance
Centre of Northern Finland, is connected to a national structure of Dance Centres in Finland.
In the North of Sweden, Dans i Nord was established in 1992 in an economic collaboration
between the county of Norrbotten and the city of Piteå. And in Norway, DansArena nord,
an ‘offspring’ of the many activities of Stellaris DanceTheatre, gained independent status in
2010 as a resource centre for dance in northern Norway.
58
While the Norwegian Sámi have a living musical tradition of joik singing, it appears
as if their dances have for a large part been lost under the influence of Lestadianism, the most
widespread conservative Lutheran revival movement in the High North.
59
The tour of Route B 3 was produced by Stellaris DanceTheatre in partnership with
venues across the region.
60
DanceFestival Barents was founded by Solveig Leinan-Hermo, who was also the first
Artistic Director of the Festival.
Held since 2004, the Barents Spektakel, one of the many festivals where dance is
featured alongside other arts, has become known for its programmes of cutting-
edge work combined with platforms for political conferences and debates on
issues of topical interest to the emerging region. The Barents Spektakel festival
titles speak to topical issues in the region including Indigenous People: National
States and Borders (2005) and Bordercrossing Exercises (co-programmed with
the Kirkenes Conference’s discussions of the Pomor Zone and the development
of one of the biggest offshore fields in the world, the Shtokman Oil Field in the
Barents Sea in 2008). The theme of the 2012 Barents Spektakel, Dare to Share,
addressed the challenge posed by the recent delimitation agreement between
Russia and Norway regulating fishing and cooperation on the development
of mineral and hydrocarbon resources in the Barents Sea.61 The context of the
festival gives an idea of the intertwining interests of creative industries in arts
and culture with economic and geopolitical interests.
Moving to the Barents Region
As noted by Finnish choreographer Titta Court, opportunities for dance

practitioners in the Barents region have increased over the past twenty years and
are still gaining momentum.62 Aside from those, such as Solveig Leinan-Hermo
and Titta Court herself, who have returned to the North after having lived
either in the south or abroad, the case study identifies a number of professionals
who have found jobs across the border in a neighbouring country, still in the
Barents region. Examples include the Russian dancer and choreographer
Nikolay Schetnev, who exchanged the life as a freelance performing artist in
Arkhangelsk, Russia with employment in the Samovar Theatre in Kirkenes,
Norway. Ballet teachers are also in demand in the far North. Among those who
have made a more permanent move to Norway is Anna Karpova, choreographer
and ballet pedagogue from Nikel, Russia, who has settled in Hammerfest, where
her dance skills combined with her knowledge of the Russian language has given
her a key role in the local dance community’s contacts with Russia.63
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the difficulties in terms of crossing the
border between Norway and Russia have decreased and with multi-entry visas
61
Atle Staalesen, ‘Crossing the Border into New Territories’, in Staalesen (ed.), pp.
11–25.
62
Interview Titta Court, Tornio, Finland (19 June 2011).
63
Interview with Susanne Næss Nielsen, Dansarena Nord, Hammerfest, Norway (22
June 2011) and Solveig Leinan-Hermo, Hammerfest, Norway (24 June 2011).
Figure 3.3 Press photo taken in Nikel, Russia, showing dancers in costumes
from Russia (1991), designed by Anna Karpova. Dancers from
the left: Nadejda Maltseva, Lioubov Degtereva, Irina Jiganova and
Solveig Leinan-Hermo. Photographer: Konstantin Zinyakov.
granted to residents living near the Russian–Norwegian border since 2011, also
professional mobility has become much easier.64
By way of summary, it may be noted that dance practitioners in the case study
move extensively within the region given a combination of teaching jobs, co-
creating dance works, touring and performing in one or several of the recurring
festivals. Some tour with small-scale performances, such as Titta Court and Pia
Lindy’s TalkTalk, played in public libraries in the north of Finland and Russian
Karelia in the winter of 2011/2012. Others with much larger productions, such
as Kantele, the Karelian folk music and dance ensemble from Petrozavodsk,
performing with a group of forty dancers and musicians in the 2011 DanceFestival
Barents. The most comprehensive touring, however, seems to be carried out by
Stellaris DanceTheatre, whose 2011 map of performances played in the Nordic
and Barents regions speaks for itself.
64
The next step is a visa-free zone for residents living within a distance of up to 30
kilometres on either side of the border: see Nilsen, ‘Barents Roadmap’, p. 33.
Figure 3.4 Stellaris DanceTheatre map of own performances and co-

productions played on tour in the Nordic and Barents regions in
2011. By permission from Solveig Leinan-Hermo. Map by Marie
Hermo Jensen.
Representing the Barents Region on Stage
While not all dance artists in the region are directly involved in the activities
of the BDC, they may nevertheless engage with either the Barents region or
the High North in terms of content. One example is Norwegian choreographer
Liv Hanne Haugen, whose work titled Nordområdebevegelsen [the High North
Movement] (2011) was created in response to Nordområdesatsningen [the
High North Priority] agreed in 2006 by the Norwegian government. ‘In the
High North one is used to grandiose words from the Southern government and
Figure 3.5 Dancers/choreographers Simone Grøtte Pedersen and Johanne

Eltoft rehearsing for Reindans – Boazodánza. Premiered in 2011.
Photographer: Sveinung Ryan.
(knows that) it doesn’t necessarily lead to action’, wrote the choreographer.65

Considering herself a specialist on action and further inspired by meetings with
Russian women, Haugen challenged the format of a conventional dance work
opening up to audience participation, at times in the manner of a dance class and
at other times a political meeting. The solo combined references to contemporary
political discussions and policy papers with biographical references to the
history of Pomor trading in the nineteenth century, when the artist’s great-
grandfather had brought home a set of china from Russia in exchange for fish. At
a showing at the Resurrection Museum in Hammerfest in 2012, the interactive
format generated a discussion on the local distribution of fishing quotas. In
addressing the High North as a representational space of symbols and images
while facilitating discussion of the governments’ plans for the High North and
other topical issue, Haugen positioned herself as a choreographer/performer on
the very middle of the stage. In this manner she pointed to the pivotal agency of
dancers and other cultural workers in building the region.
In addition to the already-mentioned examples, the conditions of livelihood
tied to nature are a recurring theme in the dance works from the High North,
as seen for example in Cold Fish, by Nikolay Schetnev from the Samovar
Interview with Liv Hanne Haugen, Haugen Productions, Hammerfest, Norway (11
65
November 2011).
Theatre in Kirkenes in collaboration with Anna Piotrowska from the Silesian

Dance Theatre, Poland. Tapping into the narrative of the Arctic wilderness,
the performance Reindans – Boazodánsa (2011) explores aspects of reindeer
husbandry. Performed against a backdrop of footage from Sápmi winter
landscapes, the collaboration between northern Norwegian dance artists
Simone Grøtte Pedersen and Johanne Eltoft seeks to capture the chaotic forces
experienced when surrounded by hundreds of moving reindeer.66
Performing Many Regions
This chapter has examined mobility as a spatial practice of dance artists in

the Nordic and Barents regions. It has introduced some of the ways in which
the infrastructures of the Nordic collaboration have sustained mobility in
dance and other areas of arts and culture since the mid-twentieth century. The
historical outline showed mobility as a constant priority, even though there have
been variations in the wider cultural political strategies within which it has been
framed. The pilot survey of choreographers’ mobility identified mobility as an
aggregate term in need of further differentiation. The suggested typology placed
wayfinding at the most ‘liquid’ end of the mobility continuum followed by
reciprocal partnerships and the touring of own productions at the other end, but
also stressed that the different types of mobility overlap. Romantic readings of
mobility and nomadism have been criticised not least by feminist theorists, who
note that the fetishisation of mobility privileges those who are free to move, and
that this freedom is exercised at the exclusion of others from the same privilege.
Even for those fortunate enough to hold a passport, the survey suggests that
cross-border activities involve considerable organisational skills in terms of
visa applications, the writing of project proposals, reports, etc. These skills are
not universally shared but rely on acquired cultural capital that does not make
itself readily available, for instance, to new Nordic ethnicities or those artists
who might be more strongly articulated in their artistic expressions than in
their written language. Aligned with suggestions made by Sheller and Urry and
referred to in the first section of this chapter, some of these routines connected
to mobility tie otherwise adaptable dance practitioners to relatively inflexible
and exclusive funding structures that may well have a bearing on the scope and
destinations of their mobility.
Dance of the Reindeers, http://eltoft-grotte.com/english/dance-of-the-reindeers/

66
(accessed 29 February 2012).

Having presented these reservations, the findings also suggest that each
different type of mobility constitutes the region in a qualitatively different manner
and that regional spaces may well coexist. Thus the progression in the discussion
from material relating to the well-established Nordic region to material relating
to the emerging Barents region shows that regions are not simply ‘discontinuous’,
to use a term by Massey et al.67 As geographical imaginaries, they may well be
purported simultaneously in the same geographical area. Furthermore, the
discussion of the Barents region considers what Rustom Bharucha has called ‘the
manipulations of natural resources by global capital and its effects in the shaping
of (inter)cultural practice and discourse’.68 While the extent and consequences
of the economic and political interests in the High North is not yet fully known,
the effects are already filtering through in the spatial practices of the dance artists
as seen for example in the scope of their professional mobility. There are impacts
on artistic processes, the structures of production and content matter as well. In
this sense the case study shows dance performances to constitute representational
spaces in Lefebvrian terms, susceptible to the symbols and images, familiar or
not, from the lives and experiences of collaborating artists and their audiences.
And last but not least it shows the professional dance infrastructures as spaces of
representation in which regional imaginaries are continuously performed at the
level of cultural policy papers, bureaucratic routines and ad hoc organisations
or framed in more artistic terms in for example festivals. In this manner, it has
attempted to highlight the dynamic unfolding of Nordic and Barents spaces
through dance.
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68
Age of Globalization (London, 2000), p. 6.
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Chapter 4
Folk Dance Competitions in the
Twenty-first Century
Mats Nilsson
Dance genres with modifiers like ‘folk’, ‘social’ and ‘popular’ have a dual face,
not least today in the twenty-first century. In addition to being presentational
dancing1 where the goal is to entertain others, an audience, they are also
participatory dancing and have high value as social gatherings for people to
entertain themselves.2 Focusing on ‘folk’ in dance raises questions that deal with
the dual face of this genre. A key question is the connection between today’s folk
dancing and dancing in rural pre-industrial society. Folk dancing is generally seen
to have its roots in vernacular history, but the relation between contemporary
folk dances and past forms is far from evident.
This study is an analysis and a discussion of presentational and competitive
folk dancing based on ethnographic field research. It aims at examining the ways
the past is represented in today’s folk dancing, and which new forms and ways of
interaction emerge in these activities. It is at the same time a search for a common
dimension in the Nordic countries3 concerning folk dance performances that
include competitive aspects in live ‘face-to-face’ situations. The study builds on
observations made between 2009 and 2011 at five different events in the four
countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, all based on some kind of
competition in folk dance.4
1
Andriy Nahachewsky, ‘Participatory and Presentational Dance as Ethnochoreological
Categories’, Dance Research Journal 27/1 (1995), pp. 1–15. For a discussion of presentational
and participatory music, see Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation
(Chicago, IL/London, 2008).
2
Discussed in Mats Nilsson, ‘Participatory Dancing: The Polska Case’, in Karen Vedel
(ed.), Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Trondheim 2011), pp.
131–150, and in Mats Nilsson, Dans: Polska på svenska (Gothenburg, 2009). See also the
discussion on rock ’n’ roll in Chapter 2 and on jazz dance in Chapter 5.
3
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
4
For discussions about related fieldwork methods see Jonas Frykman and Nils Gilje
(eds), Being There: New Perspectives on Phenomenology and the Analysis of Culture (Lund,
From previous research, some conducted as early as the 1920s, we know

that folk dances are not the dances danced in the rural past, but a genre of their
own, created by folk dance associations in the context of different socio-political
circumstances in the Nordic countries.5 Differences in folk dance are based not
so much on the dances themselves but on the somewhat distinctive histories as
well as national and local politics of the Nordic countries. Although there are
similarities, the national contexts create variations in how folk dances are used.
In the following section, the focus is on dancing as a combination of dances,
music, costumes, gender and place. The idea is that dance has to be analysed
separately at the level of the dances – the choreographic movements, the dancing
– the social use of the movements (mostly together with music), and the dancers
– the human beings who create and do the dances while dancing.6 In this study
the main method is observation, and the intention is to investigate and analyse
practice, dancing. The observations have mostly taken place with participation as
an onlooker, but this does not imply an outsider’s perspective: my long history as
a folk dancer makes me ontologically a part of my research object, and therefore,
my own perspective can be regarded as that of an insider.7
Competing and Presentational Folk Dancing in the Twenty-first Century
In the context of the Nordic countries, folk dance is nearly always synonymous
with group dances, such as quadrilles and other set dances (contradances), or couple
dances organised and structured in waltz circles.8 Today people generally see folk
dances as something that is danced exclusively in folk dance clubs or similar
2009), and Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj (ed.), Narrating, Doing, Experiencing: Nordic

Folkloristic Perspectives (Helsinki, 2006).
5
Göran Andersson, ‘Skapandet av en svensk folkdanskanon’, Hembygden, 4 (2010), pp.
4–6; Egil Bakka and Gunnel Biskop (eds), Norden i dans: Folk, fag, forskning (Oslo, 2007);
Petri Hoppu, ‘National Dances and Popular Education: The Formation of Folk Dance
Canons in Norden’, in Vedel (ed.), pp. 27–56; Ernst Klein, Om folkdans (Stockholm, 1978).
6
See Alan P. Merriam, The Anthropology of Music (Evanston, IL, 1964) for a similar
discussion about music, and Owe Ronström, Att gestalta ett ursprung (Stockholm, 1992)
and Mats Nilsson, Dans – kontiuitet i förändring: En studie av danser och dansande i Göteborg
1930–1990 (Gothenburg, 1998) about dance.
7
See Nilsson, ‘Participatory Dancing’; and Timothy Rice, ‘Toward a Mediation of
Field Methods and Field Experience in Ethnomusicology’, in Gregory Barz and Timothy
J. Cooley (eds), Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology
(Oxford, 2008), pp. 42–61.
8
For genres of folk dance in the Nordic countries, see Egil Bakka (ed.), Nordisk
folkedanstypologi: En systematisk katalog over publiserte nordiske folkedanser (Trondheim, 1997).
Folk Dance Competitions in the Twenty-first Century 81
venues, except when performed by folk dancers on National Days or other

special occasions.9 Folk costumes, regarded as reminiscences from the past, seem
to be important in constituting the genre.10 Folk dancers are expected to wear
them while doing a presentational performance of folk dance, although today
this view too is challenged. In reality, the dances can be done in any costume,
and it is also possible to question and discuss what a folk costume represents
separately from a discussion of the dances.11
In all the Nordic countries, there is some sort of presentational dancing of
folk dance today with similar roots in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.12 This fact creates the dual faces of the genres since the same dance,
i.e. the waltz, polska or a contradance, can be used both as a presentational and
participatory dance – but at different events.
There are four main formats for presentational performances: competitions,
award dancing, folk dance displays, and folk dance as theatre art dancing.13 The
first, competitions, refers to contests with other dancers or groups of dancers,
resulting in a specific ranking. In award dancing, there is a jury that evaluates
how well the participants follow a documented description of a certain dance: if
they are good enough, a bronze, silver or gold medal will be bestowed on them.
The third, folk dance displays, refers to folk dances adapted for an audience by
folk dance clubs, and the fourth refers to folk dances used on stage as material for
art dancing, usually in the frames and formats of modern contemporary dance.
A folk dance display is the main format where outsiders – the public –
encounter folk dance, for instance a Midsummer event in Sweden or on a
National Day in any of the countries. Competitions and especially award
dancing are for insiders, the folk dancers themselves. Theatre art dancing here
means a fusion of dance forms from participatory folk dance and presentational
modes from staged dance genres. All four categories – competitions, award
dancing, folk dance display and theatre art dancing – belong to the genre of
9
Nilsson, Dans – kontinuitet i förändring.
10
Gunnel Biskop, Dansen för åskådare: Intresset för folkdans som estradprodukt och
insamlingsobjekt hos den svenskspråkiga befolkningen i Finland under senare dele av 1800–
talet (Åbo, 2012), p. 60.
11
Ulla Centergran, Bygdedräkter, bruk och brukare (Gothenburg, 1996).
12
See Bakka and Biskop (eds).
13
The choice of the label for the last category, theatre art dancing, has been discussed in
the project group, and it is hard to find a category name, a genre, that suits everyone. This is
my choice. For discussions of this category see Mats Nilsson, ‘Some Questions about Dancing
and Dressing’, in Proceedings from 17th Symposium of the Study Group on Ethnochoreology
1992 (Nafplion, 1994), pp. 135–138, and June Vail, ‘Staging Sweden: A Typology for Folk
Dance in Performance’, Scandinavian Studies, 75 (2003), pp. 89–102.
presentational dancing and are partly connected to each other. The dancing in
competitions has some parts that are displays and/or theatre art dancing. At
every competition, there is an audience to entertain and dance for; there are
also the aesthetics to consider if success is desired. The following pages will focus
primarily on competitions and award dancing rather than on display and theatre
art dancing.
Hälsingehambon
The Hälsingehambon, in English sometimes called the world championships in

hambo, and the Polsdansmärkesuppdansning, in English polska award dancing,
are well-known events among people engaged in folk dancing, even though
most people never take part themselves, either as competitors or members of the
audience. Both events take place during the summer in central Sweden and not
in any of the bigger towns or cities.
Hälsingehambon is always held in the same place in Hälsingland, close to
Mount Hårga, purportedly the birthplace of the hambo, according to history
and legend. The story is a local version of a well-known motif, where an unknown
musician enters the dance room, starts to play a tune, and all the people begin
to dance and are unable to stop.14 From a dance-history perspective, the hambo
is seen as a Swedish version of one motif in the pan-European polka-mazurka.15
The music is closely related to the polska music (in 3/4 time, not the 2/4 time
of the polka).
The competition first took place in 1965 and was held every year until 2010.
It was cancelled in 2011 due to lack of funding and too few dancers signing to
participate.16 Hälsingehambon was initially part of a television programme, but
it continued as an important local tourist event after SVT, the Swedish national
broadcasting corporation, ended its engagement.17 The event organisers who
took over were the local folk dance club, with support from the local community
council.
Type L1 in Bengt af Klintberg, The Types of the Swedish Folk Legend (Helsinki,
14
2010), p. 215.
15
See Henning Urup, Henry Sjöberg and Egil Bakka (eds), Gammaldans i Norden
(Trondheim, 1988), p. 267.
16
Since the regional authorities do not give any financial support any more, the 2010 hambo
championship appears to have been the last one. SVT Gävleborg, ‘Slut för Hälsingehambon’,
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/svtgavleborg/slut-for-halsingehambon (accessed 15
December 2011).
17
It should be stressed that the television programme was important for the start of the
Hälsingehambon, but later it survived even without this connection.
Figure 4.1 Hambo dancers competing on grass, the first of four heats on
different surfaces. Photographer: Ingegerd Sigfridsson, 2010.
On the first occasion in 1965, 91 couples participated, but by the 1980s it had
become so popular that the number of couples was set at a maximum of 1,500.
For what at the time of writing appears to have been the final Hälsingehambon,
held in 2010, 79 couples signed up. The competition lasted an entire day, from
9 a.m. to 10 p.m. To win, dancers must dance on four different surfaces in four
different places and be selected by the jury to continue to the finals. The dancing
couples in the finals are ranked from one to ten. The dancers have to dance in
folk costume, and the jury and musicians also are dressed in folk costumes.
Every couple dances on all four surfaces but in different heats. While they
wait for their turn, they take part as audience members. The first heat is held
on grass in a field, with the judges walking around and making notes in the
middle of a circle while the couples dance around them. Outside the circle, the
audience stands or walks around, watching and cheering on their friends. In the
second heat, the participants dance on a wooden dance floor, and in the third
on tarmac on a bridge. The fourth surface in the 2010 competition was an old
tennis court (with a cinder surface). The semi-finals and finals take place on the
wooden dance floor at an outdoor dance pavilion [dansbana]. Together with the
orchestra, which plays the same ten hambo tunes over and over again in all four
places, the jury follows the dancers throughout the day.
Polsmärkesuppdansningen
Polsmärkesuppdansningen, or polska award dancing, has been an annual event

since 1969, when 42 dancers were given awards. In 2011 about 150 couples
danced one after the other for two full days in a row in the same room. It is
organised by the regional association of folk dance clubs in the counties of
Dalarna and Jämtland in Sweden, and alternates between different places in
these counties.18 The event is aimed at and attracts mainly folk dancers, and
does not carry any real interest for the ‘uninitiated’. On the other hand, many
foreigners attend the events each year, particularly from the US, where polska
dancing is popular in what are called Skandia dancing clubs.19
Polsmärkesuppdansningen is not a competition between the dancing couples.
Rather, they compete with themselves before the jury. The jury, seated at a
table with their notes and descriptions, compare the dances performed with
descriptions of the dances in the polska manuals. If the three judges agree, the
dancers are given a bronze or silver medal. They need first to take the bronze,
and then the silver medal. The gold medal is given to people who have done
something extra for the polska dance in general; people do not compete for it.
Instead, there is the ‘major silver’ medal that can be awarded after dancing for
silver for three years. Each time couples dance for a more valuable medal, they
have to perform different dances; they cannot use the same dance twice.20
Even here, as with the Hälsingehambon, people must dance in folk costume
and the jury and musicians are similarly dressed. Both the costume people should
wear and the dance variant that is supposed to be performed are mentioned in
the programme. In many ways, Hälsingehambon and Polsmärkesuppdansningen
are two different events, but there are also similarities. Both are connected to the
folk dance associations but attract mostly different segments of members in folk
dance clubs. The average age is over 50, and young people are a minority.
The music plays a limited role, although there are two orchestras at the
Polsmärkesuppdansningen, one from each of the two organising areas. All
An important work of recording and documenting dances from Dalarna and

18
Jämtland was carried out in the 1950s and 1960s by Johan Larsson, Ingvar Norman and
Göran Karholm, who lived and worked in this part of Sweden.
19
See for instance the Welcome to Skandia folk dance society, http://www.skandia-
folkdance.org (accessed 1 May 2012).
Polskdans.com, ‘Polskmärket’, http://www.polskdans.com/vadarpolskmark.htm
20

Figure 4.2 Polska award dancing in Orsa Hembygdsgård. On the stage the
musicians, at the table the jury, in front the audience and in between,
on the floor, the dancers. Photographer: Mats Nilsson, 2003.
decisions about the music and the selection of musicians are made by the
organisers and the jury, and the dancers are not allowed to integrate the music
and dance in their own way. Part of award dancing is being able to dance to
music other than what the dancers might be used to or have chosen themselves.
As for gender, there is a strong norm – a dancing couple is a man and a
woman performing their given parts. Both the polska and hambo are couple
dances, danced in pairs of one man and one woman. At the Hälsingehambon in
2010, one couple with two girls advanced rather far, to the semi-finals, but that
was an exception.
Polska award dancing is more a matter of correct dancing and not so much
one of style and output, while in the hambo championship the situation is the
reverse. It is most important that people dance well and with the right bounce,
and then that it is also a ‘correct’ hambo, danced as prescribed, following the
description in folk dance manuals.21
21
There is no special description of Hälsingehambo in folk dance manuals, but hambo
as such is described in them.
The Landskappleik
Of the four countries in this study, Norway seems to be the one with the biggest
dance events, with 3,000–4,000 visitors coming to the national competition, the
Landskappleik, which is held once a year. At these events there are competitions
not only in dancing but also in playing music and in singing. There is a long
tradition of competing in folk dance in Norway. The Landskappleik started in
1888 as a regional event with folk music, and later dance was also included.
Today there are likewise a dozen local and regional kappleiks that function in a
similar way.
The dances in the competition are referred to as bygdedans [local/rural
small-town dancing] and are seen as a subgroup of folk dance by the dancers
and musicians. The very core of the dances is couple dances with roots in the
older peasant society. Historically, these dances preceded new dances like the
waltz, polka and hambo; they are closely related to the polska dances in the other
Nordic countries. But there are also sections for competing in other forms, not
least in the male solo dance called the halling,22 an acrobatic dance with roots in
the early nineteenth century and with movements similar to breakdance. At the
Landskappleik in the small town of Voss in western Norway in 2010, it was clear
that the final in halling dancing was considered the most interesting contest and
drew the biggest audience at the kappleik.
Competing dancers are divided into four groups. Group A consists of
the most experienced dancers; group B is something of a second division for
beginners, who are striving for the first group, A; group C is for youngsters
under age eighteen, while group D is for the oldest dancers.
At the Landskappleik there are no obligatory dress rules, but in practice
most dance competitors wear bunad [folk costume] signalling what part of the
country they come from, while some of the judges and most of the musicians are
dressed in everyday clothes. In 2010 one of the couples had the man dressed in a
jacket and the woman in an ordinary skirt. They were still ranked high because
of their dancing. Here it is the competing dancers, not the organisers or jury,
who choose the music and musicians. Since music and dance competitions are
held simultaneously at the kappleik, there are many opportunities for the dance
competitors to find a musician and ask for the musical accompaniment they
would like for competing.
In 2010 nearly all the dancing couples on the competition stage consisted of a
man and a woman dancing their given parts based on convention and tradition.
A few same-sex pairs of women performed, but there were no male pairs. This
In Norwegian also called laus.

22
Figure 4.3 From the competitions at the Landskappleik in Voss, 2010.

Dancing is done on a stage built in a sports hall. Photographer:
Mats Nilsson.
was also the norm during the participatory dancing in the evening and at night,
although it was easier to break that rule here. All dancing, presentational on
stage as well as participatory down on the floor, took place indoors. The main
hall where all the finals were held was in a sports arena. Other stages were in
hotel conference facilities and a theatre auditorium. Outside the main hall, there
was a big tent where people could get food and beer as well as a small stage for
music.
Landskappleiken as an event can be interpreted as a folk dance and music
festival, even though it is not called that, while the Polsmärkesuppdansningen
and Hälsingehambon are too small and specialised to be festivals.
A Konkurrencedag in Folk Dance
In Denmark a Konkurrencedag [competition day] in folk dance has been held

since 2002, which is a late start compared to the other Nordic countries.23 The
rules and regulations have changed a little over the years, and the competition
categories and rules have also changed slightly. There have always been two main
parts in the competition day – one for pairs dancing couple dances and one
for groups of more than four dancers and one musician doing a presentational
programme. Since there are no formal dress rules, the dancers observed in the
2010 competition wore folk costume, some sort of unified stage dress or more
everyday clothes, while the jury and musicians were all dressed more informally.
The couple dancing was subdivided into three groups. First on the floor
were the young people, aged eighteen and below, who had to dance three pre-
given dances and try to follow the written descriptions as closely as possible.
The dancers in the second group had to be over thirty, and they also danced
three predetermined dances. For the last group, where the dancers had to be over
twenty, only three types of melodies were given, and the couple had to ‘improvise
within the frames provided by the melody, as long as the chosen variations were
connected to the genre of Danish folk dance and music’.24 In all three groups of
couple dancing, the judges looked at what they call the ‘dance rhythm’, the overall
dance expression and the impression the dancing makes on the jury. Exactly
what these categories mean and how they are evaluated is not stated explicitly
but is a matter of the judges’ taste. The repertoire in group dancing consisted of
dances such as contradances but also couple dances arranged and structured in
choreographed formations. Here the choreographed floor patterns, figures and
dancing technique were evaluated. Music was played by the same two musicians,
a fiddler and an accordionist, for nearly every part of the event, except for some
of the group dancing.
Even though gender norms were largely conventional, there was one couple
with two boys and many couples with two girls among the younger dancers,
The Danish championship in Folk Dance [Danmarksmesterskabet i Folkedans] was

23
held in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2009, and there were plans for it to be held in
2011 as well, but it was cancelled due to limited interest. There was a new attempt in 2012,
with slightly different rules. On the 2010 Competition Day about 300 people participated,
and the audience and competitors were the same people, who changed places. There was also
what is called a Competition Day in Folk Dance [Konkurrencedag i Folkedans] arranged in
2006, 2008 and 2010.
24
Landsforeningen Danske Folkedansere, http://www.folkedans.dk (accessed 18
February 2010, 6 April 2010, 6 May 2010, 4 July 2011, 13 February 2012). Translation by
the author.
Figure 4.4 The Konkurrencedag in folk dance, held on the floor of a sports
hall. About half the dancers are wearing folk costumes. The other
half is dressed in clothes that unify the group. Photo: Ingegerd
Sigfridsson, 2010.
while the older people danced in mixed couples. The Konkurrencedag ended
with a communal dinner followed by dancing for everyone led by an instructor.
The Konkurrencedag is a small event, like the Polsmärkesuppdansningen. It does
not attract people who are totally uninvolved in folk dancing, and neither does
it carry the same appeal as Landskappleiken among folk dance people in general.
Tanssimania
The Tanssimania [Dance Mania] in Tampere, Finland (visited in 2009), is the

folk dance event in this study that is most similar to international folk music
and dance events. Unlike the other Nordic countries, Finland has a tradition of
competing with folk dance choreographies in what can be seen as a Moiseyev-
Figure 4.5 At the Tanssimania, the competition held on a theatre stage. Here,
one group is dancing a polka set, and all the dancers are wearing
similar attire that looks like folk costume. Photographer: Mats
Nilsson, 2009.
influenced, eastern European style.25 This means stylised, well-rehearsed and well-
coordinated stage performances, with almost no room for improvisation. Dance
repertoires and programmes varied considerably, from long sequences with
different ways of doing the minuet to a fast-paced polka in quadrille formation.
Some groups were more influenced by contemporary dancing, using not folk
costume but any kind of clothing, and brought bicycles and other properties
on stage, while others were dressed in uniform folk costume. Music was
See Anthony Shay, Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies,

25
Representation and Power (Middletown, CT, 2002) for examples and discussions of state
folk dance ensembles influenced by the Russian ballet master Igor Moiseyev’s style. During
the decades after the Second World War, Moiseyev created colourful and spectacular folk
dance performances, which became extremely popular all over Europe and even in North
America. There are also influences from the early twentieth-century Swedish folk dance club
Philochoros, which strongly shaped Scandinavian folk dancing in motifs and dance forms:
see Bakka and Biskop (eds).
an important part of all the groups, and the music groups varied from small
orchestras to solo violin or accordion.
The main competition took place in a theatre, where the majority of the
audience consisted of other participating groups and friends of the performers.
In the evening there were staged performances from past participants and
competition winners, followed by playful parodies of competitions and
‘mocking performances’, which generally parody older costumes and especially
gender roles.
At the Tanssimania there was a clear tendency towards a festival feeling, with
a pub area and people coming and going, as at the Landskappleik, even though it
was not as large and lacked the music competition parts.
Competing in Folk Dance in the Nordic Countries
In this section, the analysis compares and discusses ‘folk’ and the dance forms
used, how the music was played, how the dancers were dressed, as well as gender
roles and the choice of venue for the five folk dancing competitions in the Nordic
countries. At the beginning of this chapter, it was noted that dance genres with
modifiers like ‘folk’ have a dual face. This is something that people both do and
watch, but today ‘folk dance’ is best known as presentational dancing. ‘Folk’ as
a modifier has an obvious tendency to tie dances and dancing geographically
to certain areas and is often given political borders. If we instead highlight the
forms (dances) and the doing (dancing), borders disappear or are relocated and
dance forms mostly create geographical spaces other than nation states.26 In the
cases in this study about folk dance competitions, we see clearly that the dances
performed are closely related and often even the same, but they are referred to as
different and often given different names. Using and thinking in terms of ‘folk’,
at least as dancers and musicians do, creates imagined communities27 that refer
back to an older society of bounded geographical communities. It is a way of
letting today’s space refer to yesterday’s places.
In this study, Hälsingehambon is the event most strongly connected to a
specific geographical place as well as to a place in a more analytical sense.28 The
26
Mats Nilsson, ‘Sweden as a Crossroads: Some Remarks concerning Swedish Folk
Dancing’, in Ian Russell and Mary Anne Alburger (eds), Driving the Bow: Fiddle and Dance
Studies from around the North Atlantic, vol. 2 (Aberdeen, 2008), pp. 99–104.
27
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (London/New York, 1992).
28
For the concepts of space and place see Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday
Life (Berkeley, CA, 1984), pp. 117–118.
mythical background and the legend of the hambo’s origin connect the dance
to the place, which makes it impossible to relocate the whole competition
elsewhere. The other dance events are easier to move to other locations: they
can create dancing space in any place. Since folk dances in 2010 could be danced
at any location, they can be seen as deterritorialised.29 In the context in which I
use the term here, it implies that all references between dances and geographical
places become contemporary imaginations of a lost yesterday in a past society in
pre-industrial times.
Even if the countries in Norden share related languages as well as a lot of
other culture and have the same dances and use them in a similar way, there are
obvious differences in the construction of the folk genres. In Norway and Sweden
competitions in couple dances dominate other dance forms, while in Denmark
and Finland dancers also compete in contradances. This could be due to the
stronger position these dance forms have had in the popular dance traditions in
these countries, while in Norway and most parts of Sweden couple dances have
been the core of popular dancing for hundreds of years.30 This indicates that
some sort of ‘national dance culture’ of folk dances and connections between
participatory dancing and presentational dancing exists in the Nordic region,
even though the dance forms cross national borders.
Music is an important part of dancing, and all dancers talk about and want
good music to dance to. Live music, where musicians are present and more or less
take part in the presentation and competitions, is the norm at all in the events
in all the Nordic countries in this study. Folk dance becomes more ‘folk’, with a
stronger connection to pre-industrial times and the countryside, with live music
that characteristically represents the past in opposition to recorded music. At
both Polsmärkesuppdansningen and Hälsingehambon in Sweden, people are not
allowed to choose their own musicians, while at the Landskappleik in Norway
and Tanssimania in Finland dancers always have to find musicians themselves.
At the Danish Konkurrencedag there is a combination – in the couple dance
section, the organisers are responsible for the music, but in the group dance
section and in many of the contradances the dancers make the choice.
As for gender questions, in every folk dance context it is clear that the norm
is a couple consisting of a man and a woman. Gender roles may be part of the
‘folk’ theme, a desire to keep the dances the way they were supposed to be danced
in the olden days, even though that could also indicate norms generally change
slowly. But the prevailing norm is challenged, even if it is on a small scale, when

29

30
Bakka (ed.), pp. 56–80.
you see on a dance floor three versions of couples: girls dancing with girls, boys
with boys, and boys with girls.31
If someone wants to be the winner and part of the ‘competing society’, it is
impossible to break every norm and rule at the same time. However, dancing
skilfully in a same-sex couple could be one way to do that. Girls dancing with girls
are not that uncommon and are generally accepted in participatory settings and
in staged art performances and displays. In competitions girls rarely dance with
girls, but it is even more unlikely that boys dance with boys, as it is rare at any folk
dance event. On the other hand, this can be found in some places. There were two
boys competing in the couple dance group at the Konkurrencedag in Denmark
as well as girl couples in the Hälsingehambon in Sweden. The Norwegian
Kappleik also had same-sex pairs of girls, but in the Tanssimania in Finland this
occurred only in the parody parts, as jokes. The most conservative is the Swedish
Polsmärkesuppdansning, where same-sex couples are not allowed at all.
Dance performances sometimes show moving costumes as much as nice
movements to interesting music.32 Performing a presentational folk dance
always means that some thought is given to dress. What clothing will be
used – street clothes, folk costume or stage dress of some kind? In this study
the strictest events were the Swedish ones. Both the Hälsingehambon and the
Polsmärkesuppdansningen require folk costumes. At the other events, it varied.
Folk costume was the most common dress form of all; the most liberal event seems
to be the Landskappleik in Norway. Dancers are expected to have the bunad,
but dancing ability is the most important factor. Michel de Certeau notes that
‘space is practiced place’,33 and following him, it can be said that going from folk
costume to other ways of dressing is probably the clearest sign of transformation
from place to space. Folk costume as a material thing carries strong references to
a given place in pre-industrial society. The explicit connection to geographies is
broken when the performer does not dance in folk costume. Similarly, a link to
the past is cut and dances become contemporary when people dare to dance in
same-sex couples. Competing without folk costume and dancing in same-sex
couples is a way young people challenge the ruling norms in folk dance spaces in
the twenty-first century.
31
For a discussion of ongoing norm changes in Swedish participatory polska dancing,
see David Kaminsky, ‘Gender and Sexuality in the Polska: Swedish Couple Dancing and the
Challenge of Egalitarian Flirtation’, Ethnomusicology Forum, 20 (2011), pp. 123–152. See
also Bert Persson, ‘Kvinner i dansen’, Folkemusikk, 2 (2010), pp. 44–45, for some remarks
concerning gender questions in Norwegian bygdedans.
32
Biskop, p. 60.
33
De Certeau, p. 117.
Figure 4.6 From the Konkurrencedag in folkedans, Denmark. Old dance

forms used in new combinations, danced in the ‘folk’ dance
costumes of our time. Photographer: Ingegerd Sigfridsson, 2010.
The audience is part of the event in presentational dancing and also acts as
an informal jury. At folk dance competitions, nearly all the audience members
seem to be other competitors and/or dance friends. Dancers comment on and
evaluate each other, a sort of audience judgement that is part of presentational
dancing. Some dancers at the Polsmärkesuppdansningen remarked that the
harshest judgements came not from the jury but from ‘onlooking dancers’. The
Hälsingehambon and Polsmärkesuppdansningen are presentational dance events
although they do have important participatory parts. The audience is primarily
the other participants, and the jury is also a special audience that changes the
event in a presentational way.
In the evenings, after the dance competitions and presentations, there was
organised participatory dancing at every event. At the Konkurrencedag and the
Tanssimania, a dance leader organised the dancing, while at the Landskappleik
and the Polsmärkesuppdansningen there was more informal dancing to organised
music.34
Looking at the places chosen for the competitions, we see notable differences.
In Sweden folk museums [hembygdsgårdar], local community centres and
outdoor dance pavilions [dansbanor] are preferred. A sports centre or arena
is hardly ever used for ‘folk’ arrangements in Sweden, while in Norway and
Denmark sports centres seem to be the most common place for this kind of
For a discussion of the contrast between stage and off-stage dancing, see Owe
34
Ronström, ‘Kulturmöten eller folkloristisk uppvisning’, Framtider, 2 (1996), pp. 24–27.

event. In Finland, at least in Tanssimania, the theatre stage was the obvious place
for a folk dance competition. Another comparison is between the stage and the
floor, which divides the events under investigation: in Norway and Finland
stages are used, while in Denmark and Sweden the floor is the place for the
dance competition.
Hälsingehambon is the only dance competition that has a real geographical
connection to the location where the event takes place, given the legends of its
origins. The other events take place at different locations every year, and the
place chosen has almost nothing to do with the dances performed.
Conclusion
In this chapter, the focus has been on dancing as various combinations of dances,
music, costumes, gender and place at five different folk dance competition events
in the four Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. As noted
above, it is the dance forms themselves that unite the Nordic countries most, not
the way they are presented as folk dances or danced at competitions. Norway
has the longest unbroken tradition of folk dance competitions in Norden with
its kappleiks, which were held as early as 1880 as part of the process of creating
Norwegianness. There are numerous competitions and competitors in couple
dancing, good dancers, as well as some progressive ideas about gender and dress
at the kappleik. In Finland folk dance competitions were arranged as early as
before the Second World War, even though nationally organised events like
Tanssimania did not begin until the 1970s. Usually the performances are folk
groups on stage mixed with ‘mock parts’, which include a lot of irony and jokes
about sex and gender. The Polsmärkesuppdansningen and Hälsingehambon in
Sweden began in connection with the ecology/folk music wave in the late 1960s.
The main goal of the Polsmärkesuppdansningen is to keep the dances alive and as
unchanged as possible, while Hälsingehambon has always had an important role
in promoting tourism. They seem to be the most conservative regarding folk
dance competitions: there have apparently been no real or successful attempts
to adapt them to the twenty-first century. The Danish Konkurrencedag has aimed
at bringing new and younger members into the folk dance association. In this
study, it is this smallest, newest but most energetic folk dance competition
that tests new ideas about how to compete, in both couple and group dancing.
However, given the rather limited interest in the event, the organisers struggle to
survive in their attempt to create a Danish competition tradition.
What can be discerned in the five cases of folk dance competition in this
study are signs of the transformation of a participatory way of folk dancing
from community dancing (or from the dancing of a community) of the rural
past to a form of presentational folk dancing in fluctuating and mobile dancing
communities, which has endured throughout the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries.35 Community dancing refers to times and places where people who
live and spend their time together use dance as part of their festivities. Dancing
communities target groups that do not live or work together but share an interest
in a specific dance genre, for example folk dance, that they expend a lot of time
and effort to take part in. All the dancers devote considerable resources to
practising, travel and competitions, and it often consumes a good portion of
their spare time. Today people, the dancers, share a dancing interest not because
they are placed somewhere where they live and work, but because they share
an interest in the folk dances as such as well as in the spaces of folk dancing,
produced at many different locations. Folk dance competitions in the 2010s
bring people together from different places and construct a common space for
their dancing regardless of where they meet, socialise and dance.
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35
See Theresa Buckland, Society Dancing: Fashionable Bodies in England, 1870–1920
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Chapter 5
Dancing African–American Jazz in the
Nordic Region
Lena Hammergren
Dances from North America have had a corporeal impact on cultures in the
Nordic region, as Chapter 2 has shown. Some of the most interesting theatrical
dance genres to migrate to the Nordic countries during the twentieth century
were various styles of African–American and Caribbean jazz dance.1 Starting in
the 1960s, these movement vocabularies became codified as jazz techniques that
were tried out by young and old, by amateurs and professionals, by people living
in big cities and in small towns. Arriving in northern Europe, ‘jazz’ was afforded
many socio-cultural functions and was used for pleasure, fitness, therapy,
education and aesthetic expression.
In this chapter the focus is on the manner in which the migration of African–
American jazz dances and professional dance artists occurred in different socio-
cultural and political contexts in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The
1960s and 1970s constitute a period of arrival and establishment, which can be
distinguished from the following decades, during which neither choreographies
nor public dance discourses favoured characteristic jazz features. When new
dance styles arrived in the region, they created a kind of danced diversity that
needs to be analysed in terms of both diversity and difference. Rustom Bharucha
has developed modes of analysing intracultural practices,2 which means looking
at differences in societal cultural practices in a specific geographical location.
His ideas are particularly valid in this context because they help in formulating
the productive space between a diversity of dance styles and the unequal socio-
political differences that may exist simultaneously.
The comparative aspect between four of the Nordic countries aims to
reveal nuances of reception patterns: how African–American jazz dances
were translated into national spaces and how they interacted with dance
1
Henceforth, these different origins are summarised as African–American.
2
Age of Globalization (New Delhi, 2001), p. 84.
infrastructures and embodied experiences.3 Moreover, the dance cultures under

investigation (embracing both dance practices and practitioners) benefit from
an analytical approach that highlights certain transformative aspects that
occur when a migrating dance culture moves from one location to the next –
movements that by their nature can critique the idea of a fixed geographical
region and also shift the focus from global to local expressions. Arjun Appadurai
has developed the concept of process geographies, which helps in focusing the
analysis on how flows of cultural expressions, such as dance, take shape in local
contexts and ‘generate variable geographies’.4
The Emergence of an African–American ‘Movementscape’
The concept of African–American jazz dance is highly complex and needs a

historically situated explanation and specification.5 In tracing the vernacular
forms, Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns explain that the concept jazz dance ‘has
a special meaning for professionals who dance to jazz music’,6 which is different
to those who practise jazz dancing in dance halls and similar venues. Today,
some dance scholars in North America apply the umbrella term Black Concert
Dance, in order to single out various theatrical dance styles, but otherwise
African–American dance is the most commonly used label for conceiving a
broader spectrum of participatory and theatrical dance forms.7 In addition, it
is important in this context to make distinctions between African–American
and African dances.8 As Karen Vedel has noted in relation to the situation in
3
In order to better analyse embodied experiences, I have conducted interviews with
individuals who were involved in the dancing of the time: Lis Engel, Randi Frønsdal, Gun
Román and Tiina Suhonen. I am grateful for their generosity in sharing both their experiences
and source material. I would also like to thank Riikka Korppi-Tommola, who has provided
information from her PhD research on Finnish modern dance in the 1950s and 1960s.
4
Arjun Appadurai, ‘Grassroots, Globalization and the Research Imagination’, in Arjun
Appadurai (ed.), Globalization (Durham, NC, and London, 2001), pp. 7–8.
5
Thomas F. DeFrantz, ‘African American Dance: A Complex History’, in Thomas F.
DeFrantz (ed.), Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance (Madison,
WI, and London, 2002), pp. 3–35.
6
Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular
Dance (New York, 1994), p. xvi.
7
Susan Manning, Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion (Minneapolis, MN,
2004); Thomas DeFrantz historicises the use of the concepts ‘black dance’ and African
American dance in DeFrantz, pp. 3–35.
8
The term African dance is also problematic since it ‘reduces an entire body of dances
from Africa into a continental category’: Pegge Vissicaro, Studying Dance Cultures around
Dancing African–American Jazz in the Nordic Region 103
Denmark, the 1950s and 1960s saw new genre and stylistic distinctions appear
when the terms jazz ballet, jazz dance and African dances started to be used in
public discourse as a result of guest performances from both Africa and the US.9
The flow of African–American-derived movements into the Nordic region
can be said to have begun during the late nineteenth century, when solo artists
as well as companies toured the Nordic countries, and these performances
continued well into the twentieth century. Many of the artists performed in
vaudeville shows and at variety venues, and the dance styles could travel back
and forth between social and theatrical contexts.10 The Cakewalk was such
a dance, originating as an African–American social couple dance during the
slavery era and then migrating to other American groups of people as well as
abroad to both social and theatrical dance venues. The Big Apple originated as
a sacred dance on the plantation; it was later rearranged as a social dance and
also became a choreographed routine appearing in films.11 When jazz music
started to appear in the Nordic region in the first decades of the twentieth
century, its accompanying social dancing with simple step formations was often
summarised by the verb ‘to jazz’ and was performed by broad groups of people.12
These circumstances affected genre definitions. In the early 1930s, African–
American dance artists, advocating a new theatrical practice called Negro
Dance Recitals, argued that jazz dancing was not to be considered part of those
modern dances that would articulate a ‘more dignified art’.13 In this context, jazz
dance was associated with a popular and burlesque dance culture. Between the
1930s and 1950s, foregrounding individuals in the history of American Black
Concert Dance, for example Katherine Dunham and Talley Beatty, toured
outside the US and performed within the framework of high art. The popular
trend of dancing to jazz music continued into the 1940s and 1950s, decades that
experienced the arrival of a number of new forms of social dancing with roots in
African–American culture (see Chapter 2). These are but a few examples of the
ways in which jazz dancing moved between different social contexts as well as
between the popular and elite arts. Even today this socio-cultural oscillation is
the World: An Introduction to Multicultural Dance Education (Dubuque, IA, 2004), p. 86.
9
Karen Vedel, En anden dans: Moderne scenedans i Danmark 1900–1975
(Copenhagen, 2008), p. 300.
10
danskultur runt 1900 (Stockholm, 2002); Vedel, pp. 31–72.
11
Lynne Fauley Emery, Black Dance from 1619 to Today, 2nd edition (London, 1988),
p. 221.
12
Henry Sjöberg, ‘Dansen i svensk folklig tradition’, in Madeleine Hjort (ed.), Dans i
världen (Stockholm, 1993), p. 175.
13
Manning, pp. xiii–xiv.
apparent. One example is the African–American dances that once appeared in

Hollywood movies during the 1930s and 1940s, which nowadays are taught in
dance schools for amateurs and professional dance sports competitors under the
label ‘authentic jazz’.14
A new era began in the 1960s when dancers and choreographers from the US
came to the Nordic countries and were appointed as pedagogues in theatrical
jazz dance while continuing to perform in solo concerts or together with
companies of their own. These companies were often based on dance students’
participation, with the teacher acting as soloist and lead dancer. There were also
native Nordic dancers who travelled to the US and were educated in jazz dance
techniques, which they used as teachers once they returned home. Thus the role
of the dance pedagogue is a significant part of the history of jazz dance.
It has even been argued that it was Europe that labelled the professionally
performed African–American jazz dance as a specific genre. African–American
choreographer and pedagogue Donald McKayle has explained the arrival of
different jazz-related movement practices to Europe,15 recounting how he and
his colleagues often talked about themselves as modern dance artists in the late
1950s, but when they were invited to Europe the branding of jazz dance took
place. Danish dance scholar and dance pedagogue Lis Engel attests to this use
of terminology in describing how African–American pedagogues in Denmark
described themselves professionally.16 Furthermore, she has explained how they
regarded jazz as a kind of eclectic style interweaving modern, African, Indian,
tap and show dance in various ways.
An important background to this later development was the Cold War, when
cultural diplomacy played an important role in the US, and the State Department
initiated the creation of a dance panel whose task was to choose American
artists for tours overseas.17 The famous African–American choreographer Alvin
Ailey and his company were one of the groups of artists receiving this support,
although this happened just at the end of the dance panel’s work in the early
1960s. In 1965 the company visited some of the Nordic countries for the first
time. Although Ailey worked with a mix of dance techniques, his company
became an integral part, together with pedagogues, in establishing jazz dance in
this new Nordic context.
14
See for example Chicago Swing Dance Studio, Stockholm, www.chicago75.se
15
In an interview with the dance scholar Tiina Suhonen, 10 February 2012, she recalls
Donald McKayle making this remark about jazz in Europe.
16
Interview with Lis Engel, 7 March 2012.
17
Naima Prevots, Dance for Export: Cultural Diplomacy and the Cold War (Hanover,
NH, 1998), p. 3.
It may seem strange that so many talented African–American dancers

settled, for shorter or longer periods, in what was at the time the quite marginal
artistic geography of the Nordic region. But during the 1950s and 1960s it was
still difficult for African–American dance artists to find employment in the
US. European–Americans held the majority of college teaching positions, and
only 4 per cent of the dance programmes employed teachers in jazz dance.18 In
this situation, the Nordic region offered good working conditions, at least to
start with, when jazz dance became the new dance craze and the demand for
experienced jazz dancers and teachers was high.
This rather long process of an African–American movement migration bears
the characteristics of what Arjun Appadurai has defined as a -scape. This concept
refers to spheres of life (economy, media, technology, people and ideologies) that
relate different places and people to one another in flowing movements.19 If the
practice of moving to music is seen as such a sphere of life, it is possible to analyse
its transmissions between places and groups of people and how it intertwines
‘local human experiences and social divisions and global social structures of
power’.20 In coining the word movementscape, I am indebted to Paula Saukko
and her suggestion of additional -scapes to Appadurai’s five terms. Her concept
of bodyscape enables the study of corporeality, that is, of embodied ‘gender,
class and colonialist power struggles’.21 In this text, I focus on a segment of this
broad African–American movementscape that is here called African–American
(theatrical) jazz dance. This is because the genre reveals interesting patterns
of reception and dissemination into the Nordic countries, which highlight
particular social constructions and geographical localities. When it arrived in
the region in the early 1960s, it was danced and performed by many different
social and ethnic groups of people, but I retain the name African American as
a gesture towards the initial geographical and cultural context from which this
movementscape originated.
Arrival Narratives
The manner in which these migrating dance practices arrived in the Nordic
region can be understood with Lefebvre’s terms as articulating spatial practices
18
Manning, p. 187.
19
(Minneapolis, MN, 1996).
20
Paula Saukko, Doing Research in Cultural Studies (London et al., 2003), p. 181.
21
Ibid.
and representations of space as well as representational spaces (see Chapter 1).22

On arrival the dances were practised in various events in public spaces such as
schools, gym halls, theatres and cinemas; they became a topic for educational
books, cultural politics and historical narratives. They were also integrated into
different individuals’ lived experience, for example in the sense of moving the
body to new rhythms. All these aspects will be included in the analysis of arrival
narratives in the four countries.
Denmark and Sweden
There are small but important differences among the Nordic countries when it
comes to the migration and introduction of African–American jazz dance. A
shared trait in Denmark and Sweden was the importance of African–American
pedagogues in both introducing and establishing the genre. Conversely, in
Finland and Norway native Nordic dance teachers played a more dominant role.
Sweden has the most detailed and established historical narrative of how
jazz dance arrived in the country, and this event is usually dated to 1960.23
Guest performances from the late 1940s and 1950s had not managed to leave
a mark in Sweden, neither on the infrastructure of dance nor on mainstream
discourses about dance aesthetics, probably because they occurred just when
the ‘renaissance’ of classical ballet started to gain momentum. But during the
following decade African–American jazz dance became one of the most popular
and important genres to affect Swedish dance.
According to the narrative, Lia Schubert (originally from Austria and the
director of the Ballet Academy School in Stockholm) met African–American
dancer Walter Nicks at an international summer school in Krefeld, Germany, in
1959 and invited him to Stockholm to give a course in jazz dance the following
year. It was a summer course designed mainly for professionals and advanced
students, and it was an immediate success. Among the students were not only
well-known actors, but also ballet dancers from the Royal Swedish Opera in
Stockholm and from the Finnish Opera in Helsinki.24 Schubert’s initiative led to
jazz dance being programmed as one of the regular courses offered by the school,
both in evening classes aimed at amateurs and in the programme designed to
train professional dancers. Walter Nicks was soon followed by other African–
Americans employed to teach at the Ballet Academy, as well as in other dance
schools in big cities and small towns in the countryside. According to Schubert,
22
Lia Schubert et al. (eds), Ett decennium i rörelse (Stockholm, 1967); Bengt Häger,
23
‘Jazzdansens ursprung’, in Ivo Cramér et al., Jazzdans (Stockholm, 1975), p. 95.

24
Aftonbladet, 27 December 1961.
Figure 5.1 Talley Beatty teaches jazz dance at the Ballet Academy, Stockholm,
1967. Photographer: Beata Bergström. The Music and Theatre
Library of Sweden.
for the sake of furthering good artistic and pedagogical quality, it was imperative
to employ professional jazz dance teachers from abroad instead of relying on
Swedish-born talents.25
In Denmark, there is no fixed narrative of a jazz arrival in a manner similar to
that in Swedish dance history. However, it seems that different guest performances
had a large impact on the dance scene, at least on the discursive arena.26 During
the 1950s, they led to distinctions between entertainment and authenticity and,
starting in the 1960s, between jazz ballet/jazz dance and African ballet/dance.27
Rikki Septimus, born in South Africa, was among the first dancers to arrive and
settle down to teach.28 He had worked in a ballet company in London and was
hired for the international tour of West Side Story. The show visited Copenhagen
in 1962, and Septimus returned shortly after that to do choreography for a theatre
25
Svenska Dagbladet, 28 June 1963.
26
Vedel, p. 295 and passim.
27
Ibid., p. 300.
28
According to Engel (interview), Septimus was the very first person to introduce jazz
ballet in Denmark.
in the city.29 He started his own school, which became very popular and which also
attracted dancers from the Royal Danish Ballet to his classes for professionals.30
Other pedagogues arriving in the early 1960s were African–Americans Georges
Mills, Doug Crutchfield and Henry Turner.
Comparing the situations in Denmark and Sweden, it is interesting to note a
difference concerning forms of employment. The pedagogues in Denmark often
founded their own schools whereas the dance infrastructure in Sweden offered
the possibility of being hired at established or emerging schools, for example, the
Ballet Academy in Stockholm (1957), the Choreographic Institute in Stockholm
(1963) and the Ballet Academy in Gothenburg (1967). The situation in Sweden
had a special background, which involved a debate occurring in the 1950s
between the Swedish Dance Teacher Association (protecting private dance
schools) and other educational alternatives such as open universities (sponsored
by the local municipality and/or state). The latter schools could usually offer
less expensive courses than the private schools but had also been accused of not
providing high quality in their teaching and of lowering pedagogues’ wages.31
Because of the different funding models, the private dance schools found it
increasingly hard to alleviate their economic situation.
In Denmark the situation was different, and the private schools seem to
have adjusted in various ways to the changes in society and demands from
potential students. Georges Mills’s school in Copenhagen was called the
Danish–American Dance Theatre School in its first years, but in 1964 changed
its name to Georges Mills moderne ballet skole, advertising courses in jazz ballet
and stage dancing.32 The new emphasis on modern ballet, instead of dance
theatre, suggests a sensitivity to how jazz ballet had moved to the forefront as
a commonly recognised concept and how conceptual borders between modern
ballet and modern jazz were flexible (in the US the concept ‘modern jazz’ was
sometimes used).33 One of the school’s pedagogues was Doug Crutchfield, who
started teaching in 1963 but soon left and opened his own school in 1965. After
Vedel, p. 308.
29
Interview with Engel. She took part in Septimus’s professional dance class.
30
31
Britt-Marie Styrke, Utbildare i dans: Perspektiv på formeringen av en pedagogutbildning
1939–1965, dissertation (Umeå, 2010), pp. 14–35.
32
Danish–American Dance Theatre School, dance programme, private archive
(Copenhagen, 1963); Georges Mills moderne ballet skole, dance programme, private archive
(Copenhagen, 1964).
33
Häger, p. 89.
Figure 5.2 Doug Crutchfield teaching in 1975. Photographer: unknown.

Det Kongelige Biblioteks Kort- og Billedsamling, Denmark.
a number of years Crutchfield developed dance therapy programmes for the

elderly and worked with disabled children, along with his classes in jazz ballet.34
Henry Turner was director of the Henry Turner International Dance Center
of Scandinavia ApS, and his academy is an example of how schools could act as
social sub-cultures catering especially to a younger generation. In an advertising
leaflet from the 1976/1977 season, Turner’s school announced that it had a
disco, a sauna and a lounge for relaxing and socialising before and after dance
class. In addition, the school publicised a dance course in Athens, Greece, and
invited students to register and pay for the travel.35
In Sweden, Clifford Fears was one of a few African–American teachers to
start a school of his own. He had started teaching at the Ballet Academy in 1962,
but in 1964 he founded a school with courses in jazz, ballet and modern dance
for children and adults, amateurs and professionals.36 The school was supported
34
Anon, ‘Thanks to Doug Crutchfield Fru Nilsen Can Dance: Cincinnati Jazz Dancer
Helps Denmark’s Aged and Infirm Find New Joy in Living’, Ebony, no. 6, April 1970, pp. 86–90.
35
Henry Turner International Dance Center of Scandinavia ApS, dance programme,
private archive (Copenhagen, 1976).
36
Stockholmstidningen, 12 October 1964.
by Dunham and also named after her, the Katherine Dunham School. It had been
difficult to sustain her own school in New York, established in 1944, and she
closed it in 1954.37 Fears returned to the US in 1970, with the intention of starting
a school in his hometown of Detroit, and the Swedish school closed down.
Finland and Norway
In contrast to both Denmark and Sweden, jazz dance in Finland and Norway
was initially more dependent on native teachers. In Finland there were mainly
three individuals who had an impact on the early jazz scene: Tamara Rasmussen,
Riitta Vainio and Heikki Värtsi.38
Tamara Rasmussen had studied ballet in Copenhagen at the Royal Danish
Ballet School during the Second World War and began to teach jazz dance in her
own ballet school in Helsinki in the early 1960s. African–American Ted Shorter,
who mainly worked as a musician and vocalist but also taught jazz dance and so-
called ‘primitive dance’, inspired Rasmussen, and they became dance partners.39
Little is known about Shorter, but he probably came to Finland in the late 1950s.
Rasmussen continued improving her knowledge in jazz techniques, for example
in Stockholm with Walter Nicks and Talley Beatty. Her school still exists and is
run today by her daughter, Vivianne Budsko-Lommi.
In 1962, Rasmussen and Shorter gave a performance together with Riitta
Vainio called Dialogues for Jazz; Shorter was working at this time in Vainio’s
dance school. The programme bills choreography by both Shorter and Vainio
for solo, duets and group.40 Shorter performed Cake-walk, dances to Negro
Spirituals, the solo dance Jazz in Gold, and a duet with Rasmussen called Mood
of Expression. He also choreographed his own version of West Side Story, which
was unfavourably compared by critics to the original version by Jerome Robbins,
which was being shown at the same time in cinemas.41
Riitta Vainio had studied dance in the US, at the Philadelphia Academy of
Music between 1959 and 1961. Returning to Finland, she started a dance school.
In Finnish dance history she is considered among the pioneers of modern dance,
but in her own writing she also highlights her work with introducing jazz dance
to Finland.42 According to Vainio, she aimed at working on a more serious level
Manning, pp. 187–8.

37
Interview with Suhonen.

38
39
Ibid.
40
Dialogues for Jazz, dance programme, private archive (Helsinki, 1962).
41
Hufvudstadsbladet, 12 November 1962.
42
Riitta Vainio, Jazztanssi Suomessa (2003), www.riittavainio.net/ (accessed 5 March
2012).
Figure 5.3 Rehearsal of West Side Story in 1963. Photographer: Juhani

Riekkola. Tampere Theatre.
than the performances with Ted Shorter offered and therefore stopped working
with him.43 In 1963, Shorter was expelled from Finland; the exact reason is not
known, but his working permit was not extended.44 Vainio continued to pursue
her interest in jazz dance and invited guest teachers to give courses at her school,
among them Walter Nicks and Talley Beatty.
The third influential person in Finland was ballet dancer Heikki Värtsi,
who worked at the National Opera. Like many opera dancers in Sweden, he
became interested in jazz dance in the early 1960s and went to summer schools
to improve his dancing. He was involved as a choreographer in the first Nordic
production of West Side Story, which took place in Tampere, Finland, in 1963.45
Värtsi became important as a jazz dance pedagogue, when he started teaching at
a new school set up at the Helsinki City Theatre (which later developed into a
professional dance company and today is called the Helsinki Dance Company).
43
Ibid.
44
Interview with Tiina Suhoonen, 2012.
45
Aino Kukkonen, ‘Jazzia ja Jameksia: Tanssi musikalissa West Side Story’, in Katri
Tanskanen and Mikko-Olavi Seppälä (eds), Suomen teatteri ja drama (Helsinki, 2010),
pp. 279–90; Heikki Värtsi and Aino Kukkonen, Heikki Värtsi: Laidasta laitaan (Helsinki,
2011).
In Norway there are slightly different narratives concerning the early phase,
and a unified history has yet to be published. Of the names mentioned, all but
one came from Norway. Randi Frønsdal was among the first dancers who started
teaching jazz dance. She had an education in classical ballet and had danced in
revues in Norway.46 She also worked at the opera in Gothenburg, Sweden, and
at the open-air theatre at Liseberg, an amusement park in that city. There she
danced with white American Gene Nettles, who had a background from the
Dunham School and from Broadway musicals. He moved to Norway in 1958
and four years later to Copenhagen, where he choreographed musicals.47 Inspired
by new movement styles, Frønsdal travelled to New York several times during the
1960s. She found work on Broadway and took lessons at June Taylor’s school,
which offered different dance styles including modern jazz with teachers such as
David Harris and Herman Howell.48 Howell later moved to Sweden and taught
jazz dance in different schools for amateurs and professionals. In newspaper
interviews from this time, Frønsdal mentioned her plans to open a school of her
own, and in 1963 she started giving lessons in classical ballet and jazz ballet.49 In
1968 she opened a new centre for jazz ballet and modern dance in Oslo
Another important school for the furthering of jazz dance was the Ballet
Institute in Oslo, founded in 1966 by Jorunn and Even Kirkenær. Jorunn
Kirkenær has been called the ‘mother of jazz dance’,50 but she never studied
the dance technique herself.51 Together with her husband, she started a dance
studio as early as 1963, and the couple talked enthusiastically about the new
jazz ballet that they were going to include in the school’s curricula, employing
Gene Nettles and Main Kristoffersen as teachers.52 Kristoffersen had learned the
jazz technique from Nettles,53 and she would remain at the Institute as a jazz
pedagogue.54 In 1970 the white American pedagogue Matt Mattox arrived for
Interview with Randi Frønsdal, 14 January 2012.

46
New York Times, 23 April 1994, www.nytimes.com/1994/04/23/obituaries/gene-

47
nettles-dancer-and-choreographer (accessed 18 January 2012).

48
Interview with Frønsdal.
49
Aftenposten, 19 November 1962; Aftenposten, 6 May 1963. In Frønsdal´s memoirs
she dates her first teaching assignment to 1964, and there are also some other facts in her
book that digress from the information in interviews and articles in the newspapers of the
time: Randi Frønsdal, Dans med Randi (Oslo, 2012), p. 31.
50
Edda Espeland, ‘Jorunn Kirkenær’, Store Norske leksikon, http://snl.no/.nbl_
biografi/Jorunn_Kirkenær/utdypning (accessed 13 November 2012).
51
Vivian Songe, ‘Da dansen ble fri’, in Aftenposten K!, 25 October 2011, pp. 46–53.
52
Aftenposten, 9 May 1963.
53
54
Kristoffersen has been called the first ambassador of jazz dance to Norway: Songe, p.
51. Hence it seems the different ways in which Frønsdal, Kirkenær and Kristoffersen worked
Figure 5.4 Randi Frønsdal in Gothenburg, 1960s. Photographer: unknown.

Private archive.
the first time to teach at the school and became one of the most influential jazz
teachers from abroad in Norway.
Embodied Experiences
In several of my sources it has been articulated how mesmerising the practising

of the jazz technique was when people encountered it for the first time in a dance
studio, and this experience forms a significant part of the arrival narratives.
Lis Engel gives an impression of her very first jazz class with Rikki Septimus
in the early 1960s, when he introduced the technique by showing the students
a walking step. She explains how fantastic it felt to suddenly realise how you
could isolate your hips while walking and move them from side to side.55 Randi
Frønsdal expresses a similar awareness of the body, describing the way her ballet
training felt different once she tried out the new movement possibilities inherent
in the torso, arms and head that she found in different jazz techniques.56
As a means of explaining the fundamentals of dance in an educational
setting, Henry Turner wrote:
Dance is … first and foremost an expressive medium … Repressed conflict …

can be expressed in dance, and in the expression, anxieties are diminished and
inner tensions reduced. Dance offers a means of releasing both physical and
psychological tension … Psychological, to stimulate and encourage people to
express themselves freely in movement … Social, to get people to join a dance class
which would develop its own goals, to develop personal and social relationship.57
Turner’s private school offered lessons in different dance styles, and accordingly
his ideas about the empowering effects of movement were not limited to the
jazz technique. However, because of the kind of music or live drumming that
accompanied the typical jazz class of the time, it was most likely this type of
rhythmic sensibility that lent itself best to arguments concerning both the
physical and psychological release. This is clear in Lis Engel’s book on bodily
awareness and jazz gymnastics, in which she defines the jazz technique according
to its various rhythmic possibilities and links it to bodily emancipation.58
Moreover, the focus on the combined cultural, psychological and somatic
with the establishment of jazz dance in Norway have yet to be compared and studied in
detail. Frønsdal’s connection to jazz ballet is mentioned in newspapers as early as 1962.
55
Interview with Engel.
56
57
Henry Turner International Dance Center of Scandinavia ApS, dance programme.
58
Lis Engel, Kropsbevidsthed og jazzgymnastik (Copenhagen, 1975), pp. 6–7.
aspects of dancing is important in order to understand the widespread impact

of jazz dancing. It went hand in hand with other liberating practices in the arts
during the 1960s and 1970s – in painting, music and creative drama.
In summary, the arrival narratives of African–American jazz dance in the
Nordic region highlight individual entrepreneurship by both foreign and native
dance artists, made possible with the help of an emerging network of dance
schools and by the immense popularity associated with the dance genre. The
most notable differences between the countries concern the reliance on foreign
or native dance pedagogues and employment structures. It was only in Sweden
that it was difficult to start private schools; this was because there was already a
fairly well-established infrastructure of dance schools, supported by state and/
or local authorities.
An additional important factor in the reception patterns in all four countries
was the empowering physical as well as psychological effect of moving to jazz
music. In Engel’s vivid description of the objective of learning the jazz dance
technique, the goal is life enjoyment and energy, expressed and experienced
through dynamic and consciously polyrhythmic movements.59
The arrival period embraced the formulation of new post-war cultural
policies in most parts of the Nordic region. There were differences between
national policies, but the role of the welfare state, when it was articulated in
explicit cultural policies, was quite similar. Its objective was to create regulations
for funding on a national basis where state, region and municipality were
supposed to cooperate, as well as to ensure cultural democracy and artistic
freedom.60 In the early 1960s, when African–American artists and dance forms
arrived, reform work was well underway in the four countries, but the official
recognition, in policy documents, that many cultures co-exist and ‘deserve
support and funding’ came somewhat later.61 It is probably difficult to argue for
too tight a link between dancing and the emerging cultural policies at this time.
Nevertheless, the different ideas expressed in policy documents concerning
individual freedom and collective solidarity, which existed as a field of tension
in conceptualisations of welfare-based culture projects, can also be found in the
sphere of dancing, as the analysis will show in the following section on media
and edification.
59
Ibid., p. 8.
60
Peter Duelund, ‘Cultural Policy in the Small Nations of Norden’, in Peter Duelund
(ed.), The Nordic Cultural Model (Copenhagen, 2003), pp. 415–36.
61
Ibid., p. 418.
Jazz, Media and Edification
A similar trait in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden was the close
connection between the new dance genre and the media, especially television.
The same year the first dance course took place in Sweden, in 1960, the Swedish
national broadcasting company SVT aired a jazz ballet choreographed by
Walter Nicks to the music Sax Appeal by the Swedish pianist Nils Lindberg.
Some of Nicks’s dances were also shown in Norway in the 1960s, among
them Blue Rondo with ballet dancers from the Royal Swedish Opera Ballet
and Nettet [the Net], a version of Shakespeare’s Othello.62 In 1962 the Danish
national broadcasting company DR showed Jazz-Ballet ABC, an educational
documentary produced in Germany and edited for the Danish audience.63
In 1966 Frønsdal choreographed and danced jazz ballet with her students as
part of Nordvision TV broadcasting, which was filmed on location in Finland
and aired as entertainment on New Year’s Eve for audiences in all the Nordic
countries. The Nordvision organisation was established in 1959 and was aimed
at strengthening public service television in the Nordic region.64
This was a time when dance became part of a general educational trend
in the media, and documentaries were often billed in connection with
dance performances, offering the audience contextual information about
choreographers, dances and dance techniques. In 1966 Lia Schubert and Walter
Nicks were looking for two talented teenagers to take part as dance students
in an educational TV series on jazz ballet, in which Nicks and other teachers
would demonstrate the basic steps and movements.65 Suddenly, jazz dance
was everywhere in film and on television, revealing the extent to which jazz
dance had become part of mainstream culture. The filmed version of West Side
Story (1961) gave people across the Nordic region impressions of new ways
of moving the body, with its rhythmic syncopations, finger-snapping accents,
body part isolations and angular body shapes. It can be argued that these
images became incorporated in local identities. Appadurai notes how films
with global distribution have turned ‘locality into a staging ground for identity’,
and consequently pleads for a ‘fresh approach to the role of the imagination in
social life’.66 Therefore, embodied experiences can potentially be understood as
appearing in many different ways – through watching film and performances or
62
Aftonbladet, 27 December 1961; Aftenposten, 26 February 1968.
63
Politiken, 15 May 1962.
64
At www.nordvision.org (accessed 18 March 2012).
65
Göteborgs Handels och Sjöfarts Tidning, 26 August 1966.
66
Appadurai, Modernity at Large, pp. 41, 52.
dancing yourself. Imagined or practised, either way the corporeal sensation may
well have the power to deeply affect individuals and larger groups of people.
In 1966, both Swedish and Finnish television broadcast the programme A
Boundless Evening at the Opera. It was produced as the starting point of a whip-
round to aid the American civil rights movement and was later reported to have
made an impression on US politicians.67 The show included appearances by Harry
Belafonte and Dr Martin Luther King; it presented the Swedish comic stand-
up duo ‘Hasse & Tage’, Finnish actors, the Swedish singer Alice Babs, and a solo
dance by Clifford Fears. The show was performed at the Royal Swedish Opera
and had an in-house audience comprising high-ranking politicians and cultural
actors. Its ideological and visual impact was strong, and through Fears it helped
transform jazz dance into a corporeal articulation of mainstream culture. It is
important to note that Fears had trained in many different dance techniques, and
his solo dance revealed this eclectic style. It is possible that his African–American
identity and the Negro Spirituals to which he danced created an image of ‘jazz’,
disregarding the different stylistic elements in the dancing itself.
The same year saw the broadcast of Nicks and Schubert’s pedagogical TV
programme, aimed at introducing the technique of jazz dance to a broader
audience. The essentialist perspective, which argued that Swedes did not have
‘the rhythm in their blood’ and therefore could not dance jazz, was a view
articulated in the media in connection with performances in the early 1960s.68
It was replaced a few years later by an educational attitude, in which the genre
was considered a bridge between the elite and the common.69 In this manner
African–American jazz dance was considered suitable for amateurs in evening
classes as well as for professional dancers. For amateur students in evening
schools the dance genre was thought to help improve the students’ awareness
of themselves, simultaneously by their learning a new dance technique and
expressing themselves in movement, and by changing their attitude towards
people from other cultures, by not just learning the dance but also understanding
the cultural roots of the dance.70 This double objective created a dilemma. Self-
improvement was made possible by reducing the dance to a technique for
physical well-being and self-expressive movements, which stands in contrast to
67
Harry Belafonte made this comment in an interview, in connection with a rerun of
the programme in 2003, by SVT’s Channel 1.
68
Veckojournalen, no. 30, 1961; Stockholmstidningen, 13 July 1961; Stockholmstidningen,
15 February 1965.
69
Styrke, p. 146.
70
Lena Hammergren, ‘Modernitet – ett dansande 1900-tal’, in Lena Hammergren,
Karin Helander, Tiina Rosenberg and Willmar Sauter (eds), Teater i Sverige (Hedemora,
2004), p. 174.
placing an emphasis on understanding jazz dance as a cultural expression that

originated in a particular geographical place.
Genres Imbricate… and Divide
A common feature in all four countries is the aesthetics of cross-genres appearing

in performance repertoire and in work structures. In two dance instruction
books, published in 1975 in Denmark and Sweden respectively, the historical
intertwining of jazz dance, ballet and modern dance is made explicit.71 The mix
of classical ballet, modern dance, folk dancing and primitive dancing was used
as a definition of jazz ballet as early as 1962 in the presentation of the genre in
Helsinki as an introduction to the first live performance together by Shorter,
Vainio and Rasmussen.72
The overlapping of aesthetics can also be noted in the different types of
employment the dance artists and choreographers became involved in. Several
of the artists were multitalented, with an aptitude in different dance genres.
Dyane Gray, who first came to teach in Riitta Vainio’s school in Helsinki and
then moved to Sweden, was described as both a modern dancer and a jazz dancer.
Together with Georges Mills she performed in the Swedish choreographer
Birgit Åkesson’s modernist abstract dance Movements (1965) and in the jazz-
influenced Rytmisk ballad i vit natt (1966). Rikki Septimus shifted between
teaching ballet and jazz dance. African–American Gene Hill Sagan was
educated in ballet and was a guest teacher in Mills’ school in Copenhagen,73
besides dancing in Sweden in the performance Jazzbalett 63 and in Ivo Cramér’s
historical ballets at the Drottningholm Theatre, an eighteenth-century court
theatre outside Stockholm.
This open structure, which was characteristic of the 1960s, both with
regard to how jazz dance was defined as an aesthetic genre and to employment
structures, can be considered an articulation of a particular local socio-cultural
space. In the US during the same decade, there was a focus on modern dance,
which was conceived as being quite separate from what was then called Negro
dance. The argument, stated explicitly or implicitly, was that black bodies could
only perform self-representation as ‘Negroes’, and they could not universalise
Engel, Kropsbevidsthed, p. 9; Häger, pp. 89–90.

71
Nya Pressen, 10 November 1962.

72
73
For biographical data on Gene Hill Sagan, see Dawn Lille Horwitz, ‘The New
York Negro Ballet in Great Britain’, in Thomas F. DeFrantz (ed.), Dancing Many Drums:
Excavations in African American Dance (Madison, WI, and London, 2002), pp. 317–39.
meaning in motion in the manner of white modern dancers.74 Central to the

dance field in the US was the American Dance Festival, where summer courses
in modern techniques and performances had been held since the late 1940s. It
was not until 1962 that an African–American artist both taught and performed
there.75 It took a few more years before African–American artists appeared
regularly as both pedagogues and artists at the festival. In the Nordic context,
however, simultaneous employment as dancers, choreographers and pedagogues
was quite frequent, especially in Denmark and Sweden.
Beneath the surface of this success, this phase of establishment experienced
problems, which stemmed partly from the multidimensional use of jazz dance.
There was a similar development in the Nordic countries, in which jazz dance
became integrated and/or associated with movement training and gymnastics
for amateurs instead of with artistic aesthetics and professional choreography –
a dichotomy that became increasingly pronounced from the late 1960s onwards.
In fact it was in the Nordic region that the concept and practice of so-called
jazz gymnastics first appeared.76 In 1966 Swedish teacher in physical education
Monica Beckman published a book on the training programme designed for
physical education in schools and for use in people’s homes.77 This gymnastic
style mixed isolation movements from jazz dance with movements from ballet
and modern dance. In the late 1950s the school for teachers of physical education
in Stockholm had begun to invite guest teachers in modern dance, and as soon
as jazz pedagogues arrived from the US, they became involved in the education
programme.78 This interest spread throughout the Nordic countries. In 1968 the
educational board for schools in Oslo decided to create new directions for the
teaching of physical education, determining that jazz dance, jazz gymnastics and
free dance should be used to stimulate play and expressive creativity.79 In arguing
for the rewarding use of jazz gymnastics in schools, Beckman referred to how
teenagers dance to pop music: ‘You only have to see their free expression on the
dance floor to understand that young people today have a great need to articulate
the rhythmic dimensions of movement’.80 She continued by remarking that it is
the bodily engagement with rhythmic movements that can attract young people
and eliminate the feeling that gymnastics is boring.81
74
Manning, p. 213.
75
Ibid., p. 187.
76
Helmut Günther, Jazz Dance: Geshichte/Theorie/Praxis (Berlin, 1982).
77
Monica Beckman, Jazzgymnastik i hem och skola (Stockholm, 1966).
78
Interview with Gun Román, 11 April 2012.
79
Aftenposten, 25 October 1971.
80
Beckman, Jazzgymnastik i hem, p. 107 (my translation).
81
Ibid.
Figure 5.5 Monica Beckman teaches jazz gymnastics to teenagers, 1960s.

Photographer: unknown. Private archive.
Alongside this development, it was crucial for educational purposes to make

distinctions between different forms of jazz techniques, so classificatory schemas
were constructed. One of them appears in Monica Beckman’s second book on
jazz gymnastics, which depicts how jazz technique (originating from various
primordial dance forms according to the text) combined with classical ballet
and free dance forms to produce jazz ballet. This genre was then influenced
by gymnastics, and as jazz gymnastics it can be used in all kinds of contexts:
for physical well-being and relaxation to music, to train elite gymnasts, as
improvisation for children, in psychological therapy, and so on.82
In Sweden the dance establishment gradually began to consider jazz dance
not serious enough to be part of the education of professional dancers. Lia
Schubert herself experienced being expelled from the ‘inner’ circle of dance
specialists and dance bureaucrats and decided to leave Sweden and the Ballet
Academy in 1968 for a teaching job in Israel.83
In Denmark a similar tendency developed of using jazz dance for educational
purposes rather than in artistic performance when jazz gymnastics and modern
dance became integrated in educational systems with a focus on physical education
Monica Beckman, Jazzgymnastik II (Stockholm, 1971).
82
Lotta Goldman, Lia Schubert – en dröm, ett liv (Göteborg, 1995), p. 81; Dagens
83
Nyheter, 12 March 1968.

and individual emancipation.84 In performance practices, theatrical forms of

modern dance and jazz dance were kept separate. This was most noticeable with
regard to the emerging dance companies that helped articulate the modern or
alternative dance genre in Denmark: Eske Holm og Dansere, Living Movement,
and Diane Black’s Dance Theatre/Creative Dance Theatre.85 Jazz dance was never
an explicit component in the repertoire of these artists and companies.
Diversities and Differences: Conclusion
From a longer perspective, it is relevant to ask whether the migration of African–

American jazz dance to the Nordic countries had a more profound impact, with
results that can be seen today. It is rather unproblematic to argue that the jazz
trend of the 1960s and 1970s made way for the import of different kinds of
street dance styles in the hip-hop culture to the Nordic region in the following
decades. From Lis Engel’s field study of hip hop in Copenhagen, it is possible to
infer that some of the locally danced expressions, such as accentuating offbeat
rhythms and highlighting a strong polarity between control and release,86 can be
found in the jazz dancing of previous decades.
In actuality, students kept attending classes in jazz dance in large numbers
well into the 1980s, although the technique itself, performed professionally and
artistically, seemed to experience a decrease in aesthetic importance in the realm
of high art. Jazz dance moved into the entertainment branch, in musical and
show cultures, with a few exceptions. The close connection between jazz dance
and gymnastics that was particular to the Nordic region may have prevented
professional jazz dance from continuing to grow as an established genre. With
this background, it is interesting to locate the socio-cultural phenomena that
are characteristic of the Nordic countries and that informed the development.
When African–American jazz dance arrived in the region, it immediately
helped to create a new diversity in movement, which complemented the earlier
dominance of European classical ballet and/or Central European free dance. The
question is why this did not lead to a kind of ‘movement equality’ in the long
run, where dance styles and dancers could move between genres and also interact
with one another, as they had done in the early 1960s with the overlapping
of aesthetics and shifting forms of employment. Rustom Bharucha’s analysis
of intracultural practices has convincingly articulated the productive space
84
Vedel, p. 328 and passim.
85
Ibid., p. 345.
86
Lis Engel, ‘Body Poetics of Hip Hop Dance Styles in Copenhagen’, Dance Chronicle,
24/3 (2001), pp. 351–72.
between diversities and differences ‘wherein the intracultural is most sharply,

and productively, negotiated’.87 According to his argument, social, economic
and political differences always operate beneath the form of cultural diversity.
Diversities never exist on an equal level. In his example, cultural diversity is
discussed through the many languages in India. So the richness of diversity is at
the same time ‘a manifestation of inequality’,88 and hierarchisations of languages
thus appear. If we imagine a dance hierarchy to be the result of many dance styles
existing side by side, a relevant question follows: What cultural differences or
inequalities were most obvious during the 1960s and 1970s in the Nordic region
in terms of having an impact on dancing?
Ethnicity
One feature that had an impact on the development of jazz dance was discourses
on ethnicity or even the lack of such explicit discourse in Nordic media. In Sweden
it was articulated in newspaper debates in the 1960s how it was impossible for
Swedish dancers to perform jazz dance, implying that only African–American
artists ‘had rhythm in their blood’. Karen Vedel notes how the mainstream
attitude to jazz dance in Denmark during the 1960s was connected with the
choreography in West Side Story of the white American Jerome Robbins and
with the Danish musical Teenagerlove (1962) choreographed by Fredbjørn
Bjørnsson, rather than with its African–American or African origins.89 Given
the manner in which jazz dance arrived in Norway and Finland, initially mainly
through native teachers, it is perhaps not surprising that there was no explicit
discourse on ethnicities. The dance in Norway, like in Denmark, was often
associated with youth culture and a sense of ‘joie de vivre’.90 In Finland this
sentiment of pleasure was perhaps linked to the great success of staging the first
Nordic version of West Side Story with only native Finnish actors/dancers.
In some of the texts that deal with physical education and dance for
amateurs, the African–American origins of the jazz dance are moved to the
background, and emphasis is instead placed on the dance as a vehicle for physical
and psychological self-improvement. In the context of cultural policies, the
Nordic model has been described as striving for ‘the ability to merge concepts
of collective social justice with individual liberation’,91 an equation that has not
always worked without friction. Individual freedom and collective solidarity can
87
Bharucha, p. 84.
88
Ibid., p. 85.
89
Vedel, pp. 306–9.
90
Aftenposten, 15 December 1975; Aftenposten, 25 August 1979.
91
Peter Duelund, ‘Cultural Policy in Denmark’, in Duelund (ed.), p. 39.
be seen as two opposing modes that strived to unite in the dance world as well.
This was articulated in the way jazz dance was imagined to mark its connection
with its specific African–American origins and at the same time unmark the
very same cultural roots. In the socio-political climate foregrounding equality
between social classes and influencing the cultural policies of the time, it was
not always considered important to stress aspects of cultural heritage and ethnic
identity. It would still take some years before ideas about multicultural societies
were to be addressed in policy documents and public discourse and have an
impact on dancing in the Nordic region.92
The Demands on the Body
What does it mean to practise a dance form that is experienced as new to

one’s habitual movement patterns? Bharucha has reflected on the corporeal
experiences in intercultural work and the challenges this proposes: ‘[it] is an
enormously taxing practice in the demands that it makes on the body … as
one takes in different physical and sensory stimuli from an alien space’.93 As I
have described, many of the people who started training in jazz dance found it
particularly rewarding because of the way they were forced to break their spatial,
kinaesthetic and rhythmical patterns. But in actuality, the corporeal pressure
to move in new ways might be a reason why the jazz dance technique in time
became more important to the emerging jazz gymnastics for amateurs than for
professional dancers. Here was a corporeal practice in which it seems to have
been easier to include certain African–American-derived movements than in
artistic work, both in schools and as an activity for promoting general health.
Jazz gymnastics was still based on familiar ways of moving and might therefore
not have challenged a corporeal habitus to the same extent as the professionally
performed jazz dance sometimes did. The long tradition of support for
gymnastics in the Nordic educational system was an additional infrastructural
feature that helped reshape the African–American movements into a bodily
practice adjusted to local habitual patterns. Assisting in this process of alteration
was television and its focus on educational jazz programmes, aimed at broad
groups of audiences.
With today’s critical vocabulary at hand, it is possible to query the willingness
to open up to unknown dance forms, and to perceive it as a desire that stresses
self-enrichment and appropriation rather than as a means to develop a more
nuanced understanding of culturally significant movement practices. At the
92
Lena Hammergren, ‘Dance and Democracy in Norden’, in Karen Vedel (ed.), Dance
and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Trondheim, 2011), pp. 175–96.
93
Bharucha, p. 193.
same time, these critical perspectives also help us appreciate how important
different African–American dancers and dances were in mobilising new modes
for people of relating to their bodies. In this way the migrating pedagogues and
dancers have also been integral to Nordic dance history and have helped redefine
the national ‘borders’ of this particular geography.
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Hufvudstadsbladet, 12 November 1962.
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Anon., ‘Thanks to Doug Crutchfield Fru Nilsen Can Dance: Cincinnati Jazz
Dancer Helps Denmark’s Aged and Infirm Find New Joy in Living’, Ebony,
no. 6 (April 1970), pp. 86–90.
Appadurai, Arjun, ‘Grassroots, Globalization and the Research Imagination’, in
Arjun Appadurai (ed.), Globalization (Durham, NC, and London: Duke
University Press, 2001), pp. 1–21.
Beckman, Monica, Jazzgymnastik II (Stockholm: Beckmans bokförlag, 1971).
Beckman, Monica, Jazzgymnastik i hem och skola (Stockholm: Beckmans
bokförlag, 1966).
an Age of Globalization (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001).
DeFrantz, Thomas F., ‘African American Dance: A Complex History’, in Thomas
F. DeFrantz (ed.), Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American
Dance (Madison, WI, and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002),
pp. 3–35.
Duelund, Peter, ‘Cultural Policy in Denmark’, in Peter Duelund (ed.), The Nordic
Cultural Model (Copenhagen: Nordic Cultural Institute, 2003), pp. 31–77.
Duelund, Peter, ‘Cultural Policy in the Small Nations of Norden’, in Peter
Duelund (ed.), The Nordic Cultural Model (Copenhagen: Nordic Cultural
Institute, 2003), pp. 415–36.
Emery, Lynne Fauley, Black Dance from 1619 to Today, 2nd edition (London:
Dance Books, 1988).
Engel, Lis, ‘Body Poetics of Hip Hop Dance Styles in Copenhagen’, Dance
Chronicle, 24/3 (2001), pp. 351–72.
Engel, Lis, Kropsbevidsthed og jazzgymnastik (Copenhagen: J.Fr. Clausens
Forlag, 1975).
Frønsdal, Randi, Dans med Randi (Oslo, 2012).
Goldman, Lotta, Lia Schubert: En dröm, ett liv (Gothenburg: Tre böcker, 1995).
Günther, Helmut, Jazz Dance: Geshichte/Theorie/Praxis (Berlin: Henschel
verlag, 1982).
Häger, Bengt, ‘Jazzdansens ursprung’, in Ivo Cramér et al., Jazzdans (Stockholm:
Brevskolan, 1975), pp. 73–99.
danskultur runt 1900 (Stockholm: Carlssons förlag, 2002).
Hammergren, Lena, ‘Dance and Democracy in Norden’, in Karen Vedel (ed.),

Tapir Academic Press, 2011), pp. 175–96.
Hammergren, Lena, ‘Modernitet: Ett dansande 1900–tal’, in Lena Hammergren,
Karin Helander, Tiina Rosenberg and Willmar Sauter (eds), Teater i Sverige
(Hedemora: Gidlunds förlag, 2004), pp. 161–82.
Horwitz, Dawn Lille, ‘The New York Negro Ballet in Great Britain’, in Thomas
F. DeFrantz (ed.), Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American
Dance (Madison, WI, and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002),
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Kukkonen, Aino, ‘Jazzia ja Jameksia: Tanssi musikaalissa West Side Story’, in
Katri Tanskanen and Mikko-Olavis Seppälä (eds), Suomen teatteri ja drama
(Helsinki: Like Kustannus Oy, 2010), pp. 279–90.
Manning, Susan, Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion (Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004).
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(Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
Saukko, Paula, Doing Research in Cultural Studies: An Introduction to Classical
and New Methodological Approaches (London: Sage Publications, 2003).
Schubert, Lia et al. (eds), Ett decennium i rörelse (Stockholm: Stiftelsen
Kursverksamheten, 1967).
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Dans i världen (Stockholm: Carlssons förlag, 1993), pp. 155–85.
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Chapter 6
Class Dimensions of Dance Spaces:
Situating Central Agents across
Countries and Categories
Egil Bakka
Taking dance as a broad phenomenon involving a majority of the population, this

chapter surveys the whole range of dancing activities across the Nordic countries
in the first three decades of the twentieth century through a class reading. Class
is used in a Bourdieuian sense to mean people in similar situations in terms of
educational background and/or professional status. It is used in a discussion of
how the parents’ class influences the offspring’s path. The hypothesis is that there
is a correlation between the social background of the leading or most visible
individuals of a dance category and how they contribute to situating this dancing,
for instance, through the social spaces with which they engage when dancing.
As a first step of the survey, dancing activities were grouped into broad
categories. As a second step, 240 leading individuals from every category were
selected to make a biographical survey of their social background, based on their
parents’ professions. In the third step, the individuals from each category were
followed to the venues, institutions and organisations hosting their dancing to
look for patterns that may be connected to the biographical survey and the class
reading. This includes investigations of how the social structures and the dancing
were situated and valued in society. Finally, as a fourth step, Lefebvre’s thinking
was reflected in a discussion of how venues, institutions and organisations could
be read and analysed as social spaces and how this might add to the class reading.
The Categories of Dancing
While this volume as a whole operates with a broad distinction between theatre
dance, folk dance and popular dance forms, in the context of this chapter there
is a need to scrutinise the definition of these categories in more detail. While it
is acknowledged that categories will overlap and the borders between them will
Figure 6.1 Svae’s Dance School in the Rococo Hall at the Grand Hotel, Oslo,
1930s. Photographer: A.B. Wilse. Oslo Museum.
be blurred, there is still a need to work with open, broad concepts that seem
suitable and in tune with the understanding of that time period.1 The grouping
is done by viewing dancing as a series of social acts and is not focused on the
forms of dances.
Folk, Ballroom and Theatre Dance
The label of folk dance is taken to include the organised folk dance revival, and
not traditional dance, which the revival aimed and aims to represent. The term
ballroom dance includes the activities that dance schools and dance teachers
organised with a particular focus to serve social life in a broad sense and for
competition purposes. The term theatrical dance includes presentations of dance
1
The Norwegian dance teacher Hjalmar Svae tried to establish a periodical for all
kinds of dance in Norway and proposed that there were three categories, similar to those
proposed here: Hjalmar Svae, ‘[Forord]’, Dansen: Revy over dansen i dens forskjellige former,
vol. 1 (Oslo, 1925).
Class Dimensions of Dance Spaces 131
for audiences, on stage or in other settings, from ballet to variety shows, that is,
irrespective of what social status and value were attributed to it.2
The Dancing Crowds
It is worth remembering that the vast majority of dancing happened outside the
domains of these three categories. The informal and ad hoc groups who made up
dance events not arranged by agents of the categories above will be referred to as
the dancing crowds. It is the interaction of the people present that makes them a
dancing crowd, and nothing else. Also, the individuals themselves can very well
be even leading people within the three categories, but still indulge in joining the
dancing crowds. These groups were not organised to cultivate dance but danced
for the pleasure of it in a broad range of contexts. Neither the focus of the dance
material used nor the quality or form of the dancing itself was prescribed from
an external or leadership kind of perspective. It is important to note that people
of all classes could form or be part of dancing crowds, whether the dance venues
were divided according to class or not. Traditional dancing is also taken to be
part of the activity of the dancing crowds.3
Leading Individuals and Their Social Background
This chapter argues that there were differences between categories regarding
the social background of the leading individuals in dance practices during the
period 1900–1930. It also maintains that there were differences between the
Nordic countries as to the backgrounds of leading individuals within a category;
for instance, that the social backgrounds of leading folk dancers varied between
the countries.4 To find support for these positions, some 20 individuals from
each of the three categories were selected in each of the four countries studied:
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. This constitutes the sample of the
roughly 240 dance agents mentioned above.
2
Given the source situation and the limits set by the scope of this chapter, the principal
focus will be the main institutional ensembles, despite the open description of this category.
3
The distinctions between popular and traditional are difficult, pragmatic distinctions,
which have changed over time and have mainly been drawn by the revival folk dance
movements, based on ideas of what is worth safeguarding. In this context the distinction is not
necessary; see Mats Nilsson, ‘Participatory Dancing: The Polska Case’, in Karen Vedel (ed.),
Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Trondheim, 2011), p. 140.
4
Egil Bakka and Anne Margrete Fiskvik, ‘Tracing Dance Fields’, in Vedel (ed.), pp. 57–103.
The folk dance agents selected were pioneers of the folk dance movement
and were identified with the advice of fellow folk dance researchers in the other
Nordic countries,5 from among people who collected and/or published dances,
people who were important leaders or instructors, and people who wrote about
folk dance.6 Most of the agents selected did not have dance as a profession but
participated as amateur experts, many with considerable informal skills. The
agents from the field of ballroom dancing and dance schools were more difficult
to find, and the differences in source material between the countries were
striking. Relevant research publications are available in Denmark7 and Finland,8
but not in Sweden or Norway, where censuses and newspaper advertisements
were the main sources. The agents from theatre dance were mostly selected from
research monographs.9
After the selection of leading people in the three categories, the most
challenging task remained: finding those persons in public records10 that give
the profession or occupation of the agents’ parents.11 In the period 1900–1930
Thanks for help from Göran Andersson, Gunnel Biskop, Anders Chr. N. Christensen,
5
Petri Hoppu, Maj Vester Larsen, Mats Nilsson and Henning Urup.
6
The sources from which the leading individuals were selected include Gustav Karlson
(ed.), Beskrivning av svenska folkdanser och sällskapsdanser (Stockholm, 1952); Egil Bakka,
‘Innleiing: Turdansen i folkedansarbeidet’, in Klara Semb, Norske Folkedansar. Turdansar
(Oslo, 1991), pp. 17–58; Egil Bakka, Nordisk folkedanstypologi: En systematisk katalog over
publiserte nordiske folkedanser (Trondheim, 1997); Egil Bakka and Gunnel Biskop, Norden i
dans: Folk, fag, forskning (Oslo, 2007; Gunnel Biskop, Dans i lag: Den organiserade folkdansens
framväxt samt bruk och liv inom Finlands Svenska Folkdansring rf under 75 år (Helsingfors,
2007); Henning Urup, Dans i Danmark: Danseformerne ca. 1600 til 1950 (Copenhagen,
2007); Ralph Holm and Klavs Vedel, Folkedansen i Danmark (Copenhagen, 1946).
7
Urup, Dans i Danmark.
8
Sven Hirn, Våra danspedagoger och dansnöjen: Om undervisning och evenemang före
1914, vol. 505 (Helsinki, 1982).
9
danskultur runt 1900 (Stockholm, 2002); Karen Vedel, En anden dans: Moderne scenedans
i Danmark 1900–1975 (Copenhagen, 2008); Urup, Dans i Danmark; Valdemar Hansteen,
Historien om norsk ballett (Oslo, 1989); Anne Makkonen, ‘Existing Histories of Finnish
Dance Art’, http://files.kotisivukone.com/wwwmakkonen.kotisivukone.com/i_existing.pdf
(accessed 20 March 2012); Kajsa Rootzén, Den svenska baletten: Från Stiernhielm till Brita
Appelgren (Stockholm, 1945); Rolf de Maré and Bengt Häger, Rolf de Marés svenska balett
(Stockholm, 1947).
10
Thanks for assistance from Grethe Astradsen, Albertslund, Denmark; Niklas
Hertzman, ArkivDigital, Sweden; and Lars Söderström, Karis, Finland.
11
The professions of the agents themselves, and not just those of their parents, have
been recorded as far as possible and can be used to raise additional questions beyond what is
permitted by the scope of the chapter.
the large majority of mothers who were not widows were listed as housewives.
To simplify the work, only single mothers and mothers with professions
other than housewife are included in the lists. This means that we are mainly
working with fathers’ professions. While digitised and easily searchable sources
in Norway12 and Sweden13 usually reveal the professions of parents, access to
such information for Denmark and Finland is more difficult.14 The roughly 240
individuals selected for this analysis are assumed to represent themselves and the
group of 20 they are placed in, and are not seen as a representative selection of a
larger category; the analysis attempted is hermeneutic and not statistical. In the
following section, some main findings are listed and briefly discussed.
Sweden: Predominance of Highly Educated in Folk Dance; Artistic Work in

Theatre Dance
The most striking feature for Sweden is that there are eight individuals whose
parents have a job requiring tertiary education in the folk dance category, only
one in theatre dance, and none in the ballroom category. Secondly, there are
none with an artistic background in the folk dance category, but eight in theatre
dance and five in ballroom dance. It is worth noting that the artistic professions
do not seem to have very high social status. The leading individuals in Sweden
are largely from urban environments, 43 in all compared to 17 from a rural
environment. There is a balance in the folk dance category, whereas theatre
dance is least balanced.
Norway: Predominance of Business in Dance Theatre and Ballroom; Farming in

Folk Dance
The most striking feature in the Norwegian profiles is that 13 individuals from
folk dancing are sons or daughters of farmers (11) or fishermen (2). Theatre
dance and ballroom dancers are fairly similar to each other, with business the
most important profile of seven individuals in each category. Each has four
with university studies, while theatre dance has an additional four with artistic
profiles. This is in contrast to folk dancing, which has no one in these categories,
12
Digitalarkivet c/o Statsarkivet i Bergen, ‘Digitalarkivet’, 2011–2012, http://
arkivverket.no/arkivverket/Digitalarkivet (accessed 3 March 2012).
13
Riksarkivet (Sweden), Sveriges Befolkning (Stockholm, 2010); Riksarkivet/Sveriges
släktforskarförbund, Sveriges Befolkning 1890 (Stockholm, 2003); Riksarkivet/Sveriges
släktforskarförbund, Sveriges befolkning 1900 (Stockholm, 2006).
14
Information has been found on the web and in a variety of sources that would take
too much space to specify here.
whereas it is the only category with elementary school teachers (3). There are
no individuals with a rural background in theatre dancing, and only five in
ballroom dancing, while there are two with an immigrant background in each
category. Folk dancing has 17 with a rural, three with an urban, and none with
an immigrant background.
Denmark: Predominance of Highly Educated in Folk Dance; Artistic Work in

Theatre Dance
The Danish top score is the eight individuals whose parents have tertiary
education, and the six with a teacher’s background in the category of folk
dancing. Individuals whose parents undertake artistic work make up the largest
groups in theatre dance (7) and ballroom dancing (5). In addition, there are
some individuals with a military background, particularly in the category of
ballroom dancing. It should be noted that having an artistic background does
not usually entail professions of high status but seems to be on the same level as
a range of lower–middle class professions. There is a clear polarisation between
the mainly rural folk dancing (17 of 22) and the mainly urban theatre dance
(17 of 20) and ballroom dance (14 of 16). There is only one individual from an
immigrant background, belonging to theatre dance.
Finland: Predominance of Highly Educated and Farmers in Folk Dance; Upper-

class Background in Theatre Dance
As in every country, it was easy to select more than 20 Finnish individuals for
each category. Unfortunately, however, the information about their parents’
professions is incomplete. The folk dance category, the most complete category,
has information about 16 people, five of whose parents have a tertiary education
while six are farmers (4) or fishermen (2). The five individuals identified from
theatre dance come from higher, prestigious levels of society; the remaining
three are of foreign origin. Among the dance teachers, only four parents – all
with an immigrant background – could be identified. Of the 20 selected from
the folk dance category, 14 come from rural and six from urban environments.
Of the 12 individuals from theatre dance for whom information is available,
eight come from urban environments, one is from a rural environment, and
three are of foreign origin.
The Venues, Institutions and Organisations Hosting Dancing
The social structures that hosted dancing are of different kinds and are not
easily comparable. Not only does the availability of material determine what
interesting patterns can be found, but it also determines the extent to which the
categories are covered. Moreover, theatrical and ballroom dancing are mainly
professional categories, and the mechanisms behind and effects of the social
backgrounds are therefore likely to be different from those of folk dancing, a
category based in voluntary organisations.
Social Structures of Theatre and Ballroom Dance
In a comparison across the Nordic countries, the category of theatre dance has
the most widely differing histories and could be seen as the most diverse in terms
of status and position around 1900. Denmark and Sweden had been strong
monarchies for centuries and had royal ballets from the eighteenth century
onwards. Despite their formal status as nation states, Finland and Norway had
functioned more like provinces within other countries for centuries and were
essentially establishing their traditions in this field.15
In all four countries, theatre and ballroom dance are closely interconnected,
first of all because a good number of important ballet people also teach ballroom
dancing;16 this interconnection is strongest in Denmark and weakest in Norway.
In addition, many dance schools teach just as much plastik17 and ballet as
ballroom, so they also train future theatre dancers. For this reason we shall
discuss the two categories together; since the sources for ballroom dance are so
meagre, the focus will be on theatre dance.18
Denmark and Sweden: The Old Royal Ballet Companies Stagnating?
Karen Vedel’s and Lena Hammergren’s research on the status of the royal ballets
in Denmark and Sweden in the decades of interest will be discussed in detail
in Chapter 8. The main point in the case of Denmark is that ballet dancers
were not given much work at the Royal Danish Theatre and therefore looked
elsewhere for work at this time. Many earned an income as dance teachers with
their own dance schools, others as ballet masters in private theatres. In the case
15
Bakka and Fiskvik.
16
Vedel, p. 31; Hirn, pp. 115–129; Urup, Dans i Danmark, pp. 249–260.
17
A term for teaching grace and decorum: Vedel, p. 32.
18
Complex questions about the dance material taught and the various approaches to
dance are not touched upon here, but this is surely relevant for a class reading.
of the Royal Swedish Ballet, the situation at the turn of the century is similar,
with a fairly thin selection of ballets in the Opera’s repertoire, a lack of male
dancers, and an abundance of other kinds of theatrical dance, such as in variety
shows and touring international artists. Even some operetta theatres had ballet
companies.19 As for ballroom dance, there do not seem to have been as many
ballet dancers in this profession as in Denmark.
In general, dance teachers seem to be fewer in Sweden, with lower status
and less visibility in the public arena in the first part of the twentieth century
than in the other Nordic countries. Whereas Denmark has a dance teachers’
organisation as early as 1916 with a periodical of its own, Swedish dance teachers
do not form an organisation until 1936 and do not publish any journal in the
period investigated.20
The selected agents in theatre dance in Sweden and Denmark do not have
parents from the higher echelons of society, with one clear exception, Rolf de
Maré, to whom we shall return. In both countries modest artistic professions
make up the largest groups, while the rest of the parents belong to the lower
middle class and are in crafts or small businesses. The same holds for the dance
teachers, with the exception of several of the Danish agents, who have fathers
with a military background. One reason for this may be that there was an
education programme for dance teachers at the Hærens Gymnastikskole [The
Army’s Gymnastics School].21
Swedish dance pedagogue Birgit Boman commented casually on the social
background of children learning theatre dance, finding it remarkable that dance
students even in the early twentieth century come from the lower classes and
are often the children of single mothers. She does not give any references to
support her claims, but as a leading dancer in Swedish companies in the 1940s,
she would have a basis for this, knowing about her predecessors, who were only
some 20 years older than she. In the group selected for this chapter, there may
well be four or five who were born to single mothers or grew up with them.
Lena Hammergren gives a vivid picture of life in the ballet school of the Royal
Swedish Opera, where the most gifted children could earn money from an early
age,22 which was of course an important opportunity for families who were not
well off financially.
Hammergren, p. 184.
19
Olle Bengtson, ‘Svensk Danssporthistoria’, 2012, http://www.ssdk.nu/ollehistoria.

20
html (accessed 20 March 2012).

21
Urup, Dans i Danmark, p. 257.
22
Hammergren, p. 104.
Figure 6.2 Jean Börlin, 13 years old (1906), surrounded by female pupils
and dancers of the corps de ballet. Photographer: unknown. Rolf
de Maré Study Centre, Dansmuseet, Stockholm.
The old system of having talented children live at the dance school to learn ballet,
as Hans Beck reports from Copenhagen,23 was clearly a valuable opportunity for
children from modest circumstances or from out of town to get an education
and a livelihood. Internal drive would of course be critical, and growing up in
an artistic environment could be an incentive, but the career prospects would
seem fairly bleak for people in upper-middle-class jobs. It also seems that the
ballet dancers brought up in ballet schools then went straight into jobs in the
ballet ensemble and had limited opportunities to go abroad to study. In other
words, the two old ballet companies in Sweden and Denmark may be read as
relatively isolated spaces, where children, mostly from the lower classes, got a
solid education and had the chance to become stars. The question was what kind
of stardom could be achieved on the national stage alone.
It is hardly by chance that the person who brought a ballet company with
many Nordic dancers onto international stages, Rolf de Maré (1888–1964),
was an outsider from a rich aristocratic family. Through his company Les Ballets
23
Hans Beck, Fra livet og dansen (Copenhagen, 1944), p. 48.
Suédois [The Swedish Ballets], he brought some 40 dancers in all, mainly from
Sweden and Denmark but also a few from Finland, Norway and other countries,
to perform in Paris and on long tours around Europe and the US from 1920 to
1925.24 Dance historian Marina Grut reports that de Maré offered better wages
than the Swedish Opera and that a large number of the most prominent dancers
from the ensemble therefore left in pursuit of international careers. Karen Vedel
reports on similar offers to the Danish dancers.25
Norway: A New Ballet Company Lasting Ten Years
In Norway ballet was basically a new profession, although there were individuals
who had a ballet background, and there were opportunities for dancers to
perform in the theatres now and then. With hardly any retired ballet dancers
to take up teaching ballroom, there was less of an overlap between theatre
dance and ballroom. However, a number of teachers still taught ballet as well as
ballroom, creating an overlap in that way.
When Gyda Christensen (1872–1964) started her work of building up a small
ballet company around her daughter,26 she also established the Norwegian Ballet
School. Christensen’s school may not have been considered very respectable,
with solid prospects, but perhaps rather a luxury that open-minded, socially
established parents could allow their daughters to try out. So the background
of Norwegian dancers seems on average to be a bit more solid than those of
their Swedish or Danish colleagues. The Norwegian ballet school did not follow
the Danish tradition of ballet schools, where children resided,27 nor did it have
the same consistency and long tradition as the Swedish and Danish ones. But
Christensen could afford to travel and bring home international inspiration as
well as, to some extent, teachers for her pupils. She was also able to take her
daughter abroad and help her pursue an international career.28 One could guess
that, when Christensen stopped her work with ballet in 1919, there was no one
who was sufficiently important and willing to promote ballet to keep what had
been established as a national ballet company in Norway.
Maré and Häger, p. 221.

24
Marina Grut, Royal Swedish Ballet: History from 1592 to 1962 (Hildesheim, 2007),
25
p. 348; Vedel, p. 186.

26
Bakka and Fiskvik, p. 72.
27
However, Christensen’s daughter Lillebil did live as a family member in Emilie
Walbom’s home in Copenhagen for half a year to be educated in the old style. Lillebil Ibsen,
Det begynte med dansen (Oslo, 1961), p. 25.
28
Bakka and Fiskvik, p. 81.
Finland: A New Ballet Company Established by Powerful Agents
The Finnish situation has some parallels with the Norwegian one, but also some
differences. A key pioneer, Maggie Gripenberg,29 was the daughter of a senator
and baron. With her debut as a dancer in 1911, she raised the social status
of dance considerably, even though she was not in classical ballet. Secondly,
Edvard Fazer (1861–1943), an established concert pianist and impresario from
a wealthy business family, was one of the founders of the Finnish Opera and its
first leader. Fazer was already involved with dance by the beginning of the century
and brought international stars to Finland.30 From the perspective of class, these
two figures each in their way had status, position and money to give Finnish
theatre dance a social boost found nowhere else in the Nordic countries at that
time, thus providing unique opportunities in the theatre world. The proximity
to Russia and St Petersburg influenced and encouraged growth; influences from
Russia may have been stronger than those of the Danes or Swedes in Norway.
The national Finnish ballet was formally launched in 1922 by a small number
of self-made dancers who had studied with different teachers in Finland and
abroad.31 Finland also had a good number of dance teachers, some of whom were
earlier ballet dancers and seemed highly respected.32
Venues of the Dancing Crowds
This section argues that the dancing crowds were engines in a large share of
leisure activities in the early twentieth century and that dancing attracted young
people to organisations and entertainment events. However, popular dancing
as it is portrayed here, with the label of dancing crowds, was often considered a
competitor and a threat to other activities that were claimed to be more valuable,
such as popular enlightenment, political activity and folk dancing. In the period
discussed here, a boom had already begun in the building of assembly houses33
where dancing could be allowed. This brought about important changes from
29
According to Irma Vienola-Lindfors, ‘Finland: Theatrical Dance’, in Selma Jeanne Cohen
(ed.), International Encyclopedia of Dance, vol. 2 (New York, 1998), p. 631. ‘The first notable
native Finnish dancer’, p. 632.
30
Ibid., pp. 631–634; Makkonen.
31
Ibid.
32
Hirn, pp. 115–129.
33
The literal translation of the Nordic term forsamlingshus is ‘assembly house’ or
‘assembly building’. In the following, houses built for specific groups, such as Youth Houses
(ungdomshuse) and Peoples’ Houses (Folkets Huse) will be discussed under these names,
while the term assembly house will be used to designate such houses in general.
Figure 6.3 On the dance floor. Drawing from the Copenhagen Tivoli by
Aksel Thiess. Illustreret Tidende, 13 August 1893.
the past, when most dancing crowds had to find suitable places available, for
instance outdoors or in private homes.34 One could suspect then that leading
individuals in the dancing crowd might stand out for their involvement in the
process of constructing such venues.
The most important agents in this building activity were organisations
connected to large popular movements. Commemorative books and histories
from such movements and organisations give detailed accounts of the work
in pursuit of their aims and ideals, the leaders, and in some cases the building
of venues. Dancing, which one might guess was among the most frequent and
popular activities for members in general, is mentioned at most in a few sentences
and in many cases not at all. Officially, assembly houses were rarely built with
dancing as an explicit purpose, but the potential they would have as extremely
attractive dance venues was most likely a very important motivating factor for
the broad popular involvement that made funding and construction possible.
The lack of official recognition explains why no traces of leading individuals in
the dancing crowds can be found in these annals.
Egil Bakka, Norske dansetradisjonar (Oslo, 1978), pp. 136–138.

34
Denmark: Assembly Houses Belonging to Communities rather than Clubs
The situation in Denmark stands out as different from the other countries. A
report on assembly houses in the countryside35 describes how Danish authorities
tried to restrict the use of meeting spaces available in schools for all kinds of
meetings and gatherings, and also for public balls, from the 1880s. There were
political struggles and a fear of liberals and radicals who wanted to change society.
According to the report, this boosted construction activity so that the numbers
of assembly houses in Denmark rose from 123 in 1885 to 944 in 1905. It was
usually small groups of similarly minded people who built the venues with more
or less support from the local community for the common good and for a broad
spectrum of uses. Ownership was organised to a large extent in cooperatives,
with the local population making donations for the construction of the building
in exchange for shares in it.
The organisational structures of popular movements related to dance in
Denmark seem complex and in a state of continuous change. Rifle shooting
clubs in the second half of the nineteenth century were the oldest branch.
They changed into gymnastics, sports and youth clubs, formally organised
as De Danske Skytte-, Gymnastik- og Idrættsforeninger in 1930. The two large
volumes published to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the larger
organisation report on some 620 local and regional clubs. Hardly any club
was reported as having built its own venue; in contrast, the opening of a local
assembly house was reported to be a factor triggering the establishment of the
club. This confirms the findings in the report above.36
There were also youth clubs – for instance, Grundtvigian Christianity clubs
– that were aimed at enlightenment and the improvement of young people’s
involvement in society and their social habits.37 Alongside this, there were party
clubs for dancing and drinking, which were mentioned in passing mostly as
being not serious or acceptable within their organisational frameworks.
Another broad movement, which one could expect to have built venues,
is the Danish labour movement. According to a large three-volume work on
the history of the political labour movement in Denmark, it struggled to be
allowed into assembly halls for meetings, given its radical profile. There are a few
examples of assembly houses bought or built by the movement, but there is little
35
Forsamlingshusudvalget (ed.), Forsamlingshuse på landet: En redegørelse afgivet af
Kulturministeriets Forsamlingshusudvalg (Viborg, 1979).
36
Alex Alstrup (ed.), 25 års idræt i De Danske Skytte-, Gymnastik- og Idrætsforeninger
(Odense, 1957).
37
John Nihlén, ‘Den svenska hembygdsrörelsen’, in Jens Marinus Jensen (ed.), Nordens
ungdom: Nordens ungdomsrörelser och deras arbete (Stockholm, 1950), pp. 110–115.
evidence that this was on a scale comparable to that in Norway or Sweden. Once
again, dancing is not a keyword to be found in the series.38
In summary, Danish assembly houses seem to have been owned to a large
extent by the local communities.39 Since they rented out space for clubs and
other organisations, it is possible that organisational aims were less of an issue
and that the dancing crowds had easier access to these venues than for instance
in Sweden or Norway.
Finland: Most Venues Built by Youth Clubs and Labour Unions
Finland has basically two sets of organisations, one for speakers of Swedish and
another for speakers of Finnish. In 1907 a pamphlet reporting on the Swedish
population in Finland included a short chapter on its youth clubs: ‘A particularly
important part of the work in the clubs was the general ambition to construct
a house of their own. The club houses significantly facilitated cultural work in
the countryside, which otherwise was nearly impossible due to a lack of suitable
premises.’ The pamphlet also has a precise, simple description of how the youth
clubs viewed themselves:
All clubs adopt a perfectly neutral attitude in religious and political questions, which
has sparked accusations that they are antireligious or lack political awareness …
The first assembly houses [församlingshusen] were built in the 1880s, when the
labour movement and the Finnish national movement were experiencing a boom.
The movements recruited members from different social classes and education
backgrounds and took fairly equal responsibility for their own group’s affairs.40
Finland currently has a register of clubhouses that can be rented for various
events. The webpage defines clubhouses as constructions built by non-profit
organisations, such as for workers, youth, farmers or sport clubs, to serve as their
meeting place. The construction of assembly houses was at its peak in the early
twentieth century. The labour unions alone built up to 150 houses a year in the
early 1900s.41
Oluf Bertolt, Poul Hansen and Ernst Christiansen, En bygning vi rejser: Den politiske
38
arbejderbevægelses historie i Danmark (Copenhagen, 1954–1955).

39
A survey from 1979 shows that only 20 per cent were owned by clubs or unions.
Forsamlingshusudvalget (ed.), p. 91.
40
Finlands svenskar: Några upplysningar i anledning av Finlands Svenska
Ungdomsförbunds besök i Sverige i juli månad 1908 (Borgå, 1908), p. 69.
41
Föreningshusen och Finland, http://www.foreningshus.fi/omforeningshus/ (accessed
20 March 2012).
The situation on the Finnish-speaking side was fairly similar. Local youth
clubs that declared themselves neutral in religious and political matters united
in the Finnish Youth League. An important aim of the clubs was to promote
enlightenment, along with moderation in alcohol and ideals based on Christian
morals. Dancing was therefore a problem for the clubs, given pressure from the
church and other social groups in the community. This was resolved in part by
prohibiting or restricting dancing and replacing it with singing games or folk dancing
and a range of other activities such as gymnastics, sports, theatre and music.42
Norway: Most Venues Built by Liberal Youth Clubs and Labour Unions
The two major movements in assembly venues open to dancing were the liberal
youth movement and the labour movement. The liberal youth movement, which
developed from local youth clubs across Norway into the national Norwegian
Youth Association [Noregs Ungdomslag] in 1896, was built on ideals and aims
similar to those of Danish and Finnish youth clubs but was closely connected
with the Norwegian struggle for independence, which succeeded in 1905. The
basic aims were to enlighten country youth, prepare them to participate in
democratic processes, and engage them in nation building. The emancipation
of the rural population and their culture was seen as crucial to nation building;
their culture was intended to serve as an alternative to the urban, international
culture. The New Norwegian language was a particularly important element to
promote, but dance, music, costume, crafts and food were accommodated to
some degree, as was amateur theatre. However, the movement had problems
situating itself strategically and safely between the demand for morals and
decency from Christian and conservative circles and the liberal attitudes that
could appeal to young people. Social dance was at the core of this problem, and
the youth movement tried to restrict, discipline or even ban it.43
The labour movement started constructing venues called the People’s House
[Folkets hus] early in the twentieth century, which became important alternatives
to the Youth House [Ungdomshus]. There was general competition and scepticism
between the two movements and their clubs, since they represented opposing
cultures, even though both were working for the emancipation of their classes.
The labour movement was oriented towards international solidarity and for
various reasons distanced itself from the classic rural culture. There were many
42
Arvo Inkilä, ‘Den finska ungdomsföreningsrörelsen i Finland’, in Jensen (ed.), vol.
2, pp. 178–179.
43
Egil Bakka, ‘Folkedansspesialistane Noreg’, in Bakka and Biskop (eds), pp. 497–531;
Sven Moren and Edvard Os (eds), Den frilynde ungdomsrørsla: Norigs ungdomslag i 25 år
(Oslo, 1921).
fights between the sons of local farmers and the travelling workers who came
to the small rural communities for construction work. In many cases travelling
workers built People’s Houses officially to hold union meetings, but no doubt
to hold dance parties as well. The labour movement did not recognise popular
dancing as anything of importance but likewise saw little need to restrict it.44
Sweden: Predominance of the Labour Movement’s People’s House/People’s Park
One report on the buildings of popular movements in Sweden divides the

popular movements into three groups: the free church movement (independent
of the state church), the temperance movement, and the labour movement.
The first group, which is irrelevant for dancing, started as early as the 1850s.
The temperance movement initially rented its houses but was not allowed
to have entertainment there, so by the end of the century it started building
its own venues. The labour movement also started its building activity in the
1890s and had constructed some 200 venues across the country by 1915.45 The
movement became the predominant agent for accommodating the dancing
crowds and popular entertainment in the twentieth century. The People’s Parks
were outdoor venues with dance floors, often a stage where dance musicians or
entertainers could perform, and perhaps also other attractions.
Summary of Dancing Crowd Venues
Popular social dancing was a broad mass culture with a range of dance forms
shared by all the Nordic countries, such as round dances, but there were also
important differences.46 The weekend evening balls at the People’s House, the
People’s Park or the Finnish pavilions were highlights in the lives of young
working-class people during the first half of the twentieth century and could be
considered the vibrant core of the labour movement’s social life, attracting young
people to the movement’s buildings as well as to their enlightenment activities.47
Dancing was an outlet for young people, especially from the lower classes, to get
Bakka, Norske dansetradisjonar, p. 170.

44
Torbjörn Almqvist, Hjördis Johansson and Lena Simonsson, Vad folket byggde: Ett
45
utkast till folkrörelsernas byggnadshistoria (Stockholm, 1976), p. 52.

46
Egil Bakka, Henning Urup and Henry Sjöberg (eds), Gammaldans i Norden:
Komparativ analyse av ein folkeleg dansegenre i utvalde nordiske lokalsamfunn (Dragvoll,
1988).
47
Catarina Lundström, Dansminnen – moderna möten – magiska kvällar (2008), is an
example of oral history from a Swedish People’s Park.
out of their everyday life mode, be among their own, and express themselves in
aesthetic but also rebellious ways, often under the influence of alcohol.
It is clear, however, that movement leaders adopted the ideas and standards
of culture from the other classes and did not see dancing as relevant. Norwegian
journalist Arne Kokkvoll wrote an acclaimed book on the cultural history of the
labour movement in 1981. He presents the general discourse of the movement,
noting all the acceptable cultural activities, the strong sing-along tradition,
the choirs, the brass bands, the theatre activity, and the enlightenment and
education, without once mentioning the balls or dancing.48
Organisations and Venues for Folk Dance
The social spaces for folk dance that will be discussed in the following subsections
can be the social spaces of individual club venues or the organisational spaces
of associations made up of individual clubs. The Danish, Swedish, Norwegian,
Finland–Swedish and Finnish folk dance movements were structured in
different ways; they related to other popular movements and to dancing venues
in different ways. The initiators who took control of the collective folk dance
heritage by publishing, canonising and managing it acquired a leadership role in
the movement. They could keep the leadership at the club level or at the level of
a national association.
Sweden: Connected to the Homestead Movement, with Leadership at the

National Level
Reading the start of the Swedish folk dance movement from a class perspective,
it is apparent that the movement grew out of a university-educated environment
and that a large number of the founding agents were from the upper middle
classes.49 As noted in a number of research publications, it was the folk dance club
of students in Uppsala, Philochoros, founded in 1880,50 that provided the model
in many ways, especially with their discourse.51 Philochoros was able to capture
the zeitgeist and in many ways set a standard for what was attractive folk dance
48
Arne Kokkvoll, Av og for det arbeidende folk: Streif i arbeiderbevegelsens historie
(Oslo, 1981).
49
M.P., ‘När statsråden dansa folkdans: Philochoroslaget i Lund omkring 1904’,
Hembygden (Stockholm, 1944).
50
Mats Wahlberg, Philochoros 1880–1980: Minnesskildringar (Uppsala, 1980).
51
Gunnel Biskop, ‘Philochoros i Finland och den svenska repertoaren’, in Bakka and
Biskop (eds),, pp. 319–323.
for the Nordic folk dance movement and their performances.52 After a period
in which individual clubs developed, inspired by Philochoros, some formed the
Swedish Folklore Association [Svenska Folkdanssringen] in 1920. The leaders
of the Swedish folk dance movement remained predominantly agents from
university-educated families and the upper middle classes, as our selection of
individuals shows. The movement also cultivated contacts with the aristocracy,
and several members of the royal family were said to sympathise or take part.53
It is interesting to note, then, that the driving force in the Swedish Folklore
Association who organised the movement, the pedagogical authority and editor
of the authoritative manual, was Gustav Karlsson, the son of a farmhand who
through his work took the leadership to the national level.54
There was not a widespread, high-profile popular youth movement in Sweden
that the Swedish Folklore Association could rely on, as in other countries.
Instead, the organisation was counted as part of the homestead movement
[Hembygdsrörelsen], which protected local culture, such as old buildings,
crafts, costume, music and dance, as did the Swedish Folklore Association.55
The labour movement, with their People’s House and People’s Park, were the
large-scale builders who accommodated dancing crowds in Sweden, and they
had a political and symbolic climate very different from that of the main folk
dance organisation,56 as was manifest in the early decades of the twentieth
century. Folk dancing probably had some space in the temperance movement,
but hardly as a focused activity. The buildings of the folk dance movement were
holiday cabins, and they supported and were connected to homestead houses
[hembygdsgårdar].57
Petri Hoppu, ‘National Dances and Popular Education: The Formation of Folk
52
Dance Canons in Norden’, in Vedel (ed.), pp. 27–56.

53
The Swedish Crown Prince and his uncle, Prince Eugene, were both honorary
members, as were other members of the Swedish aristocracy: Kurt Belfrage, ‘Förteckning
över Svenska ungdomsringens hedersledamöter’, Hembygden (Stockholm, 1936).
54
Karlson (ed.), p. 119.
55
Nihlén, pp. 110–115.
56
The organisation was founded as Svenska Folkdansringen in 1920, was renamed
Svenska Ungdomsringen för Bygdekultur in 1922, and recently reverted to its original name.
57
Homestead houses combined certain museum functions with the functions of an
assembly house.
Finland: Capital Clubs with Leadership Connecting a Broad Range of

Organisations
The organised folk dance movement in Finland started out on the initiative
of students at the University of Helsinki, who founded the club Friends of
Finnish Folkdance58 in 1901, and appointed a professor as its first chairman.59
Club members knew about Philochoros in Uppsala and wrote to ask for advice.
The Swedish-speaking members of the initially bilingual club left in 1906
and established a club with a broader scope to work for Swedish folk culture
in Finland in general. The leading figure was Otto Andersson, the son of a
farmer and at that time an advanced student of musicology at the University
of Helsinki. These two folk dance clubs in the capital provided the systematic
basis for the Finnish folk dance movement by collecting and publishing dances
and thus held the leadership for the period discussed here. However, it is worth
nothing that there were local folk dance activities in several places across the
country before the capital clubs were started.60 The models and patterns from the
capital were taken up by many local youth clubs in the 1910s and 1920s. Only
in 1931, however, was an association for specialised folk dance clubs established
on the Swedish side, the Finland–Swedish Folk Dance Association [Finlands
Svenska Folkdansring rf.].61 On the Finnish side, folk dance activities were spread
across a broad spectrum of different organisations – youth organisations such as
the Finnish Youth League [Suomen Nuorison Liitto], in clubs of the settlement
movement, in women’s gymnastics and in Communist youth clubs.62
Denmark: Capital Club with Leadership; Specialised National Organisation
The canonised history of the Danish folk dance movement highlights a

performance by Philochoros in Copenhagen in 1899 with some Danish
students in the audience as the triggering factor.63 The students were inspired
and immediately started a folk dance club. In 1901 some of the same students
who were now students of gymnastics established a formal club, the Association
58
The club was bilingual, in Finnish and Swedish, as was the name.
59
Gunnel Biskop, ‘Suomalaisen Kansantanssin Ystävät: Finska Folkdansens Vänner
grundas’, in Bakka and Biskop (eds), pp. 437–442.
60
Gunnel Biskop, ‘Begynnande interesse för folkdans i Svenskfinland’, in Bakka and
Biskop (eds), pp. 333–342.
61
Biskop, Dans i lag, pp. 63–77.
62
Hoppu.
63
Henning Urup, ‘De danske folkedansorganisationers indsamling og udgivelse af
folkedanse’, in Bakka and Biskop (eds), pp. 406–420.
for Promotion of Folk Dance [Foreningen til Folkedansens Fremme, FFF]. FFF
remained a capital club but encouraged people throughout the country to join
forces in collecting and publishing dances under their leadership. They also
carried out work with music and costumes along with dance and taught courses
for instructors. Folk dancing spread to groups in gymnastics, sports and youth
clubs throughout the country, and in 1929 a national association of specialised
folk dance clubs was established. Denmark did not have popular movements
that built their own venues; instead, the tradition was for local communities to
build and own assembly houses for all kinds of clubs to use. The assembly houses
therefore probably catered to folk dance clubs as well as to the dancing crowds
and other kinds of organisational activity. The close ties that the movement had
to gymnastics and Grundtvigian folk high schools are mirrored quite closely in
the backgrounds of the group selected, which includes clergymen, secondary
school headmasters and gym teachers among the parents.64
Norway: National Youth Organisation with Leadership
The most visible branch of the Norwegian folk dance movement was based
on an invention in 1902 by the Norwegian author and cultural entrepreneur
Hulda Garborg. She was the daughter of a wealthy farmer and lawyer who went
bankrupt and divorced, so the daughter grew up in modest conditions with her
mother.65 Her invention, the Norwegian song dance, was based on the traditional
Faroese ballad chain dance, adapted to Norwegian songs and dance styles. It
spread equally rapidly to the youth clubs of the Norwegian Youth Association
in the countryside and in towns.66 One of Garborg’s pupils, Klara Semb, the
daughter of rural people who had moved to the capital, took up teaching song
dance in youth clubs across the country as a livelihood and added suitable dances
she collected to the song dances, thus constructing a national repertoire of folk
dance that she published in 1922.67 Both women worked within the Norwegian
Youth Association, as did nearly all the agents in the group selected, who were
folk dance instructors and collected dances for Semb’s publication and sent
them to her. Semb and Garborg were the unquestioned authorities for the rest of
their lives and held solid positions in the Norwegian Youth Association, which
thus retained the leadership.
Anders Chr. N. Christensen, ‘Enkeltpersoner af betydning for folkedanseindsamling

64
og -forskning’, in Bakka and Biskop (eds), pp. 421–435.

65
Arnhild Skre, Hulda Garborg: Nasjonal Strateg (Oslo, 2011).
66
Bakka, ‘Folkedansspesialistane Noreg’.
67
Klara Semb, Norske folkedansar II: Rettleiding om dansen (Oslo, 1922).
An attempt around 1920 to establish a specialised organisation for folk

dance outside the Norwegian Youth Association, in order to avoid some of the
ideological constraints of the organisation, failed after a short period. At the
same time, and perhaps in connection with this, a folk dance wave in Communist
children’s clubs around Oslo grew sharply, but this lasted for only a few years.
Additionally there was a folk music movement based on competitions, where
dance was also included to some extent, which catered to the extensive local rural
knowledge. Its organisational efforts in the early twentieth century were quite
modest, but it had an even stronger connection to the countryside and to farmers.
Dancing Categories, Social Spaces and Class
The interpretations presented above have been based on quite a wide range of
source material and are of necessity superficial. The analysis offered here has only
scratched the surface of broad movements and organisational patterns. Hopefully
it can pave the way for more in-depth, better-grounded studies. To conclude, the
material will be discussed in the light of Henri Lefebvre’s conceptual triad of the
production of space.68 An article by the Canadian geographer Eugene McCann,
which explains and exemplifies the triad,69 has been used as support for the
present analysis.
Social Spaces and Dance of the Popular Movements
The ideological discourse of many different organisations and popular

movements may be seen as a conceptualisation of the ordered space they would
want their venues or spaces to be. They would plan for the dais, the rows of chairs
for the audience and a small conventional stage for self-produced entertainment,
everything needed for orderly enlightenment and organisational practice. In
Lefebvre’s terms, these are the representations of space, the space of the planners
and the leaders, to be found at the level of the aims and visions of the movement
and organisations. The Norwegian Youth Association published a large book
to commemorate its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1921, briefly describing its 30
regional branches, listing their local clubs, describing in discourse as well as in
pictures the vision of the organisation. The illustrations could be read as showing
the resources of the organisation in a prioritised order: the leaders, the buildings,
the membership and the activities. The portraits of leaders constitute a clear
68
69
Eugene J. McCann, ‘Race, Protest and Public Space: Contextualising Lefebvre in the
U.S. City’, Antipode, 31/2 (1999), pp. 163–184.
majority. Next come the buildings, often with the members posing in front; in
some, members are in costume with the club banner, signalling Norwegianness
perhaps more than folk dancing. The activity is less represented, but is not
lacking: there are pictures showing large outdoor reunions, theatre, folk dancing,
etc. A comparison with the Danish two-volume publication commemorating
one organisation’s twenty-fifth anniversary, which reports on some 620 clubs,
suggests a different reading. Group photos of teams, dressed for gymnastics or
sport, are in the majority, signalling the activity and selected groups of members
as the first priority. Leaders are also there, but there are practically no stated
relationships to buildings or other kinds of club venues.
Another of Lefebvre’s dimensions of social space is the representational space,
‘space experienced through the complex symbols and images of its “inhabitants”
and “users”’.70 Some of these ‘users’ or ‘inhabitants’ would have experiences
that were close to the visions of the leadership, seeing the spaces as symbols
of enlightenment and orderly organisational practice. Others would have the
experience of partying, with dancing, drinking, merry-making, flirting and
fighting. The meanings the spaces carried for individuals would be different. For
some, they would present a place for success, like the champions on the dance
floor or in fights, the cool, attractive ones, or the organisational talents. Others
would experience them as dangerous and scary, a place for failure in many ways,
or a space for immoral, forbidden things. An assembly house close to where the
author grew up was nicknamed ‘the slaughterhouse’ by its adversaries because
of the fighting that was said to go on there. Some of the spaces may have no
focus in the organisational discourse. They could be the outdoor spots, around
the corner, where the men could hide their bottles while dancing and where
they could go to drink, which might not be allowed inside. In the imagination
of some users, the space would also be a symbol of the solidarity between local
boys, uniting against a group of rowdy boys from the neighbouring community
who might drop by to look for attractive girls and challenge their neighbours.71
The last concept of Lefebvre’s triad is called spatial practices. ‘These practices
– the everyday activities of life – continually mediate between the two forms
of social space, working within the bounds of the conceived abstract spaces
of planners and architects while simultaneously being shaped by and shaping
individuals’ perceptions and uses of space.’72 The continuous interplay between
space planned and desired by the leaders and space experienced and imagined by
the users resulted in different spatial practices, sometimes closer to the leading
Ibid., p. 172.
70
Egil Bakka, ‘Samandrag frå intervju om Ålen’, in Bakka, Urup and Sjöberg (eds), pp.
71
180–201.
72
McCann, pp. 172–173.
ideology of the popular movement in question, sometimes dominated by users

who mainly wanted to dance and drink.
The National Stages for Theatre Dance
The two old national stages for dance in Denmark and Sweden were set up by
the states and given the royal label, which formally signalled their highest status.
In nineteenth-century Denmark, Bournonville elevated the social standing of
the Royal Danish Ballet and esteem for its members was raised in the eyes of
the general public. However, this does not mean that the fairly modest social
origins of the dancers of theatrical dance in Denmark and Sweden did not have
any influence on social esteem and possibilities for theatre dance. It would at
least influence the habitus and the images the dancers had of themselves and
their social space, even though that might be concealed from the audience. We
may also assume that the general picture of the dancers’ origins would be known
to the social elite and to leaders in politics and government. The old dual image
of the shining, attractive star who is poorly paid and therefore possibly sexually
available probably lingered in high society, even though some dancers were
better off than others.73 Therefore the proposal here is that social origins cannot
be excluded as a factor for investigation. There would certainly be class mobility
for outstanding dancers, but hardly enough for them to gain access to political
influence or the highest echelons of society. The argument here is that the lack
of such access was a reason for the ebb reported, particularly in Swedish ballet,
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, just as much as the lack of
artistic skills and vision.74
This also leads to a class reading of differences between the established ballet
stages of Denmark and Sweden and what happened in Norway and Finland. There is
reason to believe that Sweden and Denmark, with their longstanding ballet schools,
had dancers that maintained excellent standards. The more self-made dancers in
Finland and Norway, who worked with different teachers and not necessarily in
organised schools for many years, would hardly have the same standard as their
Swedish and Danish colleagues on average. However, from our selection the
Norwegians and Finns were rather better off in terms of social background. The
new social spaces created by pioneers in Norway and Finland would therefore be
less limited by the old association of ballet dancers as lower class.
73
See Theresa Jill Buckland, Society Dancing: Fashionable Bodies in England 1870–
1920 (London, 2011), pp. 114–115, for interesting descriptions of theatre dancing and
social status.
74
Grut, p. 311.
Some theatre dance agents also had very high status. Three or four individuals
with money and high social status managed to become the most successful
promoters of theatre dance during the first decades of the twentieth century
– Maggie Gripenberg, a countess and the first important modern dancer in
Finland; Edvard Fazer, a rich art impresario and founder of the Finnish Ballet;
Rolf de Maré, the rich Swedish aristocrat who established the Ballets Suédois in
Paris; and perhaps the well-off, respected Norwegian actress Gyda Christensen,
who managed to build a Norwegian ballet company and run it for some ten
years. Due to modest social background, few dance artists had access to large
money or to people with high-level economic influence. It is argued here that
this is as important a reason for the low ebb at the royal ballets as lack of talent
and initiative.
As for the dance teachers, we may assume that the situation in the Nordic
countries could be similar to what the English dance researcher Theresa
Buckland describes in her book on fashionable dancing in England from 1870
to 1920. She finds that, ‘unsurprisingly in this class-obsessed society, teachers of
dancing and deportment were ranked in a pyramidal structure that was closely
tied to the social strata for whom they worked’.75 However, one may ask to what
degree Nordic dance teachers could boost their status with the information that
they were teaching aristocracy. Could their access to aristocrats or even royal
clientele be acquired through skills or perhaps just as much through inherited
social status?
Social Spaces and Folk Dancing
As we have seen, the folk dancers in the different countries connected themselves
to larger movements in various ways and related to different movements.
The Norwegian folk dancers were part of the large group of mostly sons and
daughters of farmers who built the clubs and venues to promote enlightenment
and rural culture. This was thus clearly due to their social background and made
them fully accepted members and even influential leaders in the Norwegian
Youth Association and its clubs. The organisation owned almost half of the
assembly houses available for dancing, so they were also part of the continuous
negotiations with the dancing crowds about spatial practices. With their
clear tendencies of parental backgrounds in tertiary education and upper-
class ambitions, the Swedish folk dance leaders were very different from the
Norwegians in their social background, and their aims and discourses went in
different directions from those of the Norwegians and even further away from
Buckland, p. 76.
75
Figure 6.4 The Harvest Dance [Skördedansen], performed by the Brage club
in Stockholm, 1920. Photographer: unknown. Föreningen Brage,
Helsinki.
the main movement for building venues in Sweden, the labour movement. Their
early alliance with the homestead movement and its more museum-oriented
work with old buildings and crafts seems to have been caused by the social
background of the leading individuals.
The three clubs that set up and developed the foundations for folk dancing
in the Danish and Finnish capital cities76 had a large number of university
graduates in their circles, even including a folklorist and an ethnomusicologist
with university studies relevant to the work of the club.77 The capital clubs
were organisational spaces focused on folk culture disciplines. As we have seen,
national organisational spaces, including whole countries, were later created,
around 1930, mainly to promote Nordic cooperation. At the same time, this
activity spread on its own to new kinds of environments such as youth clubs. The
leadership was still not transferred from the city clubs to the new national spaces.
In Norway the national space was already there when folk dancing started and
76
Foreningen til Folkedansens Fremme, Denmark; Suomalaisen Kansantanssin Ystävät,
Finnish Finland; and Brage, Swedish Finland.
77
Hakon Grüner-Nielsen in Denmark and Otto Andersson in Finland.
was conceived as the proper space for the work by most leading individuals. In
Sweden a national space was established with the Swedish Folklore Association
in 1920, and the leadership was brought into the national organisational space.
In conclusion, the folk dance movements of the Nordic countries had distinctly
different profiles in the period investigated. The divergent development has been
explained here by the differences in social backgrounds of the leading people.
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Chapter 7
Nordic Dance Performances in the
North American Marketplace
Inka Juslin
In recent years, Nordic performing arts have gained a visible presence in North
America. The current chapter looks at the critical reception of contemporary
dance exports to the US in the twenty-first century, asking how the ideas,
corporealities and aesthetics resonate in the North American press. More
precisely the focus is on the New York Times reviews of the Royal Danish Ballet,
the Norwegian Carte Blanche contemporary dance company, the Finnish Tero
Saarinen Company, choreographer and artist Reijo Kela, and a ballet with
music by Kaija Saariaho. Many of these companies and independent artists
have enjoyed a sustained period of state support in their home countries. In
this manner, establishing themselves in the minds of an international audience
abroad seems welcome.
In juxtaposition to the reception of contemporary performances, the chapter
also looks at how Nordic aesthetics were approached a hundred years ago in
conjunction with a major exhibition of Nordic fine arts that toured various cities
in North America. In Scandinavian Art Exhibition of 1912–1913, a Nordic or
Scandinavian ‘moodiness’ was established as an underlying tone that coloured
the reception of Nordic arts in the eyes of local North American audiences. This
chapter will show how some of these ideas still apply today, analysing the kinds
of corporealities and imaginations contemporary Nordic dance promotes in
the North American press. It will situate the performance reviews in relation
to an idea of ‘economy of experiences’, which includes a larger cultural context.1
Coined by Pine and Gilmore, this notion is seen to define our contemporary
experiences and consumptions, including live performances, by providing a tool
to help understand the dynamics of global exchanges of ideas and experiences. In
other words, it situates the media and the arts fields as part and parcel of global
economic and cultural exchange.
1
Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every
Business a Stage (Boston, MA, 2011).
The notion of an ‘economy of experiences’ intertwines the artistic

productions with contemporary consumption and politics. This chapter does
not discuss Nordic dance works as consumption; rather, it uses the concept
of an economy of experiences to open a window onto the global marketplace,
where competition, diversity and differentiation have a strong presence. As a
theoretical model behind the analysis, economy of experiences suggests that the
Nordic performance works create value as cultural products that carry semiotic
associations with their cultural origins. Each artistic work has its own corporeal
aesthetics, and thus specific parameters that are evaluated by their own means.
The New York Times reviews also seem to parallel or reflect that these Nordic
dance companies enjoy exceptional status in their home country.
Economy of experiences offers a model to read how the marketing and
branding of cultural products, events and performances have replaced goods
or cultural objects. Therefore, the way each performance company creates its
programme and promotion mechanisms in the international marketplace also
influences reception. This chapter demonstrates how Finnish, Danish and
Norwegian dance companies are received in the North American press with
special Nordic attributes. The Royal Danish Ballet has toured North America
many times, so reviews of the 2011 tour take the approach of looking at the
company within its Bournonville tradition. The specific value of the Finnish
performances, presenting works from Tero Saarinen Company, Reijo Kela
and Kaija Saariaho, is attributed to their country’s northern location, with a
geographical referent coming across strongly in reviews. Finally, Carte Blanche
[Norges nasjonale kompani for samtidsdans: The national contemporary dance
company from Norway] promotes more visibly a multinational and multicultural
discourse. Carte Blanche had its North American debut at the Jacob’s Pillow
Dance Festival in 2011. Tero Saarinen Company performed at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music in 2007, and choreographer Reijo Kela’s video performance
was part of the Finnish contemporary art exhibition in 2008 at MoMA PS1
in the New York borough of Queens. Composer Kaija Saariaho has presented
her works at New York’s Lincoln Center several times in recent years. During
2011–2012, she was composer-in-residence at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Arjun Appadurai’s insights into modernity and globalisation offer a
critical perspective on the Nordic performance exports.2 As is apparent from
economy of experiences, performances have a growing significance in the global
marketplace. Appadurai’s thinking helps us to see North America as a global
marketplace, where cultural exchanges occur in festivals and performance
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis,

2
MN, 1996).
Nordic Dance Performances in the North American Marketplace 161
venues. Performances and art shows represent almost every corner of the world,
and this could sometimes create an overflow in demand and supply. Steven
Vertovec’s idea of transnationalism adds to globalisation from the perspective
of place. He explains transnationalism as multiple ties and interactions, which
have linked people and institutions across the borders of nation states (see also
the discussion in Chapter 1).3
The ways the North American press reviews the Nordic performance works
as world performances4 may challenge ‘Nordic’ as a cultural and geographical
category. At least, cultural dimensions of Nordic attain new meaning in the
global context. On a theoretical level, the attempt is not to suggest that there
is an ontological shift in the meaning of the performance works, but to show
how the press reviews and responds to the cultural references. The global stage
multiplies the complexity of the cultural content, and contests the notion of
cultural origins. In this sense, the response to the Nordic works in a European
context may be more about the artistry than about the exotic psychological and
behavioural traits that create the Nordic as a particular aesthetic category in the
North American press.
The Finnish art scene is an important case in New York for the following
reasons. Finnish dance and theatre have had secondary status in the marketing of
Finnish arts in North America, whereas Finnish visual arts, photography, design
and architecture have been visible in New York museums, galleries and cultural
institutions. In this light, Reijo Kela’s video at the MoMA PS1 museum’s exhibition
has been a dance exception among the visual arts. In a similar manner, the Finnish
contemporary classical music scene holds an exceptionally strong place in the New
York art world. Composer Kaija Saariaho’s ballet Maa was recreated into a new
staging in 2010 by choreographer Luca Veggetti at Columbia University’s Miller
Theatre in New York City. The original choreography was created by American-
born Carolyn Carlson for the Finnish National Ballet in 1991.
Each performance company and artist discussed in this chapter carries its
own specificity and does not stand for any coherent idea or label for Nordic.
Nevertheless, the artistic works show what could potentially be linked to the
human emotional and psychological landscapes that the North American press
references to cultural or geographical Nordicness. This chapter assumes that the
Nordic performance companies participate in the branding of their national
cultures in North America, and in doing so participate in creating new cultural
relations in the global world. Simon Anholt has argued that nation branding is
3
Steven Vertovec, ‘Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism’, Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 22/2 (1999), pp. 447–462.
4
See also Susan Leigh Foster (ed.), Worlding Dance: Studies in International Performance
(London, 2009).
a combination of building, managing and measuring the reputation of a nation.

In his view, cultural relations have become important in branding because ‘it
offers some pleasure in return for the consumer’s attention: by proposing artistic
or intellectual stimulation, the country both delights its audience and pays in
advance for the respect and interest of that audience.’5
Early Scandinavian Art in North America
In the winter of 2011–2012, the American Scandinavian Foundation hosted

a visual arts exhibition titled Luminous Modernism: Scandinavian Art Comes
to America, based on a theme of an earlier Scandinavian art show that came to
America in 1912. The exhibition opened in October 2011 at Scandinavia House
in New York City to celebrate the centennial of the American Scandinavian
Foundation (ASF, 1911–2011), which also organised the 1912 art show. The
Luminous Modernism exhibition was the third in a series celebrating the ASF’s
centennial and featured several of the works and artists from the 1912 exhibition.
It also expanded the original format, which included Norway, Sweden and
Denmark, to show art from all five Nordic countries from the same period. The
display aimed to show a North American dialogue with European art. It also set
out to demonstrate how the Scandinavian art scene was a model for the early
modern arts movement in North America.
This show is arguably important to the current discussion about Nordic
performance works in that the 1912 exhibition offers some important points.
In the original 1912 show titled Scandinavian Art Exhibition, which toured
New York, Buffalo, Toledo and Boston during 1912–1913, the signification of
what the Nordic and Scandinavian arts represented was introduced to wider
North American audiences. Today, the earlier exhibition is considered the most
important early-twentieth-century showcase for Nordic art in the United States.
The press and audience response to the 1912 exhibition raised several
profound questions about the identity and nationality of the artistic works. For
North American audiences, Scandinavian art proposed an educational purpose
for the arts. In a lecture at Scandinavia House in November 2011, art historian
Patricia Berman noted that the early Scandinavian artists, among them Edvard
Munch, opened approaches to understanding modern art, since local audiences
had a hard time interpreting it. Berman argued that the local reception, as
newspaper reviews and the show catalogue from the period indicate, highlighted
Simon Anholt, ‘Should Place Brands Be Simple?’, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy,
5
5/10 (2009), p. 4.
Scandinavian localism. Early reception showed that the artists were more
embedded in their nationalisms than the Americans and that they posited a
‘truer commitment’ to their local spheres.6
The Luminous Modernism exhibition showed original works, including new
works from Finland and Iceland, with references to National Romanticism.
One central theme in the exhibition was to show paintings of human characters
who display strong emotions. The Scandinavian characters, especially in Edvard
Munch’s works, attracted considerable attention a century earlier. At that
time they were seen to represent ‘Scandinavian moodiness’. The Luminous
Modernism exhibition was curated in order to create a dialogue with these past
references, and to show that Scandinavian modernism constitutes a specific
approach in the modern arts. The dialogue with the past communicated how
Scandinavia offered a geographical and cultural referent to the origins of the
artistic works. Luminous Modernism implied that the perceived specificity of
Scandinavian techniques might still be valid today and influence the reception
of Scandinavian arts. The imaginary in Scandinavian modern art was linked to
its strong psychological dimensionality. Edvard Munch’s inner landscapes in
particular had an impact in the early-twentieth-century cultural sphere. From
that point on, his works started to stand for psychological insights in the arts.7
The discussion of the Nordic arts in North America was highlighted once again
in 2013 as the festival ‘Nordic Cool 2013’ brought Denmark, Finland, Iceland,
Norway and Sweden (with Greenland, the Faroes and the Åland Islands) to the
Kennedy Center in Washington DC. The theme ‘What is “Nordic”?’ pointed
to the importance of addressing the diverse realities of these geographical and
cultural regions.8
Dance Productions and Contemporary Globalism
Societal changes coming with the globalisation process include the mobility of
artistic works, as people and cultural productions move across national borders.
Frederick Cooper notes that, while we propose our critique of globalisation,
6
Patricia Berman, Scandinavian Art Exhibition New York, Buffalo, Toledo, Boston 1912–
1913, lecture at Scandinavia House, New York City, 17 November 2011.
7
Ibid.
8
The one-month-long art festival also presents dance from all five Nordic countries,
featuring the Iceland Dance Company, the Danish Dance Theatre, Carte Blanche from Norway,
Tero Saarinen Company from Finland, and GöteborgsOperans Danskompani [The Dance
Company of the Gothenburg Opera] from Sweden. Nordic Cool 2013, http://www.kennedy-
center.org/programs/festivals/12-13/nordic/events.cfm?genre=DAN (accessed 4 March 2013)
our analysis should not return to either national or continental boxes. He

thinks it is important to read our differentiations from perspectives that allow
an understanding of cultural specificities in the global context, ‘for the new
emphasis on cultural specificity and ethnic identification differs from the old in
that its basis now is juxtaposition, not isolation’.9
Throughout history, nations (and nation states) have represented hierarchical
systems and networks of relationships in arts and scientific disciplines, and
these have been modified to a great extent as a result of the exchange between
members of society. According to Frederick Cooper, in an era of intensifying
globalisation a diverse and plural analytical approach is not only useful but also
necessary because cultural products and performances have become part of the
contemporary world.10
Furthermore, in Pine and Gilmore’s ‘economy of experiences’, performances
function as a new commodity, so the value of artistic productions comes from their
value as experiences.11 What is crucial in understanding this logic in conjunction
with the contemporary performances is their idea about entertainment. Pine
and Gilmore have challenged the ways we see a performance:
The kind of experiences most people think of as entertainment occur when they
passively absorb the experiences through their senses, as generally occurs when
they view a performance, listen to music, or read for pleasure.12
The theory of economy of experiences includes the fact that new investments
are being made in entertainment and the performing arts. What is radical in this
theory and makes it different from the discussions in the performing arts is that it
includes arts and performances in the domain of contemporary consumption and
entertainment. When adding this meaning to the art scene, it shows art as a market
that is highly influenced by the economic shifts of globalisation. According to this
model, the world economy has an impact on what goes on in the arts.
As already discussed in Chapter 1, Arjun Appadurai introduces a notion
of ‘mediascape’, which includes different media channels, such as newspapers,
magazines, television stations, film production etc. As part of the globalisation
process, both private and public interests are surrounded by media images that
9
Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley, CA,
2005), p. 96.
10
Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of Literary Field [Les Règles de
l’art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire (Editions du Seuil, 1992)] (Stanford, CA, 1996), pp.
200–201.
11
Pine and Gilmore, p. 18.
12
Ibid., p. 47.
are complicated and often interconnected. The commodities, politics and news
create a mixture of meaning, which audiences in different parts of the world
experience as real or fictional depending also on how far away they are from
metropolitan life.13 This perspective is not too far from the idea of performances
as passive entertainment, as it implies that contemporary media (including social
media) have complicated our experiences. In Appadurai’s model, world audiences
also imply people who are not physically experiencing the events where they take
place but who might perceive the events and their meaning through the media.
This adds to the meaning of performances as merely passive entertainment
(as Pine and Gilmore suggest). It can be said that the global or multinational
context in New York City shifts the meaning of artistic productions that have
Nordic origins. That is because The New York Times reviews all important art
and performance works from different parts of the world. At the same time,
The New York Times is biased, representing the local critic’s tastes. When the
performances take place in New York City, it is most likely people who live
there, and tourists, who get to physically experience the works.
The art historian Griselda Pollock has shed light on the power of art
institutions that are responsible for keeping up the profiles of the contemporary
art scenes. She argues that power plays in the arts often mean that the economic
power rules the social, and the relation between the two makes alternative and
feminist artistic content and arts analysis difficult. In contemporary society, art
institutions are increasingly tied to the circulation of capital, entertainment,
tourism, heritage, commercial sponsorship and investment.14 This creates a
rhetoric that follows the patterns of the global financial flow. From the point
of view of the contemporary performances, it is relevant to ask how global
economics rules performances and the activities around their global circulation.
Pollock also reflects upon the dominance of the visual in contemporary society.
She suggests that we go back to Roland Barthes’ analysis of photography and
advertising, in which he analysed the rhetoric that has taken a dominant form
in contemporary culture. Pollock argues that the level of meaning has become
figurative, as is most apparent in advertising, where the effects of the visual take
a viewer through a multilevel process of creating a response. The idea of effects
coming from the visual means has had an impact on contemporary performance
aesthetics. This certainly pertains to dance, since the multilayered connotations
associated with the human body are enhanced in the moving body. Pine and
Gilmore’s argument of the passive absorption of events and performances as
13
Arjun Appadurai, ‘Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination’, Public
Culture, 12/1 (2000), pp. 6–7.
14
Griselda Pollock, Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum: Time, Space and the Archive
(New York and London, 2007), pp. 9–10.
entertainment makes sense when we think that contemporary media create

their own interpretation of performances that follow more the visual rhetoric of
contemporary mainstream culture. The media have to make sense of the meaning
that goes beyond the literal. Contemporary media influence our ways of seeing
and interpreting. With dance performances, the media response would be to see
not just the physical body but also the visual body, both of which express the
aesthetics of contemporary visual cultures. According to Barthes, the rhetoric
of the image has extended the semiotics of contemporary culture to include
materiality, space, form and colour.15
Finnish Shakers and Danish Bournonville
Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen’s company has visited the east coast of the
United States a number of times, having its US premiere at the Jacob’s Pillow
Dance Festival in 2006 and performing at the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music in 2007. On these occasions the company has attracted local
audiences and achieved considerable acclaim in the local newspaper reviews.
Dance critic Claudia La Rocco wrote a review in The New York Times of Saarinen’s
work Borrowed Light upon its performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music:
I saw these people [performers] throwing open the theater’s doors onto a
stark, wintry world, their severe but exultant rituals continuing in a landscape
punctuated by bare tress and small, plain houses. The work, built on Shaker
hymns and dances, felt entirely of another time, the equivalent of a loosely
historical novel.16
Borrowed Light takes its inspiration from a devotional community of North

American Shakers and thereby situates the work in an Anglo-inspired
atmosphere, which is confirmed by the choral music performed by Boston
Camerata. The Shaker community designed its houses in such a way that
windows were also built into interior walls so that a maximum amount of
daylight could be let into the rooms. With this point of departure in Shaker
culture, Saarinen’s choreography glued a Finnish contemporary dance approach
onto a North American content. Mikki Kunttu’s lighting design developed the
visual atmosphere, which reminded of the inhabited places captured by Finnish
symbolist artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the
shades of brown, red, pink, violet, green, blue and yellow. What seemed Finnish
Ibid.
15
Claudia La Rocco, ‘Brooklyn Convocation of Shakers (and Movers)’, The New York
16
Times, 9 November 2007.

to me was the choreographer’s gestural language, in the ways that the odd, silent
characters of the canvases of Finnish painters came alive. The dancers’ visually
vivid movements were strongly coloured by their individual approaches. Yet the
continuous repetition of movement patterns created cohesion between dancers,
who looked as if they were taking part in a ritual.
The performance has a strong audience response around the world, including
North America.17 In the summer of 2012, the company returned to the Jacob’s
Pillow Dance Festival with Borrowed Light. Saarinen’s initiative has been to start
up artistic and cross-disciplinary exchanges, which have modified the choices
of the company: how it makes artistic choices that the works incorporate, what
the company’s core audience is, and how the company markets itself. This also
comes up in the ways the critics comprehend and translate the work. The success
profile of Tero Saarinen Company in North America can be seen as an example
of twenty-first-century global artistry that involves global visions, where artists
and companies win awards and create works with an awareness of international
circulation.18
The New York Times review highlights a notion of the wintry world from the
company’s performance. The paper places the performance in the cold northern
hemisphere. The idea of a cold climate runs further, into the performers’ bodies,
in that the characters are portrayed participating in ‘severe but exultant rituals’.
The path of interpretation leaves the reader to imagine a northern landscape in
a positive light, yet this is associated with the realm of the past; as the reviewer
notes, the performance ‘felt entirely of another time’. Here the global space for
performance implies imagination that is more distant and located elsewhere. The
place of wintry worlds stands as a symbol for the north, which is more fairytale-
like from the point of view of the local audience.
The Royal Danish Ballet has a far-reaching history in North America. Its last
North American tour was advertised well in the spring and summer of 2011.
Highlighted in all the company’s promotion was the fact that the company’s
leader, Nikolaj Hübbe, was familiar to North American audiences from his
time at the New York City Ballet, where he danced from 1992 until 2008.
His artistic leadership offered local audiences a great reference point, which
also led to expectations about the programming. The Royal Danish Ballet
further included a piece by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo, who has been
resident choreographer of the Boston Ballet since 2005. This added a sense of
Nordic collaboration. Jorma Elo was already well known in several US visiting
17
Tero Saarinen Company, Borrowed Light: Media, http://www.terosaarinen.com/en/
media/reviews/repertoire/borrowed_light/ (accessed 2 March 2013).
18
Tero Saarinen Company: About us, http://www.terosaarinen.com/en/company/about_
us/ (accessed 2 March 2013).
Figure 7.1 Tero Saarinen Company in Saarinen’s Borrowed Light, 2007.

Photographer: Jonas Lundqvist, Tero Saarinen Company.
companies, including the New York City Ballet,19 so the audience was familiar
with his work.
New York Times critic Alistair Macaulay focused on the company’s
performance at New York’s Lincoln Center in June. He wrote mainly about
Napoli, since it is considered August Bournonville’s key work. His review
approached the work with questions like: What new themes does the ballet
carry today? Has it changed to become a contemporary ballet or not? Macaulay’s
style as a dance critic often approaches classical works with discussions of their
Jorma Elo ABT, http://www.abt.org/education/archive/choreographers/elo_j.html

19

‘newness’. He considers the genre to have naïve baggage with old-fashioned

gender representations. With regard to the Royal Danish Ballet, Macaulay
introduced ballet, again, in connection with tradition. ‘Ballet is an art so laden
with tradition that today’s foremost practitioners all seem at most six degrees of
separation from the leading lights of the Romantic period. This is nowhere more
true than with the Royal Danish Ballet.’20
Yet what is apparent from Macaulay’s writing about the Danish ballet is
his more positive and curious tone than is usual in his ballet reviews. He states
that the Bournonville tradition deserves to be passed on to new generations.
The Danish ballet has been able to add contemporariness to its visual look. His
notion of visuality includes the corporeality of the dancing bodies, how they are
staged and how they perform in terms of technique, and in general the kinds of
characters the ballet presents.
Macaulay’s view implies that the New York audience at Lincoln Center has
certain expectations of the Royal Danish Ballet: the company keeps performing
Bournonville, and as such has a unique position in the ballet world. What the
critic considers important is the company’s ability to renew itself. He thus
proposes that ballet as an art form needs to revise itself to embrace more diverse
taste. Macaulay notes that the Danish company has revised Napoli by adding
depth and friction. He picks a new character from the classic ballet in his review:
in Act I, an Italian singer that Bournonville himself played has been replaced by a
drag queen. Also Act II, which traditionally develops ‘pure dance’ choreography,
has gained new aspects from the new staging, which includes new lighting design
and small changes in the characters. Macaulay’s approach to the Royal Danish
Ballet’s visit is positive, yet it repeats some of the usual jargon that has appeared
previously in The New York Times.
When Macaulay’s 2011 review is juxtaposed with a New York Times review
from 1988, when the Royal Danish Ballet visited Lincoln Center, also performing
Napoli, these two texts use similar points of departure. Anna Kisselgoff writes in
The New York Times on 17 June 1988 how it is hard to find a ballet company in
the world that both adults and children love ‘with equal fervor and affection’.
Her review shows that the magical tales depicting the ‘treasure house of the
nineteenth century’ make the group unlike any other dance company around.
Whereas Macaulay now sees the continuation of Bournonville’s tradition as
significant, Kisselgoff ’s view in 1988 was that Bournonville’s legacy continues
because of the Danish ballet group. It seems almost as if Bournonville’s romantic
ballets are considered a treasure house that the entire world owns and can enjoy
20
Alistair Macauley, ‘A “Napoli” Changed, Yet Unchanging’, The New York Times, 13
June 2011.
together with the group. Kisselgoff wrote then how the full three-act version of
Napoli elicited romance and passion along with both the contemporary style
and tradition, with its young, technically talented dancers. At the time, the
company’s current artistic director, Nikolaj Hübbe, was 20 years old and was
also noted for his dancing in the group.21
What is most apparent in the reviews of Tero Saarinen Company and the
Royal Danish Ballet is the different ways the critics handle a contemporary
company and a ballet company. The reviews operate almost in separate registers.
Tero Saarinen Company is given the status of artistry, which is met with extreme
curiosity. The review actually posits the work differently, seeing it perhaps in
a slightly exotic light. The ‘coldness’ of the wintry surroundings produces
Nordic climate reference differentiation in the review. Tero Saarinen Company’s
artistry seems to have an appeal; it is a dance with devotional content. But when
this response is viewed through a lens of representation, the review also lacks
appraisal. It does not give the work any special status as a thought-provoking
contemporary artistic work. Unlike Tero Saarinen Company, the review of the
Royal Danish Ballet provokes the viewer with the ways they characterise ballet
in conjunction with its tradition, asking more controversial questions about
its placement in the contemporary world. Ballet is not exotic but is somewhat
repetitious, and a good ballet company can at best renew an older production.
Nordic Moodiness?
The historic Scandinavian Art Exhibition that toured North America over a
hundred years ago in 1912 provoked local audience responses that challenged
the very notions of a cultural identity, geography and nationality. As was noted,
Norway’s leading artist of the time, Edvard Munch, for example, represented an
inner mood and psychological content. His art included representations of what
was considered his country’s own national characteristics.
Norway’s contemporary dance company Carte Blanche seems to engage in
a discourse that is more multinational and multicultural than Scandinavian,
national or Norwegian in its approach. The company’s home base is in Bergen,
but its selection for house choreographer, for instance, makes it multinational.
The company is perhaps now a typical contemporary company as it hires and
performs beyond its national borders. Israeli-born choreographer Sharon Eyal
from the famous Batsheva Dance Company, and a Belgian-born company
Anna Kisselgoff, ‘A Second Cast in Bournonville’s “Napoli”’, The New York Times, 17
21
June 1988.
leader, Bruno Heynderickx, created the artistic programme for the company’s
first US visit in 2011. Carte Blanche visited the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in
the summer of 2011.
The programme included two compositions by Eyal. Carte Blanche
performed Killer Pig and Love by Eyal six times in the Ted Shawn Theatre from
29 June to 3 July 2011. In her New York Times review ‘Menacing Working Girls
Stuck in Punishing Grind’, dance critic Claudia La Rocco noted the impressive
all-female cast in Killer Pig, choreographed in 2009:
She clearly has the Batsheva formula down cold: intense physicality, primal eroticism,
ritualized behavior and propulsive music, plastic wrapped in affected frenzy and
disaffected chic. It’s a shame that work within such a narrow register should serve as an
introduction to Carte Blanche, which was created in 1989 and has some powerhouse
dancers. The all-female cast in ‘Killer Pig’ was especially impressive.22
The New York Times review portrayed Eyal’s appearance as a choreographer

whose work has ‘already been seen’. With this statement, it is implied that the
evening programme was repeating itself. The review mentioned that some
audience members ‘hustled out’ of the theatre in response to what they had just
experienced. In one respect, it seems that the critic wished to see something new
instead of works by Batsheva’s choreographer. On the other hand, Carte Blanche
is reviewed as a Norwegian company: it seems that the critical response to the
choreography links the company’s performance to psychological aspects of art.
Eyal’s choreographies with their aesthetic style were translated in the review into
a ‘punishing grind’, so Carte Blanche’s artistic choice came across as intentionally
too psychological. As the review shows, the emotional states seemed to be too
graphically physical: in that way, Carte Blanche’s first appearance in North
America did not communicate to the local festival audience. La Rocco concluded
her review by writing that Killer Pig suffered from a ‘lazy compositional’ tone.
The dancers took the choreography by ‘attacking and oscillating’ it, ‘staring this
dreary material down’. Finally she noted that the dancers deserved better.
In strong contrast, when Carte Blanche visited the Finnish town of Turku
on 13 May 2011, when the city was programming art performances as part of its
celebration as the European Capital of Culture, reviews of the company’s choice
of a world premiere by Sharon Eyal were openly laudatory. Eyal’s choreography
of Corps de Walk had its world premiere in Turku. The company performed
on the main stage of the Turku City Theatre. An article in Turun Sanomat,
22
Claudia La Rocco, ‘Menacing Working Girls Stuck in Punishing Grind’, The New York
Times, 1 July 2011.
Figure 7.2 Carte Blanche in Sharon Eyal’s Corps de Walk, 2011. Photographer:
Erik Berg, Carte Blanche.
‘Norwegian Carte Blanche Brings its New Dance Premiere to Turku’, noted
that the company has an established reputation in Norway and elsewhere in
Scandinavia.23 According to the company’s own website, the performance in
Turku was received by the local audience as a ‘rare feast of the senses’.24
The question of ‘Nordic moodiness’ in contemporary art and contemporary
performances is not a simple one, but is at the same time provocative and
multifaceted. The case of Carte Blanche offers a good angle to investigate the
tension of the local and the global. Global mediascapes generalise the content, as
they are highly biased in the perception of what is distant and far away from the
global metropolis. The local New York Times review displays the separation between
the critic’s expectations and the fact that the company is a multinational company.
Perhaps the audience was more prepared to experience ‘Nordic’ by witnessing
more locally derived narratives, or different perspectives on the old tales? The next
example is yet another handling of a theme of the Nordic imagination that has a
distinct local voice and calls for media interpretation in the global space.
Arctic Hysteria
A large exhibition of Finnish contemporary art titled Arctic Hysteria: New Art
from Finland was held at MoMA PS1 in Queens, NY, in the summer of 2008.
23
Irmeli Haapanen, ‘Norjalainen Carte Blanche tuo uuden tanssiteoksen kantaesityksen
Turkuun’ [Norwegian Carte Blanche Brings its New Dance Premiere to Turku], Turun Sanomat,
13 May 2011.
24
Carte Blanche, The Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance, http://
www.carteblanche.no/en/press/corps-de-walk.html (accessed 21 April 2012).
The exhibition centred on artistic objects from 16 Finnish artists and artistic
groups. Arctic Hysteria was first shown in New York in 2008 and went on from
there to Budapest in 2009. In the spring of 2012, Arctic Hysteria was shown in
Moscow. The works presented in the MoMA PS1 exhibition were curated by the
museum’s director Alanna Heiss, together with Finn Marketta Seppälä. MoMA’s
description of the exhibition noted that the ‘exciting visions’ and the idea that
‘Northern art’ is derived from some kind of ‘exotic mental hysteria’ were part of
assembling and marketing the exhibition.25
There were many performative and theatrical elements among the sculptures,
videos, paintings, photography, installations, soundworks and documentary film.
Nature also played a prominent role in all the visual images, which depicted ideas
of ‘green’ values and nature’s vulnerability in the face of the future. The exhibition
brochure challenged viewers to think about consumer culture and understand how
ethics are involved in the circulation of goods, including natural goods. This green
message was conveyed through various artistic techniques. Applying elements
of nature to artistic objects was clearly an artistic feature. In the photography
and videos, nature was presented in vast canvases, portrayed as a site for human
expression, where humankind can still return and express its modern anxieties.
The role of nature almost seemed to imply that Finland’s northern geographical
location offers space for a ‘greener’ vision of culture and artistic thinking.
The critic Ken Johnson wrote about Arctic Hysteria in an article for The New
York Times titled ‘Cool, Hot and Finnish: With a Dose of Mythic Imagination’ (6
June 2008), opening his review with a strong stance on the theme of the exhibition.
In his view, Arctic Hysteria feasibly entailed ‘pathological overexcitement’. At the
same time he saw the works as ‘cool and controlled’. The critic’s own stereotypical
imaginaries provided the palette used to interpret Finnish ‘cool’ – once again we
encounter the notion of a cold climate. Yet perhaps the title of the exhibition
itself creates a need to discuss ‘irrational fantasies’ and ‘urgent emotions’, which he
sees as the characteristics of ‘Finnish sensibility and quirkiness’.26
The terminology used for the exhibition carries a strong physicality.
‘Moodiness’ is a mental state, which comes across as controlled. There seems to
be a lot going on beneath the ‘cool’ surface. Entering the exhibition space as a
Finn and then reading the exhibition review raised a couple of questions. The
spacing of the works alone seemed to be carefully thought out following the
aesthetics so typical of Finnish design. In line with the entire spatial architecture,
a series of performance videos was shown in an installation by choreographer and
performance artist Reijo Kela, known especially for his one-man performances.
‘Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland’, Ps1 MoMA Exhibition Catalogue, 2008.
25
Ken Johnson, ‘Cool, Hot and Finnish: With a Dose of Mythic Imagination’, The New
26
York Times, 6 June 2008.

How did Kela’s appearance on small television screens, where he performed with
simple gestures, carry through the exhibition almost as a red thread? Was the
dancer’s moving body creating the main statement for the exhibition’s arctic
hysteria theme, since the video embodied an actual person? If the viewer was
looking for references for the arctic hysteria as nature, the landscape definitely
created much of Kela’s video aesthetics. The content of Kela’s video diary was
comical, taking cultural stereotypes as a theme for his performance. Presented
on television screens in a number of rooms, the video footage showed Kela at
times naked or half-naked, at other times in either very formal or casual clothes,
performing in his home, outdoors and in natural settings. He appeared in urban
landscapes and small Finnish towns, in Finnish taajama [population centres]
and lähiö [urban neighbourhoods], dancing in the street and jumping in fields.
A recurring theme was his encounters with people in socially awkward situations
or in very formal frames.
The exhibition curators were apparently looking to display aesthetics
based on a loose national theme of Finnishness and the country’s geographical
location in the north, while playing ironically with stereotypes of cold, snow,
isolation and difference. On the level of physicality, the idea of the Nordic or
Northernness and its art as an expressive form were tools to build stories on. In
Kela’s miniature narrative performances, Finland was also presented as quiet and
exotic, its countryside in contrast to urban Finland, which came across in other
pieces as noisiness. In Kela’s tiny videos, nature appeared as though it might
speak to foreign eyes with its many forests and lakes. His swimming in lakes and
performing rituals in the outdoors seemed to interpret local traditions. In an art
museum context, Kela carried fragmented sequences from one screen to the next,
from one room to another. His approach to performing his cultural identity was
humorous and serious, self-conscious and ironic. It is certainly no coincidence
that Finland’s Arctic Hysteria carries a label with emotive connotations or a
reference to this psychological state: arctic hysteria certainly speaks of emotional
sensitivity that has a geographical component.
Taken as a whole, the New York Times reviews challenge the labels and
performances by Nordic artists. The artistic works show their own cultural
corporeality and potential for difference. I believe that, with their titles,
marketing and branding, the artists demonstrate their differences and opinions
in a global world. The names and labels are not innocent but show how these
artists want to maintain their cultural voice in the world. The cultural spheres,
which are also multicultural and intercultural, carry their geographies with
them, embodied in the movements of the performances. However, it is difficult
to trace a single ‘moodiness’ as the aesthetic choice in the Nordic performances.
Revisiting the Ballet Maa
Reviewing music, especially art music, can differ from reviewing dance. In dance
criticism, the ‘partnering’ arts, whether it is music or visual arts, might overrule
dance with their tradition and substance. Then again, the criticism of dance in
newspaper contexts is less weighted with traditions of speaking to wider audiences.
When the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s opera L’amour de loin premiered
in Paris in 2001, she won immediate acclaim and became an international
success, which she remains today. This increased interest in her compositions has
linked her far beyond ‘contemporary music’. Saariaho’s contemporary style of
musical composition invites comparisons to Finland’s twentieth-century musical
tradition. The long history of Finnish music is echoed in how it is currently being
made and incorporates appreciation for old masters like Jean Sibelius. Finland’s
musical exports include the conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Vänskä and
many others who have taken prominent positions in North American cities
with symphony orchestras (such as Los Angeles and Minneapolis). Saariaho’s
contemporary musicality includes innovation and collaboration with theatrical
arts, an approach that has made her cross-disciplinary compositions appeal to
North American audiences.
Saariaho’s ballet Maa is a musical composition in seven scenes. The work
had its American premiere in New York City in September 2010. The ballet was
originally performed in Finland in 1991 with the Finnish National Ballet, and
the choreography to Saariaho’s music was created using a more improvisatory
approach by American Carolyn Carlson, who was based in Helsinki at the time.
In 2010, the Miller Theatre at Columbia University in New York provided the
venue for a restaging of Saariaho’s ballet. Young Italian choreographer Luca
Veggetti developed the choreography for the performance based on Carlson’s
original ideas.27
Along with reviewing the work, the local press highlighted the re-creation
process of the ballet, going through it almost step by step. People were curious
about Saariaho given that she is a living composer. New York audiences were
interested in how she composed the piece in different phases while the work
was in progress. The ballet performance was co-produced by the Works and
Process series at the Guggenheim Museum in New York but staged at the Miller
Theatre. As a La Scala-trained dance artist, Veggetti choreographed and directed
the re-creation of the Maa project. In an interview he gave to Capital New York,
Veggetti said that the work appeared to him as a ritual.28
Zachary Woolfe, ‘The Miller Theater Finds its Voice with New Talent at the Top’, Capital
27
New York, 21 September 2010.

28
Ibid.
Saariaho’s work uses seven musicians and seven dancers. The musicians, from
the International Contemporary Ensemble, were present on stage together with
seven young contemporary dancers. The intention was to have the musicians
breathe together with the dancers the entire time. According to Veggetti, the
continuous presence and attention of the musicians and dancers suggests that
they are engaged in a solemn ritual. Saariaho’s underlying idea for Maa is the
natural world.29 From there, the ballet continues on to images and embodiments
of Nordic serenity in the image of a closeness to nature. The history of the
Finnish classical music scene in particular has introduced motives from nature
for over a century. Jean Sibelius was well known in North America for his nature
series, which still evokes images of pristine Finnish and Nordic natural lives.
Kaija Saariaho’s Maa was received as a rarity, with its evening-length dance
score created by a living composer.30 The piece had not been staged anywhere
since Carolyn Carlson collaborated with Saariaho in Finland. Saariaho first
appeared by invitation in the successful ‘Composer Portrait’ series held at the
Miller Theatre in 2009. Its director, Melissa Smey, learned that Veggetti, who
had been involved in other projects at the Miller Theatre, wanted to work with
the composer’s music so the two decided to bring the ballet score to life.
In the interview, Veggetti describes how his intention was not to create
an imitative balance between the movement and Saariaho’s music. For him,
Saariaho’s score seemed more to take the dancers ‘outside time’. In his view,
the musical sounds generated the space around the performers. While Maa
did not involve a real plot, it was very poetic. The ballet resembled poetry.31 To
create Saariaho’s work as a staged piece, a visual artist to produce sculptures and
a lighting designer were also needed. The artist Moe Yoshida created delicate
kinetic sculptures, which shared the stage with the dancers and musicians. The
lighting and counterweighted sculptures added to the idea of the natural world
as an aesthetic choice for the piece, creating responses to the musical vibrations
and to the air around the dancers as they moved in slow motion and walked
around the stage.
Alistair Macaulay reviewed the ballet in The New York Times in terms of
music; his writing suggested that Saariaho’s music was challenging for the
choreography, and that the choreography really formed itself around and
with the presence of the dancers.32 His review emphasised again the musical
composition, telling how its seven scenes (or movements, as he wrote) were
29

Ibid.
30

Ibid.
31

Ibid.
32

Alistair Macaulay, ‘Moving Preciously to the Music, Sometimes Stealing Away With It’,
New York Times, 23 September 2010.
appealing and interesting, but as a whole the music was ‘frightfully earnest’. He
blamed its neat structure, which, without elements of chaos and wildness, is
perhaps too philosophical.
Its principal subject, according to a programme note, is change in nature
(maa is Finnish for land or earth). But this is a systematically ordered and neatly
structured view of change, with no elements of chaos, turbulence or wildness – a
philosophically polite contemplation of metamorphosis without danger or pathos.
Macaulay also noted that different choreography would perhaps have brought
out the music’s internal features better. ‘As it was, I found myself concentrating
on Ms. Saariaho’s score as a refuge from the tediously polished artfulness of
Luca Veggetti’s choreography.’ The critic felt isolated from the overly serious
modality of the ballet. ‘Instead of the music’s earnestness, the dance – with many
incidental signs of accomplishment – exudes a kind of self-absorbed preciosity.’33
For me as a Finnish audience member, hearing Saariaho’s music felt familiar.
The movements were following patterns of contemporary choreography, giving
in to the meditative pulse of the music. The feel was not by any means isolated,
and the breathing of the dancers was in sync with the tone of the music. In
the choreography, a sense of hearing felt present, and dancers were orienting
themselves to listening to the music.
Media response to Saariaho’s ballet implies an idea of Nordic nature as a
serene place that offers space for meditation. This allegory is reminiscent of
Finland’s composers, such as Jean Sibelius, whose themes draw on the majestic
nature of the geographical place. The reviews give high status to the music, and
see the entire dance in conjunction with it as a cohesive force. In other words,
the dance is evaluated by its ability to fulfil the musical measurements. The two
reviews presented here are different in their perspective. Capital New York gives
space for the personal reflection and artistic voice of the choreographer. The
interview with Luca Veggetti creates an understanding of how the choreography
was so well thought out for the musical composition, and how the music
opened itself as a ritual. The tone of the description in the Capital New York
review seems to place the work high up in the artistic category. Macaulay’s New
York Times review is more serious in discussing the work itself. His approach
sees the music and choreography merely as artificially tied together. As a dance
critique he implies that the choreography has to surrender to the music, and
perhaps this is the reason why it appears to be more body-less than corporeal
with a distinct social body. Here Finnish maa/land was controlled and without
any wilderness, reminiscent of the ‘cool’ in the Arctic Hysteria exhibition. The
choreographed movement was carefully mobilised in accordance with the
33
Ibid.
musical aesthetics. The ballet Maa represents Finland as a place with ambiguous
positions. The Capital New York review shows it as partially ‘cool’, yet the New
York Times review implies that the performance is more philosophical than in
accordance with the Nordic ‘moodiness’. The ballet Maa pictures a country with
deep philosophical roots in the musical tradition and nature. Perhaps the work
also calls for different reactions because the choreographer is Italian, wanting his
own choreographic vision to be true to the original choreography by American
Carolyn Carlson.34
Concluding Ideas
It seems that the global space is formed in distances, and the role of a narrator who
often is a press critic is to diminish these distances. A question is, how well is this
done? Do the cultural distances make the work of a critic more plausible? If the
contemporary performances investigated in this chapter were groundbreaking
artistic works in their local domain, would they ever attain the same status in
a global stage like New York? When the local audience perhaps has the ability
to recognise a groundbreaking work in its own domain, does the international
audience build its response to the discourses and languages outside the cultural
stereotypes and images? A century ago, Scandinavian psychological insight was
considered to be manifest in the ‘truer commitment’ of Scandinavians to their
‘local spheres’. Scandinavian expressionism, especially where Edvard Munch was
concerned, opened local eyes to undiscovered methods in the arts, also creating
educational value for the local art scene. These were the responses of the North
American audiences to the art of Europe. The response evidently shows that there
was a call for different artistic visions. There was not only an attempt to bridge
gaps between geographies and to mobilise geographical thinking, but also a will
to interpret new artistic languages and discourses. From this perspective, Nordic
arts were representing groundbreaking works a century ago. Today, the world
appears anew with globalisation because of the constant flow of the mediascapes.
At the same time the local cultures still hold on to their cultural traditions and
aesthetic codes that create their distinct identity in branding.
As the discussion of the North American press response to the contemporary
Nordic performance works shows, the emphasis is on the evaluation of the local
and cultural body. In particular, the question of cultural corporeality in dance
performances is highlighted in the ways techniques are used. Dance movements
create an aesthetics of the body. But at a deeper level, philosophical purity
Woolfe, ‘The Miller Theater’.

34
(the Maa ballet) and how the body appears, with its ‘punishing grind’ (Carte
Blanche) or ethereal calm, are representations of Nordic artistic works. ‘Wintry
worlds’ and landscapes ‘by bare trees’ (Borrowed Light) as well as ‘urgent
emotions’ (Arctic Hysteria) characterise how the body paints and explains itself
in the narratives of such works.
Recently, when North America hosted touring companies such as the Royal
Danish Ballet and Norway’s Carte Blanche, it seemed that the assumption
of difference was still there in discussions about Nordic aesthetics. A Nordic
company like the Royal Danish Ballet continues a unique tradition it wants to
pass on to the next generation (Denmark); Danish ballet maintains its tradition
yet keeps renewing it. Discussing the ballet, the New York Times critic cannot
separate it from the company’s original history, of Bournonville and his era. He
examines this tradition, calling into question the change and newness, asking
whether it had changed, and if so how. In the case of Norway’s Carte Blanche, the
new performance is subject to another type of criticism. The international flavour
in the company’s profile is most visible in choreographer Sharon Eyal, who comes
from the widely acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company, which has performed
in the US numerous times. The critic asks why Norway’s contemporary dance
company promotes the work of a well-known world choreographer instead of
bringing something new and fresh on the company’s first visit to America. The
reviewer seems to imply that Carte Blanche lacks confidence. Nevertheless, the
company is viewed in terms of Munchian psychological expressionism and the
cultural body of characters that this genre depicts.
Critics seem to have the overt role of establishing a voice in the cultural
sphere. This analysis has raised new questions about the criticism as a voice. The
critic’s testimony is embedded in the idea of an audience. In this chapter it is
evident that New York Times reviewers perceive Nordic performances as a form
of performance entertainment; however, this may be too bold a claim. Still, the
New York art world seems to carry tension between being a world art centre and
being local at the same time. While the experience of one performance has its
value in a larger cultural context, the press reflects and modifies one response
(the critic’s voice) in a larger public sphere. One voice becomes the voice of
many, and the media have a strong representational value in creating the ‘voice’.
Audience response gets a voice through the opinions and writings of the critic
who promotes and reviews the works.
In general, the appearances of Nordic dance on North American soil, in
fact, attest that the cultural differences are not merged into a single cultural
homogeneity. The performance companies show that cultural specificities
still have a place in the global world.35 Since the investigation in this chapter
has touched on contemporary Nordic performances and North American
responses, global cultural exchanges could still be discussed at a deeper level.
Can a local culture, community and cultural identity survive in the global and
more anonymous marketplace, where new resistance can also appear with new
signification? It seems that Nordic companies, choreographers and artistic works
all represent their ‘national’ homes through their official status and marketing.
Yet Finland’s Tero Saarinen Company and Norway’s Carte Blanche do not fit
into the category of trying to make pure national specificity, which would be
either Finnish or Norwegian. Maintaining international collaboration and
international themes in their programming (the Shakers are, after all, a North
American theme) clearly shows that their cultural performances are intercultural
in nature. National can also imply intercultural elements, and their national also
acts as a form of resistance to the global world. Visibility is gained in cultural
exchanges and mobility, in the ways we adapt to changing circumstances. As
Homi Bhabha suggests, in interculturalism, there is intentionality between
cultural exchanges.36 There is still the question of interpreting the response to
exhibitions such as Arctic Hysteria in conjunction with future exhibitions. At
the moment, the Nordic art scene appears to be both ‘cool and controlled’ yet
it creates ‘irrational fantasies’ that all seem to play with cultural stereotypes
and oppositions, defining how local intentions and allegories can continue and
change on the world stage.
Bibliography
‘Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland’, PS1 MoMA Exhibition Catalogue,
2008.
Haapanen, Irmeli, ‘Norjalainen Carte Blanche tuo uuden tanssiteoksen
kantaesityksen Turkuun’ [Norwegian Carte Blanche brings its new dance
premiere to Turku], Turun Sanomat, 13 May 2011.
Johnson, Ken, ‘Cool, Hot and Finnish: With a Dose of Mythic Imagination’, The
New York Times, 6 June 2008.
Kisselgoff, Anna, ‘A Second Cast in Bournonville’s “Napoli”’, The New York
Times, 17 June 1988.
35
Rustom Bharucha, The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in an Age of
Globalization (Middletown, CT, 2000), p. 84.
36
Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London, 1994), p. 38.
La Rocco, Claudia, ‘Brooklyn Convocation of Shakers (and Movers)’, The New

York Times, 9 November 2007.
La Rocco, Claudia, ‘Menacing Working Girls Stuck in Punishing Grind’, The
New York Times, 1 July 2011.
Macaulay, Alistair, ‘A “Napoli” Changed, Yet Unchanging’, The New York Times,
13 June 2011.
Macaulay, Alistair, ‘Moving Preciously to the Music, Sometimes Stealing Away
With It’, The New York Times, 23 September 2010.
Vogel, Carol, ‘“The Scream” is Auctioned for a Record $119.9 Million’, The New
York Times, 2 May 2012.
Woolfe, Zachary, ‘The Miller Theater Finds its Voice with New Talent at the
Top’, Capital New York, 21 September 2010.
Anholt, Simon, ‘Should Place Brands Be Simple?’, Place Branding and Public
Diplomacy, 5/10 (2009), pp. 1–6.
Appadurai, Arjun, ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’,
Theory, Culture & Society, 7 ( June 1990), pp. 295–310.
Appadurai, Arjun, ‘Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination’,
Public Culture, 12/1 (2000), pp. 6–7.
Berman, Patricia, Scandinavian Art Exhibition New York, Buffalo, Toledo, Boston
1912–1913, lecture at Scandinavia House, New York City, 17 November
2011.
Bhabha, Homi, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).
Bharucha, Rustom, The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre
in an Age of Globalization (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press,
2000).
Bourdieu, Pierre, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field [Les
Règles de l’art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire (Editions du Seuil,
1992)] (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996).
Cooper, Frederick, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).
Foster, Susan Leigh (ed.), Worlding Dance: Studies in International Performance
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Pine, Joseph II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre
& Every Business a Stage (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2011).
Pollock, Griselda, Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum: Time, Space and
the Archive (New York and London: Routledge, 2007).
Racial Studies, 22/2 (1999), pp. 447–462.
Internet Sources
Carte Blanche, The Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance,

http://www.carteblanche.no/en/press/corps-de-walk.html (accessed 21
April 2012).
Jorma Elo: ABT, http://www.abt.org/education/archive/choreographers/
elo_j.html (accessed 4 March 2013).
Nordic Cool 2013, http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/festivals/12-13/
nordic/events.cfm?genre=DAN (accessed 4 March 2013).
Tero Saarinen Company: About us, http://www.terosaarinen.com/en/
company/about_us/ (accessed 2 March 2013).
Tero Saarinen Company, Borrowed Light: Media, http://www.terosaarinen.
com/en/media/reviews/repertoire/borrowed_light/ (accessed 2 March
2013).
Chapter 8
Working in Nordic Dance Venues
Anne Margrete Fiskvik
Dance artists in the early decades of the twentieth century participated in a variety
of social cultures existing in workplaces such as opera ballets and the vaudeville
and revue theatres. Working from Henri Lefebvre’s ideas about social space, as
well as from Michel Foucault’s ideas about the hierarchical structures/powers that
develop within created spaces, this chapter analyses examples of the social and
hierarchical relations of which the dancers in the Nordic countries were a part.
Henri Lefebvre assumes that ‘(social) space is a (social) product’, and therefore
a social space takes on ‘a sort of reality of its own’.1 Spaces also serve as tools of
thought, action and power. Thus dancers contribute to the production of space
not only by their physical participation but also by their ways of thinking and
behaving. In embodying the ideas and rules that belong to different working
cultures, they may be seen to reinforce these same ideas and rules. Michel
Foucault’s interest in created spaces is concentrated on the particular usefulness
with which they serve power structures. ‘Particular places were defined not
only by the need to supervise, to break dangerous communications, but also to
create a useful space.’2 A useful space, according to Foucault, is therefore one
that works efficiently and with defined hierarchical social relations to support
existing power structures.
How were such spaces created and maintained by theatre dancers active
in the first decades of the twentieth century? In the following, Lefebvre’s and
Foucault’s ideas about the emergence and power structures of social spaces
contribute to an understanding of their working situations. Firstly, the chapter
identifies some of the typical venues where dancers worked, roughly categorising
them as either serious or popular. It should be noted that the terms are used in a
heuristic rather than an analytical sense since serious and popular also describe
the types of repertoire that dancers worked with. Secondly, the chapter teases out
how social spaces were formed in relation to cultural codes inherent in different
1
2
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London, 1977), pp.
143–144.
workplaces. It analyses, through selected examples, some of the possibilities as

well as restrictions for dancers.
The chapter compares material on dancers working in the capital cities of
Copenhagen, Helsinki, Kristiania/Oslo (since 1924, Oslo) and Stockholm.
In addition, international scholars writing on dancers’ working cultures,
hierarchies and agencies provide a wider European and North American
perspective on the Nordic.3
The activities of dancers can be followed in published memoirs or
biographies, in theatre programmes, advertisements, reviews, as well as in articles
and interviews in the many daily newspapers. A number of Nordic scholars have
worked with such material for different purposes. The analysis in this chapter
relies on some of the previously collected material and research done by Lena
Hammergren, Anne Makkonen, Johanna Lakkonen, Karen Vedel and Anne
Fiskvik.4 Many, perhaps most, dancers did not, or perhaps could not, produce
interesting or canonical narratives. Typically there is more source material
available on the better-known dancers, but the above-mentioned scholars have
also traced activities of dancers and companies outside the canon.5 While this
chapter, however, relies mainly on information on better-known dance artists,
it is important to recognise, as Christy Adair reminds us in her book on female
dancers and their roles in society, that, for each one of the famous female
dancers, there were many others who had their own inspirations, dreams and
3
Christy Adair, Women and Work, Sylphs and Sirens (New York, 1992); Alexandra
Carter, Dance and Dancers in the Victorian and Edwardian Music Hall Ballet (Aldershot,
2005); Helena Wulff, Ballet across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers
(Oxford, 1998); Wendy Buonaventura, Something in the Way She Moves: Dancing Women
from Salome to Madonna (Cambridge, 2004); Mark Franko, The Work of Dance: Labor,
Movement and Identity in the 1930’s (Middletown, CT, 2002).
4
See Bibliography. These scholars have all written about the dance cultures in their
respective countries: Makkonen and Lakkonen about Finland, Hammergren about Sweden,
and Vedel about Denmark. Source material dealing with Norwegian dancers and venues has
been collected by the author.
5
See for instance the activities of the Norwegian dancer and actress Gyda Christensen in
Anne Fiskvik and Egil Bakka, ‘Tracing Norwegian Dance Fields’, in Karen Vedel (ed.), Dance
and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Trondheim, 2011), pp. 57–103,
and Anne Fiskvik, Da modernismen i dansen kom til Norge [MA Thesis, Institutt for Drama
og Teater] (Trondheim, 2012). Lena Hammergren and Karen Vedel have dealt with dance
types outside of the ballet genre in their work: Hammergren, Ballerinor och barfotadansöser:
Svensk og internationell danskultur runt 1900, Chora – skriftserie for danseforskning, vol.
4 (Stockholm, 2002); Vedel, En anden dans: Moderne scenedans i Danmark 1900–1975
(Copenhagen, 2008). Johanna Lakkonen has analysed the imperial Russian Ballet tours in
the Nordic countries: Canon and Beyond: Edvard Fazer and the Imperial Russian Ballet
1908–1910 (Helsinki, 2009).
Working in Nordic Dance Venues 185
work structures.6 Regrettably, material on these lesser-known dancers is harder

to find. We do not know enough about the many corps de ballet dancers that
worked both in the opera ballets and in the vaudeville and variety theatres in
the Nordic countries.7 Most of the examples provided here are from dancers in
leading positions and thus of a higher hierarchical standing that the majority of
their less empowered colleagues.
Dancers’ Workplaces: Serious and Popular Venues
The categories of popular and serious are used in this chapter to distinguish
between the most common workplaces for dancers. Several scholars make similar
distinctions between serious and popular venues, serious often being connected
to high art and in opposition to popular entertainment culture or low art.8 The
types of repertoire shown would be one way of distinguishing between the two,
but serious and popular were in no way fixed. What would be categorised as
popular or high art could vary according to the criteria used. Lena Hammergren
discusses the use of serious versus popular labels in Sweden in relation to the visit
of Isadora Duncan in 1904 and 1905, and points out that Duncan’s dancing was
judged and described differently by the various papers and critics.9
Popular entertainment culture was expanding rapidly in the first decades of
the twentieth century all over Europe, as described by Alexandra Carter:
The halls, the variety stage and vaudeville all presented popular entertainment
which, in its diversity, its non-reliance on the spoken word, the brevity of its acts
and the opportunities it offered for solo performance, was ideally suited to dance.10
Popular entertainment embraced almost anything that was not legitimate

theatre. This describes even the Nordic situation, since numerous theatres would
offer entertainment of the lighter, popular kind. The variety theatres, for instance,
typically combined a range of artistic expressions, and Lena Hammergren points
6
Adair, p. 83.
7
See also Hammergren’s discussion on Swedish dance research and the need to focus
more on dancers and styles outside of the canon, pp. 13–14.
8
See for instance Hammergren, pp. 76–84, Carter, p. 9. Mark Franko describes
Fokine’s work for the Ziegfeld Follies as high art, in contrast to the popular dancing that took
place: ‘There is also a high art connection to the Follies … Fokine contributed two numbers
to the [Ziegfeld] Follies’ (p. 110).
9
Hammergren, pp. 76–84.
10
Carter, pp. 7–9.
out that, in Sweden, dancing, singing, acrobatics, sketches, juggling, and even
dog training could be seen. These were meant to entertain the audiences by
astonishing them or by making them laugh.11
Ballet was firmly established in the Nordic capitals in the early twentieth
century, but in different ways. One of the most easily identified differences
between the Nordic countries is that Finland and Norway instituted their state-
funded opera ballets much later than Denmark and Sweden. The professional
opera and ballet companies of Sweden and Denmark were founded in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and were based on the European/French
model of an aristocratic ballet connected to royalty. The Finnish and Norwegian
lack of a royal opera ballet can be explained by the lack of a national court;
Finland was ruled by Russia until 1917, while Norway became independent
from Sweden in 1905. In Finland, a state-funded ballet company was established
in 1922 with the help of the impresario Edvard Fazer.12 The Norwegian opera
ballet did not open until 1958, but the first semi-professional ballet company
in Norway was established in 1910 and lasted until 1919. It was situated at the
Norwegian Nationaltheatret, with the actress and dancer Gyda Christensen in
charge of the company. This ballet company was not a state-funded national
ballet company: the dancers were not formally employed and were paid only
for performances. Because of the professional quality of several of its dancers
and the impact it had on professional dance in Norway, the company was
nevertheless comparable to those of the national opera ballets of Denmark,
Finland and Sweden.13
Ballet professionals could also be found outside the national ballet companies
and were often connected to dance schools. In Finland, professionals from
Russia came across the border to establish schools and in some instances ballet
companies. At the same time, Finnish dancers went to study in St Petersburg,
then came back and often opened ballet schools. Finland always had strong links
to Russia, both through sharing borders and being ruled by Russia for more
than a hundred years. Consequently the Russian ballet tradition has influenced
Finnish ballet, but perhaps not to the degree hitherto thought. Anne Makkonen
Lena Hammergren et al., Teater i Sverige (Hedemora, 2004), p. 85.

11
George Ge was the leading ballet master of Finnish National Ballet at the time.
12
13
In Norway, before the company at the Nationaltheatret was formed, classical ballet
existed on much less regular terms and in more sporadic ways in the capital, mostly revolving
around a few important key people and ballet schools, especially that of Augusta Johannesén.
Originally Swedish, she worked as choreographer and dance teacher at the Nationaltheatret
and Fahlstrøms Teater after ending her performing career. See for instance an interview with
Augusta Johannesén in Tidens Tegn (2 August 1910), where the history of Norwegian ballet
is given as a background material to the interview.
points out that, despite the strong Finnish–Russian connection, its impact has
probably been overrated, and new research has shown many independent traces
of Finnish dance, not reliant on the strong Russian ballet tradition.14
It is interesting to note that the audiences of serious and popular entertainment
did not always reflect the typical social class distinctions when it came to popular
entertainment. Whereas the Nordic opera houses were frequented by mostly
middle- and upper-class citizens, the very same citizens were also attracted
to popular entertainment when these were given in venues tailored towards
their social standing. It was often more a question of where the theatres were
situated in a given city. For instance, the music halls in Britain were by 1890
geared towards different social classes such as the aristocratic variety theatres
of the West End, the larger bourgeois halls situated in less fashionable places,
and minor music halls belonging to the poor districts.15 Even though the social
class system was somewhat less pronounced in the Nordic countries, similar
distinctions can be found. In Kristiania, for instance, the two large variety halls
drew audiences from different social classes. Odd Bang Hansen explains how the
invisible boundaries between the social classes in Kristiania determined where
the citizens would seek entertainment, with the area around Vestvika functioning
as a Kristiania’s ‘West End’, whereas the theatres in the Klingenberg area were
part of the popular entertainment centre. Dovrehallen, situated right on the
border between these two areas, drew its audience mostly from the bourgeoisie
as well as working classes, whereas the Bazarhallen, situated a little further east in
the city, had audiences of mostly working-class people.16 Distinctions between
serious and popular venues could, however, be reflected in the entrance fees
of the theatres. In Kristiania, serious venues had more expensive entrance fees
than the popular ones, and between the popular venues, one had to pay a little
more to enter Dovrehallen than Bazarhallen. In May 1909, the best seats at the
Nationaltheatret cost Nkr 2.50, to enter Dovrehallen you had to pay Nkr 0.50,
and the entrance fee to Bazarhallen was Nkr 0.25.17
The discussion on serious and popular venues has revealed that the boundaries
between these could be flexible. Overall, all types of venues were reliant on
making money; it was part of their daily reality to balance income with expenses.
Foucault states that power produces reality; it produces domains of objects and
14
Anne Makkonen, One Past, Many Histories: Loitsu (1933) in the Context of Dance
Art in Finland, PhD dissertation, University of Surrey, 2007, pp. 16–19.
15
Carter, p. 9.
16
Odd Bang Hansen, Chat Noir og Norsk Revy (Oslo, 1961), p. 55.
17
Prices listed in advertisements in Dagbladet, 22 October, 1909 and Tidens Tegn, 23
April 1910.
rituals of truth.18 The ‘rituals of truth’ for dancers were hierarchical systems that
were maintained by long-standing traditions as well as issues of commodity.
Thus the dancers that were on top of the hierarchy, together with the leaders of
a venue, were the ones who had the most power to produce the daily reality for
all dancers. This was a reality where dancers, as will be pointed out in the next
section, were reliant on being adaptable and flexible.
Versatile Dancing and Dancers
When it came to the dancers themselves, corps de ballet dancers like those in the
British variety halls were often recruited from the working class, according to
Lena Hammergren.19 Karen Vedel makes a similar claim for the Danish dancing
girls, pointing out that women from the working class were not only a new group
of consumers of entertainment, but also entered the stages of the variety theatres
as dancing girls.20
Even if the work was not well paid, one advantage of working at the opera
ballets of Denmark, Sweden and Finland was that they offered somewhat stable
working conditions, and some pension benefits. The private theatres in Sweden,
in contrast, all hired their dancers on shorter contracts, which made the dancers
vulnerable to shifting trends.21 Dancers had to be ready to adapt to the latest
trends, and also the shifting constellations of the dance ensembles. The status
of the dancers at Nationaltheatret was even vaguer, because they were not paid
regularly, only for performances.
Karen Vedel has pointed out that classifications by dance into styles are only
helpful to a certain degree in the first few decades of the twentieth century, when,
as we have seen, a variety of new dance styles were emerging and boundaries
between them were in flux.22 Typically, several dance styles existed side by side
in the Nordic capitals, as they also did on the European continent. Dancers
travelled and experienced the international trends, but also developed their own
versions of emerging modern dance styles such as plastique, barefoot dancing
and free dance [fridans].23 Judging by the coverage in the Norwegian press, the
Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 194.

18
Hammergren, p. 129.
19
20
Vedel, p. 50.
21
22
Vedel, p. 17.
23
The plastique, barefoot dance and free dance were all variants of modern dance
styles that evolved around 1900, when the body was used in a more expressive and free way,
compared to the classical ballet style. See Nancy Reynolds and Malcolm McCormick, No
audiences were favourable towards new ideas and dance forms, and new dance
trends spread rapidly from artist to artist and country to country in Europe as
well as in the Nordic countries.24 The various dance styles did not always exist
peacefully side by side. Typically there would be competition between ballet and
modern dance styles. In his analysis of the US situation, Mark Franko points out
the war between the ballet and modern dance that went on from the beginning
of the 1900s.25 The same war took place in the Nordic countries when modern
dance forms were introduced. Dance critics could take a stance for or against the
modern dance: in 1909, an anonymous reviewer in Aftenposten attacked barefoot
dance because of its lack of refinement and style.26 Other critics welcomed the
new and more expressive way of dancing.27
The techniques and idioms of ballet also spilled over into the popular
entertainment business, especially in the USA, where ballet has had a history
connecting with popular culture. The balletic choreographic tradition could be
seen, for instance, in the Ziegfeld Follies.28 Also in Norden hierarchical divisions
between soloists and corps de ballet dancers spilled over into the vaudeville and
variety theatres, giving the most attention to the solo dancers.
Additionally, both vaudeville theatres and ballet institutions could present
the same dance styles, but the way they were presented and displayed could be
different. One type of dance typically seen in both the serious and the popular
venues was Spanish dancing. Celebrated ballerina Lillebil Ibsen performed
Spanish Dances at the Mayol in Kristiania in 1921 with her partner Ernest
Marini.29 The Mayol Theatre opened in 1921 and functioned as a hybrid between
serious and popular: it showed revues as well as operettas and ballet. Ibsen’s
dancing was rooted in a strong ballet technique, and she was admired for her vivid
Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT, 2003), for an overview of
the development of European and North American theatre dance at the beginning of the
twentieth century.
24
For instance, Norwegian newspapers such as Aftenposten, Dagbladet, Ørebladet,
Verdens Gang and Tidens Tegn in 1909 and 1910 all wrote about new dance styles such as
plastique and barefoot dance. They also reported from different performances taking place in
Kristiania and other Nordic and European cities.
25
Franko, pp. 107–113.
26
Anonymous, Aftenposten, 9 June 1909.
27
The critic Reidar Mjøen, for instance, was highly favourable towards the new
plastique styles in several reviews of Norwegian dancers: see Dagbladet, 9 May 1909 and 8
February 1910.
28
Franko, p. 109.
29
The Mayol Theatre was opened in January 1921 with the impresario Rudolf
Rasmussen as leader.
Figure 8.1 Ballerina Lillebil Ibsen and Ernest Marini pose as Spanish dancers
in 1921. Photographer: Ernest Rude. Oslobilder: OB.RP12187b.
interpretation, but her dancing was still within the idiom of classical ballet. The
Spanish flavour seems to lie more in the costuming than in the actual dancing.30
Other types of dancing could also be seen in variety theatres as well as in the
opera ballets. The picture here of Ibsen and Marini was part of a series of photos
including one of Ernest Marini portraying a Chinese dancer. Finnish dancers
typically performed Indian or other ethnic-style dances.31 In Sweden, in addition
to Spanish dances, one could see so-called serpentine dances, can-can, skirt
dances, and even acrobatic dances.32 In Kristiania, numerous advertisements for
the Tivoli theatre and the Circus Variété announced National Dances, which in
this context most likely were typical character dances reminiscent of traditional
Norwegian folk dances. Folk dance was indeed favoured: the Swedish dance
troupe Philochoros performed all over Norden, showing a variety of folk dances
as well as theatrical compositions.33 Traditional Norwegian folk dance in the
form of Halling could be seen in Kristiania at the Tivoli and at Fahlstrøms
Teater in 1909.34
Sometimes dancers would be required to perform in styles from far outside
the Nordic sphere. Or at least, for promotional reasons, they would advertise
themselves as capable of, for instance, Blackface dancing, a style where performers
would paint their faces to look like dancers of African origin. The accompanying
picture shows the Norwegian dancer Alf Andersen posing with his (unknown)
female partner.
Various dance acts were part of the vaudeville culture and the picture here is
part of a series taken of Andersen and his partner, posing in different vaudeville
styles. Andersen worked at the Dovrehallen, but these photos were taken as
portraits at the studio of the renowned photographer Ludwik Scacinsky. One
can guess that they were used for promotional purposes when looking for work,
showing the dancer’s versatility. These photos of Andersen and his partner can
30
Reviews in Dagbladet and Tidens Tegn pointed out Ibsen’s strong ballet technique,
but it was her ability to impersonate the Spanish dancing styles that made her performance
unique: Dagbladet and Tidens Tegn, 8 March 1921.
31
Some Finnish dancers even combined ballet and acrobatics according to Anne
Makkonen, One Past, p. 50.
32
Hammergren et al., p. 89.
33
For more information on Philochoros and their repertoire and Nordic tours, see
Canons in Norden’, in Vedel (ed.), pp. 29–30.
34
Fahlstrøms Teater staged a series of performances by Norwegian folk dancers in 1909
and 1910. In May 1909, the male solo dance Halling was performed by several male dancers.
The newspapers reported frequently from these performances: Ørebladet, 22 May 1909.
Figure 8.2 Vaudeville act in Kristiania 1914: (Alf Andersen and an

anonymous female dancer). Photographer: L. Scacinsky.
Oslobilder: OB.SZ24542.
be seen as examples of how a dancer adapted to the different needs and shifting
trends of the entertainment business.
Alf Andersen was not alone in being versatile. Lena Hammergren points out
that dancers employed at the Royal Swedish Opera worked in the variety theatres,
as well as in vaudeville and operetta theatres.35 In the Finnish capital, for instance,
the same ballet dancers often performed at the opera, in restaurants and spas, in
addition to going on tours around Finland. This versatility was often required by
economic necessity. Copies of contracts from the Helsinki opera show that the
work there was poorly paid in addition to being irregular.36 Swedish and Danish
ballet dancers also shifted between different working cultures. At the Royal
Danish Ballet, the dancers were, up until 1919, paid according to the number of
performances each dancer participated in, and Karen Vedel estimates that only
every fifth performance in the year season 1900/1901 included ballet. In addition,
not all dancers performed in all ballets, and this makes it probable that they would
need to supply their income by working at other theatres or as teachers.37
The versatility could also result from artistic challenges or lack thereof, as
seems to have been the case with Danish ballet dancers. Karen Vedel points out
that the Royal Danish Ballet underwent a period of crisis early in the twentieth
century. Ballet master Hans Beck fought hard to maintain the tradition under
a theatre direction that was not very favourable towards ballet. The many
private theatres in Copenhagen also offered competition to the Royal Danish
Ballet. Several dancers left the Royal Danish Ballet because of stagnation in the
repertoire and a lack of artistic challenges. They went on either to become actors
or dancers in the popular revues or vaudeville venues or to work as teachers.38
Dancers had to be willing to perform in a variety of styles and impersonate
different roles. The versatility of dancers’ workplaces resembles Foucault’s ideas
about the production of spaces: for him, the creation and representation of
spaces can be seen to meet both functional and desirable ends.39 For example,
besides the more obvious workplaces at the Norwegian Nationaltheatret and in
the national ballets of Denmark, Finland and Sweden, ballet dancers also found
work in the changing repertoires of the vaudeville and revue theatres. There was
subsequently also a need for dancers in many types of venues, and each venue
35
36
Makkonen, p. 52.
37
Vedel, p. 33. Several well-known dancers, such as Valdemar Price and Jeanette
Tardini, announced their teaching in the daily press.
38
Ibid., pp. 33–34.
39
Michel Foucault, ‘Space, Knowledge and Power’, in Paul Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault
Reader (New York, 1984), p. 241.
would offer a unique social setting as well as a unique working culture. The next
part of the chapter will analyse some of the inner workings of these.
Working Cultures in Dance
Dance venues carry an abundance of spoken as well as unspoken representations

of ideas, and they also legitimise certain forms of action and prescribe others.
Regardless of where they worked, dancers had to cater to what the social
psychologists Arnold and Randell describe as working cultures.40 Thus, in the
period studied in this chapter, dancers formed working cultures that inhabited
the unique configurations of features present. These were based on what can be
identified as inherent norms, values, beliefs and ways of behaving that characterise
the manner in which groups and individuals combine to get things done.41
Within a working culture, different levels of awareness of rules can be
found. At the deepest level of awareness are unconscious, taken-for-granted
assumptions. On the next, slightly higher level of awareness, we find values
about what ought to be part of a working culture, as well as unspoken norms
that guide the members in how they should behave in certain situations. These
represent unwritten rules of behaviour that are, so to speak, in the walls of a
dance space. They may be acted out and upon, but are seldom spoken of. On
the more conscious level of a working culture, artefacts can be found, visible
manifestations such as work schedules, dress codes, and observable behaviours
of members, structures, systems, procedures, rules and physical aspects of the
organisation.42 The spoken and unspoken rules that dancers related to when
working at the variety theatre Dovrehallen in Kristiania, for instance, were not
fixed, but changeable according to who was in charge and who was employed.
Whereas some rules would be clearly laid out in the open, for example
the official hierarchical standing of soloists and corps de ballet dancers, other
aspects were more diffuse. In her book Ballet across Borders (1998), Helena
Wulff describes how she only gradually learned the rules of the working culture
when she was allowed inside the Royal Swedish Ballet for fieldwork in 1992. In
chapters such as ‘Access to a Closed World’, Wulff describes the inner social life
of the dancers of the Swedish opera ballet, learning the cultural codes and rules,
‘moving up and down in the social structure’.43 Entering as an observer, it might
John Arnold, Ray Randell, et al. (eds), Work Psychology: Understanding Human
40
Behaviour in the Work Place (London, 2010), p. 653.

41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
43
Wulff, p. 14.
have taken extra long time for Wulff to become an insider, but it is likely that
dancers when being hired in a venue would need some time to learn the ways of
the venues’ specific working culture.
One of the notions that was not necessarily spoken openly about, but was
understood within the working cultures of dance in the Nordic countries (and
all over the Western world) was the display of human flesh. Dancers, especially
those in the popular entertainment venues, were expected to dress lightly and
submit themselves to the gaze of the audiences. Female dancers were both
admired and disrespected for their beautiful bodies: ‘Professional dancers have
been seen as the most dangerous of all women, a reflection of the idea that men
are powerless to resist temptation when it is put on display.’44
In the vaudeville and revue theatres, dancers were expected to be more
liberal than those dancing in serious theatres when it came to showing off their
bodies and dancing in sensually and sexually suggestive ways. The corps de ballet
would often be staged as a visually pleasing background to the solo performers.
Examples from the Scala revues in Copenhagen have the female dancers cast as
sportswomen, which, according to Karen Vedel, most likely served as an excuse
for a scanty costume. So-called ‘bathing ladies’ were another common theme for
the Scala girls, and yet another excuse for displaying human flesh.45 The costumes
as well as the types of movements used, high leg kicks, carried connotations
of a special type of woman, and female corps de ballet dancers could easily be
misjudged as prostitutes since female bodies were typically considered objects of
sexual obsession and desire.46
On the other hand, there were also those who found the dancing girls
liberating and even part of the democratisation process. Vedel writes about the
debates in Danish newspapers on the pros and cons of the imported American
entertainment culture, which in its costuming and themes was far more revealing
than that of the traditional classical ballet. While some applauded the focus
on the human body in vitalistic terms as a result of democratic progress that
allowed women to own their own body, others saw the increasing popularity of
dancing girls’ culture as a barbaric American influence, foreign to the Nordic
cultures.47 This debate must also be seen in relation to the increasing focus on
the healthiness of the human body: numerous styles of gymnastics and training
methods were developed around the beginning of the twentieth century.48
44
Buonaventura, p. 10.
45
Vedel, p. 58.
46
Buonaventura, p. 9.
47
Vedel, pp. 46–49.
48
See Reynolds and McCormick, pp. 5–31, for an overview of the emergence of new
ideals for exercising the human body at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Ideas and rules of appropriate conduct also informed the audience about
how to behave in a given venue. The layout of the performance spaces could be
one aspect that dictated proper conduct. Ballet dancers, for instance, typically
performed on proscenium stages, securely separated from their audience.
They were not expected to make contact with the audience. The ballerina was
thus unapproachable but still desirable, as Christy Adair points out: ‘Ballet
productions typically have included the display of the dancers’ bodies, and
subsequently the gaze of the audience.’ Adair, taking a feminist stance, further
asserts that the gaze in dance has typically been male and informed by ideas
of desire and pleasure.49 Ballet dancers, both male and female, would need to
understand the rules of this display and manoeuvred between playing the
rules and keeping their integrity. In ballet, this was helped by the layout of the
proscenium stages, where the spectators were expected to be contained, politely
seated during performances. They gazed, but did not touch.
Popular venues also carried different spoken and unspoken rules in terms of
the relationship between dancers and spectators. In general, dancers in popular
venues, especially those without the typical proscenium stage, were approached
and studied at a much closer distance than in the serious ones. In some venues,
such as the Tivoli Garden in Kristiania, spectators could be seated quite close
to the performers, enjoying both alcohol and food, and would often become
intoxicated. Audible comments, cheering, as well as expressions of displeasure
could be heard. The separation of the audience and performer was also less
than rigid at Tivoli Garden in Kristiania during the summer seasons, where
entertainment such as rope dancing took place in the garden itself.
One can imagine that the female rope dancer, lightly dressed, was exposed
to all kinds of comments and maybe proposals.50 She would have learned to deal
with these as part of the working culture that existed at the Tivoli.
One particularly interesting type of venue, which also minimised the
distance between performers and the spectators, was the Finnish restaurants.
In fact, many Finnish restaurants were much more than a place for people to
eat, drink and socialise. They were also a place to get some cultural refill; and
interestingly, the repertoire at the restaurants was not confined to the popular
types of dancing. Programmes could alternate between serious and popular
dance styles, and classical ballet was often part of the repertoire because several
of the dancers were recruited from the Finnish opera ballet. Many of the acts
could be identical to the dancing shown at the opera ballet, and dancers often
used the same repertoire of movements at the opera, in restaurants, and even on
Adair, p. 62.
49
Rope dancing was typical of popular entertainment shown at the Kristiania Tivoli in
50
1878, as well as at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Figure 8.3 Unknown female dancer rope dancing at the Tivoli Hagen (Tivoli
Garden) in Kristiania. Photographer: unknown. Oslobilder:
OB.F02188.
tours. Classical ballet, combinations of ballet and character dancing, ballet and
ballroom, or ballet and modern dance were commonly featured. Some Finnish
dancers even combined ballet and acrobatics.51 The movements had to be
adapted to the restaurant space, and the classically trained dancers, used to the
social hierarchies at the opera ballet, had to adapt to the cultural codes typical of
a popular venue. Thus dancing in these restaurants meant adapting to a specific
space inhabited by an audience drinking and commenting, being close to the
audience and performing on not so well-defined stages.
Clearly the social spaces created in restaurants were different from those
at the opera, the opera being a serious venue whereas restaurants had a social
agenda, serving as a meeting place for people to drink and eat, in addition to
being entertained. What seems likely is that the spaces would be more unstable,
with an atmosphere and a spatial layout continuously being reshaped depending
on the working dancers as well as the restaurant guests. These Finnish dancers
adapted to the venue in question. Dancing at the opera offered one set of rules,
maintaining the traditional hierarchical structures of ballet companies, adhering
51
Makkonen, pp. 45–50 and 70–72. Acrobatic dances were fusions of ballet and
acrobatic stunts and lifts.
to rules and standards of the classical ballet. When working in restaurants the
environment changed; perhaps the technical standard was not lowered, but the
physical space in which to dance was different, as was the entire cultural setting.
The source material says little about to what degree dancers were comfortable
with this situation, but nevertheless they inhabited the spaces of restaurants and
learned to cope with the cultural codes that existed.52
The social spaces that the Finnish ballet dancers shifted between – the opera
stage and the restaurants – implied different regimes of social conduct. In a similar
manner, the different theatres carried different rules for how to behave on as well
as off stage, and these would inform communications, dancing styles, levels and
types of technique, and not least the spoken and unspoken rules of conduct among
the employed dancers. Audiences and dancers alike adhered to the rules of social
conduct in a given theatre, and shared the social rules of the space.
Social and Artistic Hierarchies
One of the simple rules of the dancing business was that dancers worked where
there was work to be found and embraced the possibilities granted for making a
living as well as experiencing artistic growth. Consequently they moved in and
out of working cultures that produced their own social spaces. One of the most
prominent of these rules would be the spoken and unspoken rules of hierarchies
and social powers. Working in the state-funded ballet companies in Denmark,
Sweden and Finland implied a certain technical level and also a certain social
position, at least for solo dancers. The working culture at the Royal Swedish
Opera Ballet, for instance, was informed by the dancers’ hierarchical status,
which again depended not only on skills, but also on the popularity of the
artistes.53 Payment varied accordingly for the ballet dancers, but was low for its
day and also had to cover certain work-related expenses, such as training clothes,
payment for dance classes, and specially made choreography. On the plus side,
the performers would receive a small pension that would help retired dancers
scrape by, but most had to find other employment after their early retirement.54
The popular theatres in Sweden often paid better, but offered less job
security. Nevertheless, many of the well-known dancers from the Royal Swedish
52
The vague but at the same time flexible borders between serious and popular dancing
were also reflected in the attitudes of Finnish newspapers: some newspaper articles from the
1920s and 1930s presented ballet as a form of entertainment and not as an art form. See
Makkonen, p. 72.
53
54
Ballet were persuaded to work for variety and vaudeville theatres, even though
no pension or other benefits were offered to those employed in private theatres.55
Better payment and perhaps also more artistic freedom were chosen over job
security. The vaudeville and variety theatres were nevertheless hierarchically
organised in the manner so typical of European ballet companies. In her
discussion of the hierarchical traditions of the ballet dancers of the Alhambra
and Empire theatres in London, Alexandra Carter points out that the dancers
were employed directly by the venue and part of a clear internal structure: ‘This
structure, reflecting the hierarchical nature of the stratified society from whence
ballet originated and in which it still existed, generally comprised principals,
coryphées, corps, supernumeraries and children.’56 Consequently, the already
successful dancers could pick and choose whereas the dancers of the corps
had fewer possibilities as a whole. In the Nordic countries, as well as on the
continent, solo dancers were often recruited from the ballet world. It was rare for
dancers to progress from corps to principal status.57 The hierarchical divisions
between soloists and corps de ballet dancers spilled over into the vaudeville and
variety theatres, also in their stereotypical ideas of, for instance, the ‘ballet girl’.
Mark Franko points out that ‘[t]he chorus girl was a figure of popular American
culture linked to the call girl, but also the “ballet girl”.’58 In Norden, similar
tendencies can be found in the popular entertainment business, where the solo
dancers were on the top of the hierarchy and the ‘chorus girls’ part of the corps
de ballets. Not only were they in the lower part of the hierarchy. Karen Vedel
points out that the identity of the chorus girls often cannot be discerned; only in
a few instances are the names known at the Scala theatre in Copenhagen, where
10 to 36 chorus dancers would be creating backgrounds for the variety theatre’s
stars in a given production. The dancing girls would function not as individuals,
but as groups, and would often be named after the theatre, i.e. Scala Girls, Apollo
Girls, Tivoli Girls.59
In Kristiania, the variety theatre Dovrehallen followed the structure of hiring
solo dancers for special engagements, while a corps of female dancers, called the
Dovring Girls, was found lower down on the hierarchy. Typically, not much is
known about the dancers of the Dovring Girls. One member, Dagmar Johansen,
is mentioned by Bang Hansen because she was given the opportunity to do solo
numbers.60 As was common practice in the variety halls, new soloists attractions
55
Hammergren et al., pp. 89, 116.
56
Carter, p. 30.
57
Ibid., p. 31.
58
Franko, p. 109.
59
Vedel, p. 52.
60
Bang Hansen, p. 33.
would be hired continuously at Dovrehallen, and they would be announced

and cherished by the press. In October 1910, Danseuse Espagnole Dolorita was
engaged, advertised as ‘the great and famous variety star and beauty Dolorita’.61
In a review she was reported to have danced with great temperament and skilled
use of castanets, and ‘rarely can better dance be seen in Norway, even if better
dance can be seen abroad.’62 The advertisement has a photo of her that portrays
her on pointe shoes, castanets in hands, so it is likely that she, like so many
other variety dancers in the Nordic countries, originally was a ballet dancer
specialising in character dancing. Her engagement was prolonged, probably due
to her popularity with the audiences.63 The above-mentioned critic states openly
that he had gone to Dovrehallen specifically to see Dolorita and that it was well
worth his time. The other numbers were just fill-ins.64 Dolorita can be seen to
have offered the type of dancing that the audiences wanted. The account of her
show at Dovrehallen demonstrates how popular venues provided attractions
that, as Adair expresses it, pleased the audiences’ gaze.
Dolorita was probably used to travelling, getting to know the working culture
of each venue she worked. She shifted in and out of different social spaces. With
her status as a soloist she also had more leeway in the way she behaved, thus she
did not necessarily have to care all that much about belonging and fitting in to
the Dovrehallen working culture. The Dovring Girls, however, most likely had
less power to negotiate their working conditions because they probably could be
easily replaced by another dancer with a shapely build.
When analysing social and artistic hierarchies, one must keep in mind that
being a dancer was not always regarded as a particularly respectable occupation.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, attitudes towards dance artists had
improved somewhat, but both female and male dancers had to have a strong
agency, a will and determination in order to survive in the field. One strategy could
be to conceal or change one’s social background. Lena Hammergren points out
that dancers who were actively working as artists around the turn of the century
would sometimes create fictitious stories about their social background and life,
especially the better-known dancers.65 The issues of status were not restricted to
women, however. The Norwegian dancer Per Krogh created a sensation as a tango
dancer at the Kristiania Chat Noir and in guest performances in Stockholm and
61
‘Sjelden ser man bedre dans i Norge, selv om man kan se det i utlandet.’ Tidens Tegn,
17 October 1910.
62
Anonymous, Tidens Tegn, 20 October 1910.
63
In an interview in Ørebladet, 22 October 1910, Dolorita mentions that her contracts
are negotiated by her impresario, but does not give his name.
64
Anonymous, Tidens Tegn, 20 October 1910.
65
See Hammergren.
Copenhagen between 1913 and 1917. He nevertheless never fully identified

himself with the popular connotations inherent in the vaudeville and revue
cultures, at least not retrospectively. From 1920 onwards Krogh concentrated
on a career as a visual painter, and subsequently completely disowned his past as
a celebrated tango dancer. Even in an interview conducted in the 1960s, a few
years before he died, Krogh categorically refused to answer questions about his
tango-dancing past.66
Dancers of the Nordic opera ballets most likely had a better social ranking
than those who were freelancers and worked in popular venues.67 Even so,
choosing a ballet career was not always so easy, since ballet dancers were
cherished but maybe not always respected. Personal agency, where dancers were
motivated by a desire to perform publicly, came into play. One may assume that
this created working cultures consisting of strong and determined dancers, who
were fighters and willing to be frowned upon by their friends and family. In an
interview from 1910 in the newspaper Ørebladet, the Norwegian ballet dancer
Thora Hals Olsen discusses the resistance she met from her family when she
wanted to become a ballet dancer. Even though (or maybe rather because) she
was the daughter of the renowned composer Ole Olsen, her parents resented her
choice of career. ‘I wanted to dance, but of course I was not allowed to do so …
But I knew what I wanted … In the beginning everybody thought it was terrible
that I wanted to dance, but now they think that it is amusing.’68 Artistic success
increased Hals-Olsen’s status within her family, and this made her parents
sufficiently proud to allow for a controversial choice of career. In other words,
her success and public approval turned the opinions of her parents.
Ballet dancers performed in a variety of styles, and they were adaptive and
moved between different workplaces, encountering cultures that held different
notions of what was considered desirable conduct. When ballet dancers were
used in the variety and vaudeville shows, it was because they had a certain level
of technique, and in the popular venues those with better skills and looks were
placed more visibly. Ideals of the physical practices as well as those of social
hierarchies were part of the spoken and unspoken rules. When ballet dancers
and teachers from the national companies worked in popular venues, they had
to deal with the inherent working cultures of the venues where they worked,
which formed representational spaces different from those found in their ballet
companies.
66
Interview with art historian Trygve Nergaard: Bilder av Per Krogh (Oslo, 2000), pp.
139–144.
67
Hammergren, p. 131.
68
Thora Hals Olsen, interviewed in Ørebladet, 29 January 1910.
The hierarchical structure in the different working cultures of dance is also

by nature built on a strong bodily and structural discipline. As Foucault has
pointed out, the power of discipline creates docile, political bodies that become
more capable but also subordinated. The body is exercised through the shaping
of movements and gestures as well as through attitudes.69 The result of this
disciplining can be seen in dancers’ willingness to adapt to a variety of working
cultures. The working cultures within serious and popular venues were tailored
to create subordinate bodies that obeyed the rules. This is especially so for those
dancers lower down in the artistic hierarchy. The analysis of material published
and collected about Nordic and international working cultures reveals that
power structures were often rigid, and if you were a corps de ballet dancer, you
were often stuck at the bottom of the artistic ladder, with few possibilities to rise
in standing.
Summary and Concluding Remarks
The aim of this chapter has been to analyse examples of social and hierarchical
working relations of which the dancers in the Nordic countries were a part. It
has argued that the social spaces and working cultures of dancers were shaped by
unspoken and spoken rules of conduct. The chapter has analysed some examples
of how dancers were versatile and adaptable to different types of performance
venues as well as working cultures. Finnish ballet dancers performed in restaurants
and adapted to social rules between performer and audience that existed there,
even if these were different from those of the Finnish opera ballet. Danish and
Swedish ballet dancers found work in popular venues when these offered more
artistic challenges or better payment. In Norway, Danseuse Espagnol Dolorita
bonded with her audiences, playing the rules of the venue by displaying her body
in an attractive fashion.
The serious and popular venues presented in this chapter can be delineated
by ideas of what Lefebvre terms representational spaces, which ‘create their own
sort of reality’.70 Spaces consequently serve as tools of thought, action, as well as
power. The reality was that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, dancers
in the Nordic countries had far poorer social benefits and work security than
today. Payment was in general low, and dancers had to take a pragmatic attitude
to their careers. Thus the chapter has argued that dancers’ versatility can be seen
as an active but necessary action, often motivated by strong agency. Working in
Foucault, Discipline and Punish, pp. 136–137.

69
Lefebvre, p. 26.
70
the entertainment business, for instance, was a career opportunity for women of
the working class that probably offered better chances of personal and artistic
achievement than many other types of work. Subsequently, through their
adaptability, dancers actively contributed to the creation of working spaces that
typically supported existing power structures. However, these spaces were useful,
according to Foucault functioning efficiently precisely because of their clearly
defined hierarchical social relations. They serve to reinforce the already-existing
power structures. Foucault emphasises that the usefulness of social spaces is not
necessarily for the common good, but serves those in charge, enhancing their
power.71 An overriding factor, a hundred years ago as today, was the need to
make money; and in this, the tastes and interests of the audiences played a role.
Audiences were thus part of the power structures.
By analysing examples of power structures, hierarchical differences and
dancers’ versatility in the first decades of the twentieth century, this chapter
has indicated a few of the issues pertaining to dancers and dance venues in the
Nordic countries. Many dancers and venues are waiting to be researched, and
more investigation into the personal lives and careers of the dancers will surely
reveal several exciting aspects of Nordic theatre dance.
Bibliography
Aftenposten, 1909–1920.
Dagbladet, 1909–1920.
Morgenbladet, 1909.
Norske Intelligenz-Seddeler, April–July 1909.
Ørebladet, 1909–1920.
Tidens Tegn, 1909–1921.
Verdens Gang, April–July 1909.
Adair, Christy, Women and Work, Sylphs and Sirens (New York: New York
Arnold, John, Ray Randell, et al., Work Psychology: Understanding Human
Behaviour in the Work Place (London: Pearson Publishing, 2010).
71
Foucault, Discipline and Punish, pp. 143–144.
Bang Hansen, Odd, Chat Noir og Norsk Revy (Oslo: Cappelen, 1961).
Buonaventura, Wendy, Something in the Way She Moves: Dancing Women from
Salome to Madonna (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2004).
Carter, Alexandra, Dance and Dancers in the Victorian and Edwardian Music
Hall Ballet (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).
Fiskvik, Anne, Da modernismen i dansen kom til Norge [MA Thesis, Institutt for
Drama og Teater] (Trondheim: NTNU Press, 2012.
Fiskvik, Anne and Egil Bakka, ‘Tracing Norwegian Dance Fields’, in Karen
Vedel (ed.), Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences and Struggles
(Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2011), pp. 57–103.
Fokine, Michel, Memoirs of a Ballet Master (London: Constable & Company,
1961).
Franko, Mark, The Work of Dance: Labor, Movement and Identity in the 1930s
(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002).
Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London:
Penguin, 1977).
Foucault, Michel, ‘Space, Knowledge and Power’, in Paul Rabinow (ed.), The
Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), pp. 239–256.
Hammergren, Lena, Ballerinor och barfotadansöser: Svensk og internationell
danskultur runt 1900, Chora – skriftserie for danseforskning, vol. 4
(Stockholm: Carlssons Bokförlag, 2002).
Hammergren, Lena et al., Teater i Sverige (Hedemora: Gidlund, 2004).
Hansteen, Valdemar, Historien om norsk ballett (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget,
1989).
of Norden: Emergences and Struggles (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press,
2011), pp. 27–56.
Ibsen, Lillebil, Det begynte med dansen (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1961).
Lakkonen, Johanna, Canon and Beyond: Edvard Fazer and the Imperial Russian
Ballet 1908–1910 (Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters,
2009).
Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell 1991).
Makkonen, Anne, One Past, Many Histories: Loitsu (1933) in the Context of
Dance Art in Finland, PhD dissertation, University of Surrey, 2007.
Nergaard, Trygve, Bilder av Per Krogh (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2000).
Rasmussen, Rudolf, Rulleboken: Minner og meninger om livet på scene og podium
(Oslo: Tanum, 1935).
Reynolds, Nancy and Malcolm McCormick, No Fixed Points: Dance in the
Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003).

Wulff, Helena, Ballet across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers
(Oxford: Berg, 1998).
Chapter 9
Together and Apart: All-Nordic Folk
Dance Events before 1975
Petri Hoppu
Many Nordic folk dancers know a Danish dance called Sønderborg

Doppeltkvadril (the double quadrille from Sønderborg). Dancers outside
Denmark often do not have any idea where Sønderborg is located, but it is still
experienced as a real Nordic region, distributed through their activities. Folk
dances connected to villages, parishes, towns, provinces or entire countries
are commonly found in all the Nordic countries. Although these dances
typically have a national character, many of them have been shared by Nordic
folk dancers since the early twentieth century. Thus, during the last hundred
years, folk dance has constituted special dance spaces in the Nordic region,
simultaneously emphasising affiliation and difference.
This chapter addresses the impact the production of folk dance spaces has
had on the embodied presentations and representations of a region. Chapter 3
introduced the Barents region as an example of a performed region, and similarly
the Nordic region is now being examined as constituted through a series of
performances and negotiations. Related to the main thesis of the volume, the
focus here is on different transnational forms of interaction, especially all-
Nordic events, through which Nordic folk dance spaces were produced from
1920 to 1975. While professional dance spaces in the Nordic region in the early
1900s were discussed in the previous chapter, the emphasis here is on amateur
dance activities and cooperation.
Folk dance events appear as a form of transnational cultural activity that has
been shaped through organised and changing dance practices as well as ideals and
ideologies of Nordic cooperation. The cooperation itself has been a complicated
process during which the extension of a Nordic region has continuously been
reviewed and imaginary geographies constructed. Far from being self-evident,
the concepts of Nordicness and the Nordic region in the field of folk dance are
challenged and reinvented here through a critical analysis of event programmes,
minutes of cooperative meetings, newspaper articles related to the events, and
folk dance publications.
Folk dance spaces are first examined as spatial practices, especially in the
form of mass performances and folk dance balls, which have been characteristic
of the all-Nordic folk dance events since the very beginning. Following the
examination of these practices, the focus gradually shifts to representational
spaces – the experienced unity and processes of exclusion and inclusion in
relation to the scope of folk dancers’ Nordic region. Representations of spaces
will be investigated, first in the form of the NORDLEK agreement and then via
a number of folk dance publications presented as Nordic or Scandinavian either
inside or outside the Nordic region.
In, Between and Beyond Nationalities
National symbols have been an essential part of all-Nordic folk dance events
since the very beginning. Parades and performances have been decorated with
national flags and other similar emblems, and national anthems have been
printed on the programmes of many events. However, on the level of practice, the
cooperation has had a significant transnational dimension as well. Events have
typically emphasised encounters of dancers coming from different countries, and
this has been actualised through diverse cultural activities. As will be addressed
later, Nordic folk dance events have created spaces of situated difference in
relation to something local, embodied and significant – sites for encounters
and assimilation, but also for contradictions and tensions.1 Following Arjun
Appadurai, one can describe these sites as networks of imaginary geographies,
an ethnoscape, constituting shifting and mobile identities that both flirt and
collide with nationalist tendencies.2
In order to investigate the formation of ethnoscapes and transnational
encounters in folk dance, one needs to examine how the Nordic folk dance
ethnoscape has been constituted as practice and in what forms transnationalism
has emerged as part of the practice.3 Alejandro Portes defines transnational
activities, including cultural ones, as something that takes place on a recurrent
basis across national borders and requires a regular, significant commitment of
See Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization

1
(Minneapolis, MN, 1996), p. 12. The term ‘cultural activity’ is preferred here to ‘culture’
when referring to multifaceted and complex forms of interaction like these. According to
Appadurai, culture carries strong associations with a coherent entity as well as forms of
sharing, agreement and bonding, whereas ‘cultural’ recognises differences, contrasts and
comparisons too.
2
Ibid., pp. 33–34.
3
See the definition of transnationalism by Steven Vertovec in Chapter 1.
Together and Apart 209
time by participants. According to Portes, these can be initiated by powerful

actors (agents) such as representatives of national governments or multinational
corporations, but also by modest individuals, a mass of ordinary people.4
Although transnationalism is usually connected with immigration, following
Steven Vertovec’s and Portes’s conceptualisation of the phenomenon, this
discussion can be transferred to the contacts between people of different national
origins who share the same object of interest: folk dance, in this case. Nordic
folk dance events have created transnational meeting points, which have been
featured by both national and transnational forms of action. The cooperation has
continued almost without interruption since the emergence of folk dance fields
in the Nordic countries in the late nineteenth century,5 creating an ethnoscape,
which has been actualised as interrelated spatial practices: common dancing and
dance performances.
As Karen Vedel has addressed, cooperation between Nordic dancers and
dance groups existed already at the turn of the twentieth century. An example
of collaboration from this era is the ballet Scaramouche, which was staged by
Danish choreographer Emilie Walbom in 1922, with a libretto by a Dane (Paul
Knudsen), music by a Finn ( Jean Sibelius) and a Norwegian as the female lead
(Lillebil Ibsen).6 Within the emergence of strong Nordic cultural contacts, it is
no wonder that cooperation between different Nordic folk dance organisations
also started during the first decades of the century.
The first all-Nordic event took place in 1920, but this was preceded by
individual contacts and touring of early folk dance groups. The Swedish
group Philochoros, touring many decades before, was the best known, as was
highlighted in chapters 6 and 8. The correspondence of Philochoros reveals
extensive networks of folk dance activists in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and
Norway at the turn of the century.7
In the 1920s the national folk dance organisations began to arrange all-
Nordic folk dance events alternately in each country. The initiative for this came
from Sweden. In 1919, six folk dance groups from the Swedish capital established
a central committee for the groups in the city [Stockholms folkdansföreningars
4
Alejandro Portes, ‘Conclusion: Towards a New World – The Origins and Effects of
Transnational Activities’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22/2 (1999): 463–477.
5
Canons in Norden’, in Karen Vedel (ed.), Dance and the Formation of Norden: Emergences
and Struggles (Trondheim, 2011), pp. 27–56.
6
Karen Vedel, ‘Strategically Nordic: Articulating the Internal Logic of the Field’, in
Vedel (ed.), pp. 105–129.
7
External correspondence of Philochoros, Uppsala University Library, Philochoros
archive.
Figure 9.1 Folk dance congress at Skansen, 1920. Photographer: unknown.

Föreningen Brage, Helsinki.
centralkommitté], which convened a folk dance congress, arranged in

conjunction with the national folk musician event held at Stockholm’s famous
outdoor museum, Skansen, in 1920 (see Figure 9.1). Although most groups
at the event were Swedish, the congress also welcomed groups from Swedish
Finland, Norway and Denmark, one from each.8
Sweden played a very active role in the field of folk dance in the Nordic
region during the first decades of the twentieth century. In the 1920s, five of the
eight Nordic folk dance events, called Nordic Countryside Youth Event [Nordisk
Bygdeungdomsstämma] held after 1922 were held in Sweden, whereas two
took place in Denmark, one in Norway and none in Finland. It was not until
the 1930s that the events were arranged in each country (Denmark, Norway,
Finland and Sweden) in a specific order.
The national tone was typically strong at these events, and was linked to
Nordic cooperation, which was seen as reinforcing nationalist tendencies in each
country. Immediately after the Skansen congress, a Norwegian writing under the
pseudonym S.M.H. noted the advantages of the encounters with other Nordic
folk dancers:
Yngvar Heikel, ‘Några uppgifter om tidigare bygdeungdomsstämmor’, Svenskbygden,

8
13/3–5 (1934).
The Norwegians have had the opportunity to compare their dances with the
others’ and enhance their love of Norwegian folk art in this field, since they have
seen a lot of techniques and working methods [in folk dance] that can be useful
in their work henceforth.9
The Nordic region of folk dancers was not experienced as a nation, but neither
was it ‘other’. It was becoming a peculiar transnational entity, an ethnoscape,
something that could be associated and compared with one’s own nation,
experienced as something similar and different at the same time.
The repertoire of the events also attests to both nationalist and transnationalist
modes in Nordic folk dance cooperation. For example, the Skansen congress
programme addresses the explicit national character of the folk dance groups:
each performed dances from its own country.10 However, along with the
performances, an important part of the event was the folk dance ‘balls’, common
dances that until recently maintained their popularity at Nordic events. S.M.H.
described the joyful atmosphere at a ball:
One got a vivid impression of some of these [Swedish] dances as common dances
at the parties in Høganloft at Skansen, where all the participants were present.
There were two party nights, which the participants will never forget. The floor
was crowded during Daldans, Trekarlspolska and Oksdans – dances that many
Norwegians took part in as well. Here we could see the Hambo and Slunga, which
made a vivid impression. All these should also become folk dances back here.11
The dances mentioned were mostly Swedish dances that had become familiar
to the Nordic folk dance community as early as the last years of the nineteenth
century through the tours of Philochoros, and many groups in Denmark,
Finland and Norway had performed them before the congress. Thus, it is no
wonder they were able to join in the dance with the Swedes, even though the
dances were actually quite complicated.
Common balls were not the only places for transnational encounters: they
also took place at mass performances of folk dancers, although in a different way.
Since the Swedish dances belonged to the common repertoire at the first events,
it is no wonder that the first-known joint performance of all participants was
the Swedish Schottis i turer [Schottische in Figures]. This dance was performed at
least several times in this way starting in 1925 (see Figure 9.2). The joint dances
S.M.H., ‘Folkedansstemne i Stockholm’, Den 17de Mai, 21 August 1920.
9
Gunnel Biskop, ‘Från grupp till massor – i ett nordiskt perspektiv’, in Egil Bakka and
10
Gunnel Biskop (eds), Norden i dans (Oslo, 2007), pp. 281–299.

11
S.M.H.
Figure 9.2 Schottis i turer in Helsinki, 1934. Photographer: unknown. Svenska

centralarkivet, collection of Finlands Svenska Folkdansring, Helsinki.
can be seen as a forerunner of the mass performances on a smaller scale. In the

late 1930s they evolved into huge performances at stadiums with hundreds of
dancers. The first time all the Nordic countries collectively danced a dance from
each country as a mass performance was at the third international folk dance
event in Stockholm in 1939. This performance can be seen as a remarkable
demonstration of transnational Nordicness, because the other participating
groups had a national repertoire at this event. It is clear that the international
context was the main reason for this indication of Nordicness, but after the
Second World War, performances like this became regular occurrences at Nordic
folk dance events as well.12
However, the relation between the national and Nordic did not evolve
without conflicts. The pseudonymous S.M.H. wanted Swedish dances to be
common folk dances in Norway, but this attitude was not shared by everyone:
a Norwegian folk dance instructor, Vilfred Moen, wrote in 1923 that it was a
waste of time to learn the complicated Swedish dances because Norwegian folk
dancers should aim to spread what is ‘Norwegian’ among the people.13 Opinions
like this reflected the nationalism that transnational Nordicness could never
totally replace. This confrontation of nationality and transnationality is also
clearly apparent in the first published collection of Nordic folk dances, Valik
Biskop, ‘Från grupp till massor – i ett nordiskt perspektiv’.

12
Vilfred Moen, ‘Svenske hell norske dansar?’, For Bygd og By, 12 (1923): 270.
13
Põhjamaade rahvatantse [A Selection of Nordic Folk Dances] (1927). Although

the volume was published in Estonia, it was connected to the Nordic folk dance
events and cooperation, since it came out shortly after Estonians had begun to
visit the events. The foreword by Anna Raudkats reflects an opinion similar to
the one that emerged in Norway regarding the nationality of the dances: ‘When
teaching and performing dances of other [that is, Nordic] nations, let one never
forget one’s own dances. In the performance, let there always be at least one
Estonian dance, either as the first or last one.’14
These examples address the concern that folk dancers preferred foreign dances
to their own national dances, which was actually the case, at least to some extent.
The nationalist ideals of the folk dance organisations affected the practice, but
they still could not totally control it. The situation varied in different countries:
in Denmark, for example, the repertoire was nationalised quite effectively during
the first few decades of the century,15 whereas many Swedish dances had a strong
position in Finland and Norway as late as the 1970s.16 Interestingly, as Karen
Vedel noted, the nationalisation in Danish folk dance was mirrored in similar
endeavours in social dancing and even ballet.17
These nationalist tendencies and ideals surely imply that no Nordic folk dance
canon ever emerged, with folk dance repertoires consisting of national dances,
dances belonging to the national canons in each country.18 However, Nordicness
took form in other ways as a transnational ethnoscape: as dance practices within
social fields of transnational encounters, and as a sense of affiliation.
The folk dancers’ Nordic ethnoscape was experienced as a real unity, which
can be seen in the dance programmes of folk dance organisations and individual
groups especially after the Second World War. For example, the largest folk
dance organisation in Finland, Suomen Nuorison Liitto [Finnish Youth League],
had one or more dances from other Nordic countries almost every year in their
annual folk dance programmes from the 1950s to 1970s.19 Furthermore, a
14
Anna Raudkats, Valik Põhjamaade rahvatantse (Tartu, 1927), p. 3.
15
Ole Skov, ‘Foreningen til Folkedansens Fremme 100 år. Nogle træk fra tiden omkring
foreningens stiftelse’, Folkdansforskning i Norden, 24 (2001): 3–9.
16
Gunnel Biskop, ‘Philochoros i Finland och den svenska repertoaren’, in Bakka and
Biskop (eds), pp. 319–323; Egil Bakka, ‘Det populære, uoffisielle svenskerepertoaret –
Norge’, in Bakka and Biskop (eds), pp. 327–331.
17
Karen Vedel, En anden dans: Moderne scenedans i Danmark 1900–1975
(Copenhagen, 2008), pp. 75–76.
18
For a more detailed analysis of national folk dance canons in the Nordic countries,
see Hoppu, ‘National Dances and Popular Education’.
19
Annual folk dance programmes of Suomen Nuorison Liitto, 1955–75, archive of
Etelä-Hämeen Nuorisoseurojen Liitto [district of the youth associations in Southern Häme],
Lahti.
programme of the Swedish group Philochoros from March 1952 signals a strong
affiliation between Swedish and Finnish folk dances, but not with dances from
other countries. The first part of the programme consists of four dances, three
Swedish and one Finnish, but their nationalities are not mentioned: the Finnish
dance Sappo has an equal position among the Swedish dances. However, during
the second part of the programme, an Austrian, a French and a Yugoslavian
dance are performed; in this case, the nationality is stated clearly. The last
part consists of Swedish dances without any further information about their
nationality.20 Evidently, a Finnish dance was considered to belong to the same
ethnoscape as the Swedish ones and therefore could be performed among them
without a problem.
From Inclusion to Exclusion: The Estonian Case
At the first Nordic folk dance event in 1920, there was a discussion of whether it
would be possible to set up a Nordic folk dance organisation in a manner similar
to that already established on the national level. However, it took 55 years before
a formal agreement was signed between the national organisations, and since
1939 numerous issues have been negotiated around the question of the Nordic
region. This illustrates the difficulty of conceptualising the Nordic ethnoscape
in folk dance, even though it was totally natural and easy to adopt each other’s
dances in this context.
It is obvious that the Nordic region of folk dancers was far from self-evident
in the first decades of the twentieth century, and there were special problems
connected to the North Atlantic dimension (Iceland and Faroe Islands) and
the East (Åland, Finnish Finland and Estonia). In addition, it should be noted
that not until the end of the twentieth century was Greenland considered
an appropriate partner in the Nordic cooperation, although the Inuits had
performed their dances at a couple of events in the 1920s and 1930s.21
The Estonian question was a complicated one, because it seems the Estonians
were really interested in being involved in the Nordic cooperation, even more
so than the Finnish-speaking Finns, during the 1920s and 1930s.22 In 1925 an
Programme of Philochoros, 19 March 1952, Uppsala University Library, Philochoros

20
archive.
21
See Heikel; Programme of the ninth Nordic countryside youth event in Copenhagen,
25–27 July 1931, Smålands musikarkiv, NORDLEK collection, Växjö.
22
The Estonians have a special relation with the Finns, since Estonian and Finnish
are related languages and these peoples share a common mythology as well. However,
culturally and politically Finland has been oriented to Scandinavia, identifying itself as a
all-Nordic folk dance event took place in Tranås, Sweden. The Estonians had
several performances there and took part in the common dances as well; reading
the programme for the event, one gets the impression that they were treated
as equal to the other Nordic nationalities.23 Later in the 1920s and 1930s, the
Estonians participated in four all-Nordic events. Considering that even the
Finnish Swedes and Danes skipped some of the events in the 1920s and 1930s,
the active participation of the Estonians is striking.24 This is further reinforced
by the frequency with which the events were arranged, almost every year
during the 1920s (see Figure 9.3), especially since travelling to another country
was expensive and time consuming. In addition to the all-Nordic events, the
Swedish-speaking Estonians had other contacts, particularly with Swedes and
Finnish Swedes. In the 1930s, groups from these countries visited each other
several times.25 The Estonians also arranged an event of their own and invited
Nordic groups to Tallinn in 1926.26 It is clear that, for the Estonian folk dancers,
the Nordic community was the closest group of reference during the 1920s and
early 1930s.
To some extent the situation in Estonia resembled that in Finland, where
there was a distinction between the Finnish-speaking majority and the Swedish-
speaking minority. This distinction in folk dance was established as early as the
beginning of the twentieth century, when in 1906 most Swedish-speaking folk
dancers resigned from the first Finnish folk dance organisation, Suomalaisen
Kansantanssin Ystävät [Finnish Folklore Association], and joined Föreningen
Brage [Brage Association] in Helsinki.27 However, a major difference between
Nordic country, whereas Estonia has had strong connections to German culture since the
Middle Ages. Both countries were under Russian rule until the early twentieth century, and
during the years after their independence in the 1920s and 1930s cultural contacts between
the Finns and Estonians were extremely frequent. Heikki Rausmaa, Suomen ja Viron suhteet,
http://www.tuglas.fi/oppimateriaali/suhteetframe.htm (accessed 15 May 2012).
23
Programme of the fifth Nordic countryside youth event in Tranås, 7–9 August 1925,
Smålands musikarkiv, NORDLEK collection, Växjö.
24
See Heikel; Programme of the ninth Nordic countryside youth event in
Copenhagen; Minutes of the board meeting of Finlands Svenska Folkdansring, 6 June 1932,
Svenska centralarkivet, Finlands Svenska Folkdansring collection, Helsinki; Programme
of the eleventh Nordic countryside youth event in Helsinki, 13–16 July 1934, Smålands
musikarkiv, NORDLEK collection, Växjö.
25
Programme of the Estonian Swedish evening in Helsinki, 30 October 1933, Brages
pressarkiv, Helsinki; Anon., ‘Svenskt folkdanslag i Estland’, Kustbon, 19/19 (1936).
26
Heino Aassalu, Murrangud eesti rahvatantsus ja harrastusrahvatantsus (Tallinn,
1999), http://www.errs.ee/index.php?id=11613 (accessed 20 April 2012).
27
Gunnel Biskop, ‘Organisering, insamling och publicering i Svenskfinland’, in Bakka
and Biskop (eds), pp. 453–477.
Figure 9.3 All-Nordic folk dance events, 1920–1939. By Petri Hoppu.
Finland and Estonia was that Swedish was the second official language in
Finland, whereas the Swedes were only one of many linguistic minorities in
interwar Estonia.
With this in mind, it seems peculiar that the Finnish-speaking majority in
Finland did not participate in the all-Nordic folk dance events at all before the
Second World War, not even the one in Helsinki (1934), although the national
Swedish-speaking organisation Finlands Svenska Folkdansring [Finnish Swedish
Folk Dance Association] had tried to persuade them to participate in the event
in their own country;28 the only folk dance event abroad they attended was the
international folk dance event in Stockholm.29
The Estonians were not the only participants at the Nordic folk dance events
before the Second World War who came from outside the Nordic countries.
English groups visited the events several times, while there were occasional
guests, either individuals or groups, from Latvia, Austria and Germany as well.
28
Minutes of the board meeting of Finlands Svenska Folkdansring, 29 November 1933,
Svenska centralarkivet, Finlands Svenska Folkdansring collection, Helsinki.
29
Programme of the third international folk dance event in Stockholm, 1–6 August
1939, Uppsala University Library, Philochoros archive.
All in all, the Nordic events were very inclusive in nature most of the time during
the 1920s and 1930s.
After 1934 the Estonians did not take part in the Nordic events before the
Second World War.30 In the late 1930s the tendency of the Nordic folk dance
organisations was to make their events more exclusive than before. The minutes
of the Nordic folk dance conference in Stockholm 1939 address the participation
of other countries, but it was made clear that these could not automatically
attend the events. Groups outside the Nordic countries had previously either
asked for permission to participate in a special event or had been invited by local
arrangers. The responsibility for invitations was still left to the local organisers.31
At around the same time, the relation between the folk dance organisations and
the Nordic associations (föreningen Norden) were first nurtured, and as a result
the exclusive focus on the Nordic countries gained in importance.32 According
to the minutes of the conference in Stockholm, the Swedish representatives
expressed a desire for the Nordic Association in Sweden to support the Nordic
folk dance conferences in the future; it was planned that they would take place
in Stockholm every year. In order to fulfil the requirements of the association,
the organisations had to demarcate the region of cooperation in accordance
with its principles.33
However, particularly in the case of Estonia, there may have been political
reasons behind the exclusion as well. From 1934 to 1938 Estonia was under the
authoritarian regime of President Konstantin Päts, who favoured national forms
of culture.34 Apparently, the folk dancers had to accommodate their activities to
fit this trend, and connections to the Nordic countries may have lost much of
30
While the Estonians did not attend the Nordic events after 1934, they did attend
the third international folk dance event in Stockholm in summer 1939 together with
fourteen other nations. Sources: Programme of the twelfth Nordic countryside youth event
in Halmstad, 28 June–1 July 1935, Brages pressarkiv, Helsinki; Programme of the thirteenth
Nordic countryside youth event in Aalborg, 17–18 July 1937, Smålands musikarkiv,
NORDLEK collection, Växjö; Programme of the third international folk dance event in
Stockholm.
31
Minutes of the Nordic folk dance conference in Stockholm, 12 February 1939,
32
The Nordic Association (Föreningen Norden) was established first in Sweden in
1919 and later in the other Nordic countries to support cooperation between Denmark,
Finland, Iceland (in a union with Denmark at the time), Norway and Sweden.
33
Minutes of the Nordic folk dance conference in Stockholm, 1939.
34
Ago Pajur, ‘Years of the authoritarian regime’, in Estonica. Encyclopedia about Estonia
(Tallinn, 2009), http://www.estonica.org/en/History/1920-1939_The_Republic_of_
Estonia_between_the_two_World_Wars/Years_of_the_authoritarian_regime (accessed 20
April 2012).
their significance. As manifestations of nationalistic ideals, Estonian folk dancers

participated in national cultural events at Eesti Mängud [Estonian games] in
Tallinn in 1934 and 1939, and hundreds of folk dancers participated in the mass
performances at both. In 1940, the country was occupied by the Soviet Union,
which precipitated the final exclusion of the Estonian folk dancers from the
Nordic events.35
Towards Establishment
The folk dance conference in Stockholm in February 1939 was the first to draw
explicit guidelines for future cooperation. According to the conference minutes,
it was decided that Nordic folk dance cooperation would take place between
Denmark, Finland (the Finnish- and Swedish-speaking regions were separate),
Norway and Sweden. Although Iceland was regarded as belonging to the Nordic
region, the practical issues were seen as more important in this question: it was
considered too expensive to travel from a remote island to the events on the
Nordic mainland, and therefore Iceland was left out of the Nordic folk dance
cooperation.36 However, soon after the Second World War, Iceland joined the
cooperation, although regular all-Nordic events were not arranged there.
The conference in Stockholm also discussed the question of Åland, which
was seen as analogous to the situation of the Faroe Islands. Åland had gained
autonomy under Finnish rule in the 1920s, while the Faroe Islands had special
status in Denmark, since the majority of the population spoke their own
language, which was different from Danish. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Ålandic
folk dancers seem to have wanted independent status at the events, which
reflected the complicated political situation in the region. Finland and Sweden
struggled for possession of the island, and the conflict was resolved in Finland’s
favour by the League of Nations in 1921 against the desire of the majority of the
population. The discussion at the Stockholm conference hints at how the Ålandic
folk dancers considered themselves a separate nation in the same way Finnish
Swedes on the mainland did. In the 1920s, they were sometimes mentioned as a
distinct group at the all-Nordic events, but the conference participants declared
that neither Åland nor the Faroe Islands could be accepted as separate from their
main countries. Åland was to be a part of Swedish Finland and the Faroe Islands
See Aassalu.
35
Interestingly, the discussion about the status of Iceland was not recorded in the
36
official minutes of the conference but was found in the minutes of the Finnish Swedish
organisation Finland Svenska Folkdansring recorded a short time later (18 February 1939),
Svenska centralarkivet collection, Helsinki.
part of Denmark, although later in the twentieth century they both gained
independent status in the cooperation, together with Greenland.37
After the Second World War the perspective of the Nordic folk dance events
turned increasingly inwards, with the participant organisations deciding in
1949 that the events would be open only to Nordic groups, although individual
participants could come from other countries.38 Furthermore, a meeting of
the organisations in Stockholm in 1956 discussed the translation of dance
instructions into non-Nordic languages, which was regarded as problematic.
Although the meeting did not make any definite decisions in the matter, the
discussion reflected a strong defensive attitude towards the world beyond the
Nordic countries. A Swedish representative announced that his organisation
had translated some instructions into English but emphasised that this had
taken place under strict control. A Danish representative had a more negative
attitude on the issue: he insisted that the translated instructions had been further
translated into other languages, implying they were no longer recognisable. As a
result, the Danes decided not to continue translating them.39 It is clear that the
attitude towards the world outside the Nordic region had become problematic,
and the region itself was considered a relatively safe environment for national
folk dances.
The trend towards exclusiveness for the representational space in Nordic
folk dance cooperation meant that, during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the all-
Nordic events became increasingly established and regulated. It is no coincidence
that this took place alongside the establishment of Nordic cooperative
political bodies such as the Nordic Council of Ministers, as was discussed in
chapters 1 and 3. Immediately after the war, the events were held every other
year and since 1954 every third year, with arrangements rotating among the
four countries. A year before each event, a Nordic folk dance conference was
usually arranged in the same place as the event. Furthermore, a cooperative
organisation, Representantskapets permanenta organisation [Permanent Body of
Delegates], was established as early as 1947, with two representatives from each
organisation in the cooperation.40 As soon as the scope of Nordic region was
defined more specifically, the cooperation was connected to stable structures,
which legitimised the status quo.
37
Minutes of the Nordic folk dance conference in Stockholm, 1939.
38
Minutes of the Nordic folk dance conference in Helsinki, 2–4 September 1949,
39
Minutes of the Nordic folk dance conference in Stockholm, 14–15 November 1956,
40
Minutes of the Nordic folk dance conference in Stockholm, 12–14 September 1947,
NORDLEK Agreement: Folk Dancers’ Nordic Manifestation
In 1961, a giant step towards an overarching agreement was taken, when a large
folk dance conference with 40 participants was arranged in Biskops-Arnö,
Sweden. The conference, once again initiated by the Swedes and supported by the
Nordic Association in Sweden, included both dancing and lectures, the content
of which reflected the tension between Nordicness and nationalism. The themes
of the lectures were related to questions concerning the Nordic region and its
culture or the Nordic cooperation, whereas the dance lessons were organised
according to nationality.41 The Nordic ethnoscape was seen as constructing
a frame or a sanctuary for shared values, especially expressed as culture and
tradition. These were considered threatened in postwar societies, as one of the
initiator of the course, Nils Presto, from the Swedish youth organisation in rural
culture (Svenska Ungdomsringen för Bygdekultur), commented in a newspaper
interview: ‘The development has been so fast that we must join together in the
larger context of preserving traditional values.’42 From the perspective of the
organisations, the ideal folk dance spaces, with national borders as the strongest
elements of articulation, could best be preserved within the Nordic ethnoscape.
Presto’s view favouring more intensive cooperation was shared by the
participants of the conference, and during the 1960s a formal agreement
between the organisations was discussed repeatedly. This was also the time
when cultural contacts between the Nordic countries were intensified in the
political cooperation. The Nordic Cultural Commission was established as
early as in 1947, and in 1971 the Nordic Council of Ministers signed a Cultural
Agreement, which aimed at reinforcing Nordic culture and cultural cooperation
through joint planning, coordination and sharing of responsibilities.43
Following the trend on the cultural political level, the 1970s indicated deep
changes in the relations between Nordic folk dancers. First, the name of the
all-Nordic folk dance event, the Nordic countryside youth event, was no longer
considered appropriate. In 1972, a new name was suggested, NORDLEK, which
was a humorous modification of the failed economic organisation between the
Nordic countries, Nordek; the first time a Nordic folk dance event was called
NORDLEK was in 1973, when the event took place in Espoo, Finland.
41
Programme of the Nordic conference in Biskops-Arnö, 3–10 July 1961, Smålands
musikarkiv, NORDLEK collection, Växjö.
42
Anon., ‘Folkdansare från hela Norden möts på vackra Biskops-Arnö’, Falu-Kuriren,
23 June 1961.
43
Amos Jenkins Peaslee, International Governmental Organizations: Constitutional
Documents, Parts 3 & 4 (New York, 1979), p. 345; Vedel, ‘Strategically Nordic’.
Figure 9.4 The representatives of the NORDLEK partners after signing

the agreement in Biskops-Arnö, 1975. Jens Skjold Jensen from
Denmark holding the agreement document. Photographer:
unknown. Finlands Svenska Folkdansring.
Alongside the name change, the folk dance organisations chose a working
group to plan a permanent agreement between the partners. The group continued
its work for two years, and finally in 1975 the NORDLEK agreement was signed
by ten organisations from five Nordic countries, once again in Biskops-Arnö.
The original NORDLEK agreement consisted of sixteen paragraphs, which
regulated the relations between the participant organisations, the countries and
autonomous areas involved, and the arrangement of the folk dance events. The
first paragraph states the overall aim:
In order to promote traditional folk culture reaching its rightful place in the
expanding Nordic cooperation and the cooperation in folk dance and folk music
activities in more stable forms, the undersigned organisations approved the
following agreement.44
This agreement was a fulfilment of numerous attempts at transnational unity

taking place in a crossfire of national interests and lobbying. The agreement
44
NORDLEK agreement, May 1975, Smålands musikarkiv, NORDLEK collection,
Växjö.
addresses how the Nordic region was conceptualised in the context of folk dance
and music. True unity on these phenomena was not possible, because that would
have implied the disappearance of national articulations in favour of something
totally different. The formulation of the agreement shows that the partners wanted
to explicitly preserve these articulations: the agreement never refers to Nordic folk
dance, whereas expressions like Nordic folk culture and Nordic tradition are used.
As was noted earlier, it is clear that, in the context of Nordic cooperation in folk
dance, there is no substantial concept like Nordic folk dance. Folk dance is always
seen as a representation of nationality, not of Nordicness. Culture and tradition,
referring to the ideals of shared values, are considered to reach a level of Nordicness
and offer a frame in which the cooperation can take place.
Under the agreement, the partners can promote common Nordic aspects on
an international level, but it is expected that they inform each other in advance
on important issues. Unity is seen as a unity of values but not of a particular
cultural phenomenon: acting together at international forums does not entail
any problems, whereas extending expertise in folk dance beyond national
borders definitely would.
Furthermore, the agreement not only defines the scope of Nordic
cooperation towards other countries but also defines the scope of participation
in the Nordic folk dance events: the events are open to all folk dance groups
and folk musicians upholding Nordic traditions. The Nordic folk dance space
is only for those sharing Nordic values connected with canonised dance and
music traditions, which has been the tendency since the Second World War. The
agreement confirmed the exclusive principle of the all-Nordic folk dance events.
The agreement addresses how the Nordic folk dance spaces developed both
as practices and ideological expressions. There is a strong sense of equality in the
agreement between the partners, the folk dance and folk music organisations in
the Nordic countries. The NORDLEK agreement defines Norden strictly as the
political entity of the five Nordic countries. The autonomous areas of Åland and
Faroe Islands are not specifically mentioned, but the agreement is based on the
representation of each independent country.
Representing the Nordic Region
The NORDLEK agreement was a strong representation of the Nordic space of

folk dancers. Still, it should be remembered that it was not a result of meetings
and discussions alone: its background was essentially in spatial practices,
dancing and performances as well. As the Nordic folk dance events turned into
mass events with hundreds or even thousands of participants and spectators,
they created spaces for a multifaceted danced Nordic region. This, in turn, was
the basis for all activities in the Nordic folk dance cooperation. As was noted,
the Nordic folk dance repertoire was never canonised in the same way as the
national folk dance repertoires. The relation between practice and ideals was
always referred back to the national level and to the national dances.
Nonetheless, as a result of the cooperation, all-Nordic folk dance books were
also published. Like the NORDLEK agreement, they are representations of folk
dancers’ Nordic space. Following Lefebvre, both can be seen as conceptualisations
that have a substantial role and specific influence in the production of space.45
Specifically in terms of dance activities, the written instructions serve as a
guide bringing together the ideal, representational space and concrete, spatial
practices: they manifest, as Lefebvre phrases it in his Critique of Everyday Life,
the process of how thought becomes action.46
The Nordic folk dance books differ from national volumes because national
books aim at a high level of coverage relative to the imagined totality of the
dances of a nation or in some cases one or more provinces, whereas Nordic folk
dance books typically appear as samples of dances. Still, there are some common
features of representation that can be found in all the folk dance books. As was
mentioned, folk dances are closely connected to geography at some level, even
though they were artistic compositions and not so-called traditional dances.
Thus, it is no wonder that folk dance books resemble maps or atlases: dances
are presented as belonging to certain geographical areas, which is not merely
contextual information but also entails stylistic features connected to the
different dances. Folk dances have created imaginative geographies of nations,
filled not with landscapes, terrains or water systems, but with movements and
music. The scope of imaginative geographies that emerge in the books varies
considerably: dances are seen either at the level of nations or at the level of
parishes and provinces. The publications cannot be seen as independent of the
ideals and activities, representational spaces and spatial practices in folk dance,
but these must be regarded as entities constituting folk dance spaces.
The Nordic folk dance organisations started planning a joint folk dance
publication in the early 1960s.47 The organisations had published a large
number of national folk dance books since the late nineteenth century, but this
was the first time they planned a joint volume containing dances from all the
Nordic countries except Iceland. The organisations finally published two books,
one in Danish (1964) and one in Finnish (1966): each contains a selection of
45
46
Henri Lefebvre, Critique of Everyday Life (London, 1991), pp. 135–136.
47
Report of the preparation committee of the Nordic conference in Biskops-Arnö,
3–10 July 1961, Smålands musikarkiv, NORDLEK collection, Växjö.
dances from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.48 The content of these
twin books, as they are referred to here, is almost identical, but the difference
between them is that the Finnish volume includes a chapter with information
about the history of folk dances in the Nordic countries. In both books, there are
six to eight dances from each country except Finland, where there are six dances
each from the Finnish- and Swedish-speaking parts of the country. Most are set
dances either in a square or two opposite lines, but there are a few couple dances
with settled figures as well. Norway is a special case, since the books contain
two song dances by Hulda Garborg from that country; evidently, the composed
song dances were regarded as the best representations of Norwegian folk dance
at that time.49
Most dances are connected to a certain parish, and in some cases the province
is mentioned too. In practice, for most folk dancers the names of the areas do
not have much significance as a material domain, but they are representations
of a danced region, and as such the dances are part of imaginative geographies,
performed spaces. For example, there is a Swedish dance in the twin books called
the quadrille from the parish of Ekeby. A geographical place like Ekeby does not
play an important role for most folk dancers, but the relation between a dance
and a place is what matters here – the feeling that a particular dance belongs
concretely to some place in a particular country. It is essential that the place is
named, but otherwise the imagination creates the regional relation in folk dance.
One might wonder why the Nordic folk dance organisations did not take
the initiative earlier, but this can be explained by the reluctance of expanding the
command of folk dance material beyond national borders. However, concern
about correct interpretations of the dances, which had spread among Nordic
folk dancers for decades, seems to have given impetus to a plan like this. Nordic
folk dancers had been getting acquainted with each other’s dances at the events
for decades, and this was actually promoted by the organisations as well. In this
context, the publications can be seen as a way of ensuring the repertoire was
properly performed. The foreword of the Finnish edition emphasises this at the
very beginning:
Nordic folk dances have been practised a great deal in our country. The lack of
Finnish instructions has occasionally made this difficult. As is apparent, folk
dances have been presented in countless variations. The Nordic folk dance
Nordisk legestue (Copenhagen, 1964); Orvokki Komulainen, Pohjoismainen

48
kisapirtti (Porvoo, 1966).

49
Anne Fiskvik and Egil Bakka, ‘Tracing Dance Fields’, in Vedel (ed.), pp. 57–103.
organisations stress that, if folk dances are being taught, it is important to aim at
a correct, true and pure style of performance.50
There is one expression that particularly strikes the reader in this quote: Nordic
folk dances. This is one of the rare occasions when this term is used in a Nordic
context; the Danish edition does the same. However, a closer investigation reveals
that using ‘Nordic folk dances’ here does not mean there was any intention of
creating a new overarching category above the national level of folk dances. The
reason for using this expression is mainly practical – to refer succinctly to the
dances of all the Nordic countries. Most importantly, the articulations of the
dances, histories, stylistic features or repertoires always have a national context,
never a Nordic one, in these books.
The twin books act as representations of Nordic postwar folk dance spaces.
In order to clarify their position within a larger representational field, the focus
will shift to two other books, published significantly earlier: the Estonian
Valik Põhjamaade rahvatantse (1927) and the North-American Folk Dances of
Scandinavia (1948). What they have in common with the Nordic twin books is
the emphasis on nationality: the dances are categorised first by country. However,
the books published outside the Nordic countries have almost no further
references to geographies. The Nordic region is constituted as a geographical
entity consisting of politically independent countries.
The oldest compilation of Nordic folk dances, the Estonian one, contains
forty-one dances from Finnish Finland, Sweden and Denmark, yet none from
Norway or Swedish Finland.51 The dances in the book had been collected from
recently published folk dance books from each of these countries. The content
of this volume reflects the emerging national folk dance canons in the Nordic
countries at the time: composed folk dances from the nineteenth century are
found especially in the Finnish and Swedish section, and the most popular
formation is the square. The book contains detailed instructions for the dances,
and they remain faithful to the original practice of describing dances in a way that
was settled in Sweden in the late nineteenth century. The book was inspired by
the Nordic events, and one can see that it was intended for pedagogical purposes:
beyond their nationality and description, there is no further information about
the dances in the book, since it probably was not considered important. As a
whole, the book can be considered a representation of Nordic interwar folk
dance spaces. The dances are seen as belonging to national repertoires but also
50
Komulainen, p. 5.
51
See Raudkats.
affiliated with each other. Those sharing the Nordic ethnoscape of folk dancers
could easily adopt the dances and include them in their repertoires.
Anne Schley Duggan, Jeannette Schlottmann and Abbie Rutledge’s Folk
Dances of Scandinavia is an example of a totally non-Nordic perspective on
folk dances in the Nordic countries. Although the name of the book refers
to Scandinavia, it contains twenty-three dances from both the Scandinavian
countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) and Finland. The difference
between Raudkats’s and Duggan et al.’s volumes is that the former was compiled
in conjunction with the Nordic cooperation while the latter is part of a series
of international folk dance books. In addition, Folk Dances of Scandinavia
has substantial contextual information about the Scandinavian (i.e. Nordic)
countries, their location, history, customs and costumes. However, with a
couple of exceptions, there is no geographical information about the dances
other than their nationality in this volume either. Instead, the dances presented
in the volume are often seen as related to each other across national borders.
Characteristic or stylistic features are connected to individual nations as well
as to Scandinavia as a whole, and most typically, the dances are described
as Scandinavian folk dances. In many respects, the nations have a regional or
provincial character relative to the geographical entity of the Nordic countries.52
The folk dance books described here reveal a certain difference between
the representational Nordic space of the Nordic folk dancers and folk dancers
outside the Nordic countries in this respect. Nordic folk dancers have defined the
Nordic region through different and somewhat variable categories, emphasising
for example the distinction between the Swedish- and Finnish-speaking parts
of Finland and, especially during the latter part of the twentieth century, the
distinctive status of the autonomous areas as well. In contrast, outside the Nordic
countries this kind of subtle articulation of region has not been recognised.
Consequently, the folk dance books appear as different representations of spaces
depending upon how the Nordic region is defined.
Although the region is seen as an entity in all these cases, the dances represent
the region in different ways. The twin books treat the dances separately, as
manifestations of locality. Transnationality emerges as the overall context of the
book, but not at the level of the dances. The Estonian book takes each country as a
separate case but does not specify the dances as geographically distinctive within
a nation. Nor does it identify differences or similarities between countries, but
the dances are presented as potential elements of the repertoire. The US book
spans the Nordic countries, trying to see affinity between the dances presented
Anne Schley Duggan, Jeanette Schlottmann and Abbie Rutledge, Folk Dances of
52
Scandinavia (New York, 1948).

in the book. Transnationality takes place at the level of the dances as well as in
the context of the book and, compared to other examples, nationality here plays
a minor role.
In every case, the books present only a small sample of folk dances from the
Nordic countries, and many dances that have been popular at the Nordic folk
dance events for decades are not included. Still, they have an important place
in the construction of folk dance spaces. Considering the folk dancers’ Nordic
ethnoscape, the twin books are part of the cooperation that was practised at
the all-Nordic events, and as representations they distribute the ideals of these
events to the Nordic public. The distinctions between nations and between
Finnish and Swedish Finland as well as the constitution of region at the level
of parishes and provinces reflect the way folk dance organisations experienced
Nordic folk dance spaces after the Second World War. The local groups eagerly
danced these dances, which affected the way they perceived the Nordic region
and the activities they attended at folk dance events.
Conclusions
Nordic folk dance cooperation can be considered a series of cultural activities

producing spaces for encounters and practice. As this volume shows, it has had
numerous counterparts not only in other dance forms but also in other artistic
and cultural expressions. During the decades after the Second World War, a
similar cooperation has existed within theatre, where different cooperative
organs were fused under the Nordic Theatre Committee in 1976,53 and in
music, where the umbrella organisation Council for Nordic Music Cooperation
(NOMUS) was established as early as in 1959.54 On grassroots level, groups and
festivals have used the attribute ‘Nordic’ in order to emphasise the particular
transnational character of their activities: such examples are experimental
theatre Nordic Theatre Laboratory/Odin Teatret from the 1960s and Nordic
Folk Music Festival (today Umefolk) from the 1980s.55
Folk dance has often been regarded as something culturally shared and
affiliated, but Nordic folk dance cooperation has delivered a transnational
ethnoscape that is affiliated and differentiated at the same time. Nordic folk
53
Vedel, ‘Strategically Nordic’.
54
Svenska Tonkonstnärsförbundet, http://musiksok.se/MUSTERM/u_STKF.html
55
Odin Teatre, About us, http://www.odinteatret.dk/about-us/about-odin-teatret.
aspx (accessed 18 November 2012); Umeå folkmusikförening, Föreningen, http://
umeafolkmusik.se/foreningen/ (accessed 18 November 2012).
dance spaces have been constituted and reconstituted by both consensual and
conflictual differences: they have been appropriated through multiple practices
and dominated by different representations.
The all-Nordic folk dance events have typically been characterised by
national emblems and affected by nationalist ideals, but at the same time,
national boundaries and differences have been blurred as the folk dancers have
joined common activities. Talking about ‘Nordic folk dance culture’ would give
a totally distorted picture of the cooperative activities in folk dance, since folk
dance in the Nordic countries has stuck to national articulations: Nordic folk
dancers identify themselves primarily through nationality, and their expertise in
the field of folk dance is connected to the country they come from. Therefore,
following Appadurai, one can describe the all-Nordic folk dance activities as
dimensional rather than substantive, exploiting differences to generate diverse
conceptions of group identity in the context of the Nordic region.56 At their
events, the Nordic folk dancers have entered different transnational spaces,
bringing the people together through dance and performance. In addition, the
Nordic ethnoscape has been extended to other sites of folk dance activities, since
folk dancers performed the Nordic dances as part of their repertoire back home.
Participating in the all-Nordic folk dance events has been and still is a
historically specific way of constituting the Nordic region. Over the decades of
Nordic folk dance cooperation, both discursive and embodied activities have
created dance spaces in which a folk dance ethnoscape has emerged. The spaces
have been produced through a combination of joint dance practices, ideological
negotiations and discussions as well as representations of the Nordic region
in folk dance. The original inclusiveness of folk dance cooperation has turned
into exclusiveness, and Nordicness has become a cultural rampart against the
changing world. Within the Nordic ethnoscape of folk dancers, nationality
has been transformed into mutuality, a sense of unity among dancing people: a
distinction in relation to the other, outside the Nordic region.
During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the transnational
cooperations in folk dance have been complemented with artists’ mobility,
local translations of dance imports, and global flows. As this volume has shown,
there has emerged a plethora of spaces for different encounters of dance and
movement in the Nordic countries in the shape of networks, open forums,
institutions, organisations and infrastructure. ‘Nordicness’ in its different forms
has been both an initiator of and a frame for dance activities, even if there has
not been any formal agreement behind them.
See Appadurai, pp. 12–13.

56
Some innovations in dance have reached the Nordic region almost

simultaneously, either through media such as film or by word of mouth and the
dissemination by dancers, teachers, choreographers and instructors moving and
sharing their practice with their colleagues in other Nordic countries. Other
dance phenomena, such as Oriental or African dance, have gained a stronghold
in particular groups throughout the Nordic region as a result of expanding
migration and tourism, creating imaginary communities connected by pursuit
of health, exotic experiences or emancipation.57 Within the multiple forms of
interaction, the Nordic dimension has sometimes been made explicit, as for
example in the Nordic Cool Festival 2013 in Washington DC, at other times
not. Most often it has been actualised as an ongoing inquiry into interrelatedness,
and in this manner contributing to a continuously imagined and practised
Nordic region.
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Index
Note: An italicized f or n following a page American Dance Festival 118–9

number indicates a figure or footnote, American film blockage 22
respectively. American popular dances 13–4, 19–43
American Scandinavian Foundation 162
acrobatics 35, 38n74, 86, 186, 191, 197 L’amour de loin (Saariaho) 175
Adair, Christy 184, 196, 200 Amsterdam (Holland) 55
adaptability 49, 50 En anden dans: Moderne scenedans i
African dance 28, 102–3, 104, 107, 122, Danmark 1900–1975 (Vedel)
191, 229 184n5
African–American artists 119, 122–3 Andersen, Alf (Norway) 191, 192f, 193
African-American dances 28, 42, 43, 58, Anderson, Peter (Iceland) 55n24, 56
102n7 Andersson, John 23, 24n16, 43
African-American jazz dance Andersson, Örjan (Sweden) 55n24
arrival narratives 105–15 Andersson, Otto 147
bodies and 114–5, 123–4 Anholt, Simon 161–2
diversities and differences 121–4 Apollo Girls 199
movementscapes and 102–5 Appadurai, Arjun
national spaces and 101–2 on ‘culture’ 208n1
television and 116–8 on globalisation. 116 160–1
Aftenposten (Norwegian newspaper) 26, on local identities 116, 228
189 process geographies and 9, 102
age of dancers 84 -scapes and 105, 164–5, 208
agents, rock’n’roll 31 Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland
Agreement on Cultural Collaboration (2008) 172–4, 177, 179, 180
52–3 Arctic region 9, 12, 50–1, 51n8, 61, 62, 72
Ailey, Alvin 104 Arctic Sea 9, 51
Åkesson, Birgit 118 Arctic Wilderness 61
Åland Islands (autonomous area) 52n11, Arena (Nalen) (Copenhagen) 31
54, 163, 214, 218, 222; see also Arena Dancing 29
Nordic region arenas 94
alcohol (drinking) 141, 143, 145, 150, 151, Arkhangelsk 63n48, 65n55
196, 197 The Army’s Gymnastics School [Hærens
Alhambra Theatre (London) 199 Gymnastikskole] (Denmark) 136
Allen, John 8–9, 61, 72 Arnbring, Gote 29
American Black Concert Dance 103 Arnold, John 194
American dance 33–4; see also rock’n’roll art 15, 185
and other American dances art institutions 165
art shows 161, 173–4 ballets; jazz ballet; Maa (Saariaho)

artistic factors 51, 53–4, 62 (2010) and other performances;
assembly houses [församlingshusen] 15, opera ballets; royal ballets; Selinder,
139–42, 148, 150, 152 Anders and other ballet dancers;
Association for Promotion of Folk Dance theatrical dance
[Foreningen til Folkedansens acrobatics and 191n31, 197
Fremme, FFF] (Denmark) 148 African-American jazz dance and
Athens (Greece) 109 106–7
audiences audiences and 196
Barents region and 63, 71 ballroom dancing and 135
branding and 162 cross-genres and 118–21
class and 187 dance schools and 186–7
critics and 179 Denmark and 186, 193, 202
education and 162 embodiment and 114
folk dance and 81, 82, 85f, 88n23, 94 entertainment and 198n52
globalisation and 165 Finland and 139–40, 175–9, 186
Hälsingehambon competition and 83 Finnish restaurants and 197
hierarchical structures and 203 folk dance and 6
jazz dance and 123 gaze and 200
local versus international 178 hierarchical structures and 201
mobility and 14 Ibsen and 191n30
Norway and 188–9 jazz dance and 14
rules and 196, 202 jazz gymnastics and 119
Tanssimania and 91 modern dance and 189
Australia 58 nationalisation and 212–3
Austria 214, 216 New York Times reviews and 159
‘authentic jazz’ 104 Norway and 138, 152, 186
authenticity 28n38, 42, 43, 104, 107 operetta theatres and 136
autonomous areas 52n11, 54; see also Åland Sweden and 186, 193, 202
Islands; Faroe Islands; Greenland threats to 5–6
award dances 81–2 United States and 189
vaudeville and 201
Babs, Alice 34n61, 117 Ballet Institute (Oslo) 112, 114
Bakka, Egil 15, 184n5 Ballets Suédois (Paris) 152
ballad chain dance (Faroese) 148 Les Ballets Suédois [The Swedish Ballet] 138
Ballerinor och barfotadansöser: Svensk og ballroom dance; see also couple and social
internationell danskultur runt 1900 dances
(Hammergren) 184n5 ballet and 135, 197
Ballet Academy (Gothenburg) 108 class of dancers and 15, 132, 133–4
Ballet Academy School (Stockholm) dance teachers and 43
106–7, 107f, 108, 109 Danish teachers and 33
Ballet across Borders (Wulff ) 194 defined 130
ballet and ballet dancers; see also classical Kisbye and 31
ballet; corps de ballet; Finnish Lindblom and 29
National Ballet and other national Norway and 138
Index 235
Sweden and 136 black dance 102n7; see also African dance;
Baltic states 12, 53, 54 African-American dances; Negro
barefoot dance 188, 189 dance
Barents Council (Barents Euro-Arctic Blackboard Jungle (film) [Vend dem ikke
Council) 53, 59 ryggen] [Vänd dem inte ryggen]
Barents Dance Collaborations 63 21n6
Barents Dance Council (BDC) 64–8 Blackface 191, 192f
Barents Dance Ensemble 64 blackness of American culture 42, 43
Barents Euro-Arctic Council (Barents Blue Rondo 116
Council) 53, 59 bodies; see also gymnastics; health and
Barents Performance (2007) 67 fitness
Barents region 12, 14, 50–1, 59–73, 60f aesthetics and 160
Barents Sea 9, 68 African-American jazz dance and
Barents Spektakel 62, 68 102n3, 106, 114–5, 123–4
Barthes, Roland 165, 166 arctic hysteria and 174
‘bathing ladies’ 195 cold climate and 167
Batsheva Dance Company 170, 171, 179 culture and 16, 178–9
Bauman, Zygmunt 10, 50 dance styles and 188n23
BDC (Barents Dance Council) 64–8 globalisation and 116–7
Beatty, Talley 103, 107f, 110, 111 jazz dance and 116
Beck, Hans 137 jazz gymnastics and 119–20
Beckman, Monica 119, 120 movement and 165
Belafonte, Harry 117 Negro dance and 118–9
Belarus 54 social spaces and 183
Belgium 56, 170 unspoken rules and 195
Berlingske Aftenavis (Danish newspaper) the visual and 169
26–7 bodyscapes 105, 202
Berman, Patricia 162 Boel, Lene (Denmark) 55n24
Bhabha, Homi 180 Boman, Birgit 136
Bharucha, Rustom 8, 9–10, 101, 121–2, boogie-woogie 34, 37, 41
123 Boomps-A-Daisy 33
Big Apple 103 Bordercrossing Exercises (2008) 68
biker/rocker movements 43 borders, see transnational activities
Bildjournalen (Swedish journal) 27, 29, 40 Börlin, Jean 137f
Billed Bladet (magazine) 34n63 Borrowed Light (Saarinen) 166–7, 168f,
binaries 8, 51 179
Biskops-Arnö (Sweden) 220, 221f Boston Ballet 167–8
Bjerrum, Sissel 25–6, 33 A Boundless Evening at the Opera (television
Bjørnsgaard, Ingun (Norway) 55n24 programme) 117
Bjørnsson, Fredbjørn 122 Bournonville, August 6, 151
Black, Diane 121 Bournonville tradition 160, 168–70, 169,
Black Atlantic 10 179
Black Concert Dance 102 Brage club (Stockholm) 153f
Braidotti, Rosi 8, 10, 56
branding and marketing 62, 104, 160, Choreographic Institute (Stockholm) 108
161–2, 173, 174, 178, 274 chorus girls 15, 199
Braudel, Fernand 10 Christensen, Gyda 138, 152, 184n5, 186
breakdance 86 Christensen, Lillebil 138n27
Broadway musicals 111; see also West Side Circus Variété 191
Story citizenship 56
Brolinsson, Per-Erik 20n3, 24n16, 25 civil rights movement (US) 117
Brooklyn Academy of Music (2007) 160, class, socio-economic (status); see also
166 hierarchical structures; social
BRR 40f, 41 contexts
BT (Danish newspaper) 27, 31, 32, 35 assembly houses and 142
Buckland, Theresa 152 audiences and 187
Budapest (Hungary) 173 Danish dancers and 188
Budsko-Lommi, Vivianne 110 defined 129
Bugg (Swedish) 38, 40f, 41 ethnicity and 123
bunad 86 folk dance and 15, 131–4, 145–9,
burlesque dance culture 103; see also 152–4
vaudeville leading individuals and 15
business 59 organisations and venues and 135–49
bygdedans 41 parents and 131–4
Bygdøy Sjøbad competition 30 television and 117
theatre dance and 151–2
Cakewalk 103, 110 variety show audiences and 187
California 42 venues and 188–94
call girls 199 classical ballet; see also ballet; Frønsdal,
can-can 191 Randi and other classical ballet
Capital New York (newspaper) 175, 177, dancers
178 African-American jazz dance and
Caribbean jazz dance 101–2 106–7, 121
Carlsen, Carl 33–4, 37, 39 Finnish restaurants and 196, 197
Carlson, Carolyn 161, 175, 176, 178 jazz ballet and 118, 120
Carlzon, Nils-Hakan 41 Norway and 186n13
Carnegie Hall (film) 22f plastique versus 188n23
Carnegie Hall (New York) 160 Spanish dancing and 191
Carte Blanche [Norges nasjonale kompani climate 167, 170, 173, 174
for samtidsdans] 160, 163n8, climate change 51, 59
170–2, 171, 179 clothing, swingpjat culture and 34
Carter, Alexandra 199 clubs 141, 145–6, 147, 153; see also youth
categories of dancing 129–31, 149–54 clubs
Central Europe 4–5, 121 Cochrane, Allan 8–9, 61, 72
Certeau, Michel de 93 Cohen, Stanley 19–20
character dancing 197 Cold Fish (Schetnev) 71–2
Charleston 32 Cold War 61, 104
child rearing 57 collaborations, Nordic; see also cooperation,
Chinese, portrayals of 191 Nordic; transnational activities
Index 237
ballets and 209 Copenhagen (Denmark); see also Royal

Barents region and 64–8 Danish Ballet and School; Tivoli
dance schools and 39 African-American jazz dance and
educational 52 107–8, 112
neo-swing and 38, 42 ballet and 6
North American 167–8 competitions 39
North American performances and 180 cross-genres and 118
transnational mobility and 50–4 dance practitioners and 56
colonialism 105 dance teachers and 108
Columbia Film 29 female dancers and 195
Columbia University 161 flying dancers 36f
commercialisation 34 hip hop and 121
common dances 211 Jitterbug competitions 35
Communist children’s clubs (Oslo) 149 Rock Around the Clock and 22
community centres 94 rock’n’roll and 23, 31, 43
community dancing 96 rock’n’roll riots 24–5, 27–8
Competition Day in Folk Dance royal ballets and 5
[Konkurrencedag i Folkedans] work venues and 184
88n23 corporeal dimension, see bodies
competitions corps de ballet 15, 137f, 185, 189, 195, 199,
American dances and 13 202
ballroom dance and 131 Corps de Walk (Eyeal) 171–2
Bugg and 40f, 43 costumes (dress)
dance sport 29 female dancers and 195
Dansetten and 35 folk dance and 6, 14, 81, 93
as displays/theatre art dancing 82 Hälsingehambon competition and 83
folk dance and 14, 81–2 Konkurrencedag and 88, 89f
Jitterbug 35 Landskappleik and 86
Nordic collaboration and 39–40, 40–1 place versus space and 93
Norwegian folk music 149 Polsmärkesuppdansningen and 84
rock singers and 25 Tanssimania and 90f
as spaces 12–3 Council for Nordic Music Cooperation 227
Sweden and Norway and 29–30 couple and social dances; see also ballroom
consumer culture 173 dance
consumer markets 20 African-American 103
contemporary dances 90 folk dance and 80, 88, 224
contradances 88 gender and 85
contradances (set dances) 80, 81, 88, 224 nationalisation and 213
Cooper, Frederick 163–4 peasants and 86
cooperation, Nordic; see also collaborations, rock’n’roll and 38n72
Nordic; reciprocal partnerships swing dance and 38, 41–2
Barents region and 59, 63 theatrical dances and 6
folk dance and 207–14, 218–29 US modern 37
Nordic Associations and 217n30 Court, Titta (Finland) 66f, 68, 69
transnational mobility and 228–9 Cramér, Ivo 118
critics 189; see also Johnson, Ken and other transnational mobility and 14, 51–4, 55
critics working 194–8
Critique of Everyday Life (Lefebvre) 223
cross-border contacts; see also Dagbladet (Norwegian newspaper) 26,
collaborations; reciprocal 189n24, 191n30
partnerships; transnational Dalarna (Sweden) 84n18
activities Daldans 211
Barents region and 68 Damsholt, Inger 13–4
Denmark/Norway/Sweden and 8 Dance Abundance Festival (Finland) 67
folk dance and ballet and 6 Dance and the Formation of Norden:
historical 3 Emergences and Struggles (Vedel,
international 4–5 ed.) 11
Nordic collaboration and 39 Dance Circle [Danse-Ringen] 32–3, 34,
Norway and 138 35, 39
reciprocal partnerships and 57 dance companies 58–9
cross-genres 118–21 Dance Company of the Gothenburg
Crutchfield, Doug 108–9 Opera, The [GöteborgsOperans
Cultural Agreement (1971) 220 Danskompani ] (Sweden) 163n8
culture; see also intraculturality; primitive dance consultants 63n47
versus civilized dances; retro dance halls 29
culture; social contexts; youth dance holds 38n72
culture Dance Information Centers 55
African-American jazz dance and 106, Dance Mania [Tanssimania] 89–91, 92,
115–8 94, 95
bodies and 16, 178–9 dance schools; see also Tembert’s Dance
codes and 15, 183–4 School and other schools
cultural activities versus 208n1 ‘authentic jazz’ and 104
dance spaces and 1 collaborations and 39, 63
diplomacy and 104 Danish Jitterbug competitions and 35
‘economy of experience’ and 160 Nordic spaces and 40
folk dance and 208 rock’n’roll and 29, 32–3
foreign countries and 4–5 social dancing and 38
geography a nd 9 dance sport 29, 31, 38, 39, 41, 43
globalisation and 161 dance teachers; see also dance schools;
jazz dance and 116 Kisbye, Børge and other dance
Kirkenes Declaration and 59 teachers
Lapland and 62 African-American jazz dance and
media and 166 105–10, 115
movement and 10–1 ballet and 186–7
national policies and 4 ballroom dance and 43
neo-swing and 42 class of dancers and 132, 135–6, 152
Nordicness and 222 Danish 33–4, 193
North American performances and English 31
179–80 Finnish 139
specificities and 15 jazz dance and 104
Index 239
Norwegian rock’n’roll and 31 region; Royal Danish Ballet;

organisations of 136 Scandinavia
reciprocal partnerships and 64 African–American artists and 119
Sweden and Denmark and 136 African-American jazz dance and 106,
transnational mobility and 58–9 107–9, 116
Dance Theatre/Creative Dane Theatre Åland Islands and 218
(Denmark) 121 ballet and 186, 188, 202
dance therapy 101, 109, 120 class of dancers and 131–2, 134, 135,
dance types 188–9 151, 188, 198
Dancebook (Carlsen) 34, 37 competitions and 39
DanceFestival Barents 67, 69 cross-border exchanges and 8
dancing, categories of 129–31 cross-genres and 118–21
dancing communities 96 dance culture and 15
dancing crowds 15, 131, 139–45, 152 dance practitioners and 56
dancing girls 195 dance teachers and 33–4, 104, 107–9,
Danish championship in Folk Dance 136
[Danmarksmesterskabet i Folkedans] entertainment trends and 193
88n23 folk dance, national, and 213
Danish Dance Theatre 163n8 folk dance and 88–9, 92, 93, 94–5, 145,
Danish–American Dance Theatre School 147–8, 150, 207, 209, 210, 211,
(Copenhagen) 108 215, 218
Danmarksmesterskabet i Folkedans [Danish folk dance instructions and 219, 223–4,
championship in Folk Dance] 225
88n23 jazz dance and 103, 104, 116, 119–21,
Dans i Nord (Sweden) 67n57 122
DansArena nord (Norway) 67n57 Jitterbug and 33
dansbanor [outdoor dance pavilions] 94 Kirkenes Declaration and 59
Danse-Avisen 33 Nordic collaboration and 39–40
Danse-Ringen [the Dance Circle] 32–3, 34, Nordic Council and 52n10
35, 39 North America and 160, 162, 163
Dansetten [the Dancett] (Tivoli) 35 organisations and venues and 141–2
Danseuse Espagnole Dolorita 200, 202 popping finger dance and 34
De Dansk Skytte, Gymnastik og rock’n’roll and 25, 26, 27, 31–2, 32–42
Idrættsforeninger 141 swing dance and 42
Dansminnen – moderna möten – magiska teenage idols 34n61
kvällar (Lunström) 144n47 work venues and 184n4
Dare to Share (2012) 68 Department of Criminology (University of
Degenerate Art exhibition (Munich) 35 Copenhagen) 23
Degtereva, Lioubov 69f Det var på Rundetårn (Danish film) 37n74
delinquency 21–7, 43 deterritorialisation 10, 92
democracy 3, 4, 21, 115, 143, 195 Dialogues for Jazz (1962) 110
Denmark and Danes; see also cooperation, disabled children 109
Nordic; Copenhagen; Kisbye, discipline 202
Børge and other Danes; Nordic discos 109
discotheques 38
disease metaphor 26, 27 Elo, Jorma 167–8

displays 81–2 Eltoft, Johanne 71f, 72
diversity 14, 49, 101, 122–3 embodiment, see bodies
documentaries 116 Empire Theatre (London) 199
Dolorita 200, 202 Engel, Lis 102n3, 104, 108n30, 114–5, 121
Dorepanova, Svetlana 65n55 Enghavevej 29
double quadrille from Sønderborg England and the English; see also London
(Sønderborg Doppeltkvadril) 207 class and 152, 187
Dovrehallen (Kristiania) 191, 194, as exotic 27
199–200 folk dance and 216
Dovring Girls 200 hierarchical structures and 199
DR (Danish broadcasting) 116 imaginary and 8
drama 115 Nordic collaboration and 39
Dresden 55 rock’n’roll and 28, 31
Drottnigholm Theatre (Sweden) 118 Sweden and 41
drum travels 67 enjoyment and pleasure 101, 115, 131
drumming 114 entertainment
Drusba (Arkhangelsk) 63n48, 65n55 African-American jazz dance and 107
Dubbelbugg 41 art and 165
Duelund, Peter 4 ballet and 198n52
Duggan, Anne Schley 226 class and 203
Duncan, Isadora 185 Danish press and 195
Dunham, Katherine 103, 110 ‘economy of experience’ and 164
Dunham School 111 folk dance and 79
jazz dance and 121
Eastern Europe 5, 90 popular venues and 185–6
economic factors; see also funding; income United States and 189
(wages) of dancers; trade versatility and 193
Barents region and 51, 68 environment 51; see also green visions;
diversity and 122 nature
globalisation and 165 Eske Holm og Dansere (Denmark) 121
imaginaries and 8 Espoo (Finland) 220
Lapland and 62 Estonia 213, 214–8, 225, 226
transnational mobility and 8, 49, 54, 72 ethnicities; see also ethnoscapes; race; Sámi
‘economy of experience’ 15, 159–60, 164 people and language
education; see also dance teachers globalisation and 164
African-American jazz dance and 101, jazz dance and 122–3
106, 108 national identities and 4
audiences and 162 neo-swing and 42
class of dancers and 134 nomadism and 56
jazz dance and 121 portrayals and 191
jazz gymnastics and 119 transnational mobility and 8, 72
television and 116, 117 ethnoscapes
transnational mobility and 55 Appadurai and 9, 208
Ekstra Bladet (Danish newspaper) 31, 33 folk dance and 209, 211, 214, 226, 227
Index 241
NORDLEK agreement and 220 female dancers; see also gender; Leinan-
transnational encounters and 214, 228 Hermo, Solveig and other female
Europe; see also Central Europe; Eastern dancers
Europe; France and other countries ballet and 209
African-American jazz dance and 104, bodies of 195
105 class and 200
ballet models and 186 Killer Pig and 171
Baltic states and 12 solo dancers 5–6
cultural contacts and 4–5 unspoken rules and 195–6
culture and 161 work venues and 184–5
dance practitioners and 56 feminism 8, 10, 72, 165, 196
dance styles and 188 festivals 12–3, 67–8, 69, 87, 91, 160–1; see
folk dance and 90n25 also Nordic Cool Festival and other
folklore of 6 festivals
globalisation and 54 films 21, 22, 42, 103, 104, 116–7; see also
hierarchical structures and 199 Hollywood; Rock Around the Clock
jazz dance and 121 and other films
modern dance and 189 financescapes 9; see also economic factors
Nazi occupation and 34–5 fine art 15
North America and 162 Finland and Finns; see also cooperation,
perspective and 184 Nordic; Helsinki; Lapland, Finnish
polka-mazurka of 82 and Swedish; Nordic region; Turku
transnational mobility and 51, 58 (Finland)
European Commission 59 acrobatics and 191n31
European Economic Community 53 African-American jazz dance and 106,
European High North 12, 51 110–1, 116
European Union 49–50, 64 ballet and 139–40, 175–9, 186, 188,
exclusion 208, 214–8, 228 191n31
exercise 195n48 Barents collaborations and 65, 66, 67,
exoticism 27, 161, 170, 173, 174, 229 69
Eyal, Sharon 170, 171–2, 179 class of dancers and 131–2, 134, 135,
139–40, 151–2, 198
fad dances 25 competitions 39
Fahlstrøms Teater (Norway) 186n13, 191 dance culture and 15
Farinha, Cristina 50 dance teachers and 139
Farmers 146 Estonia and 214n22, 216
farmers 133–4, 144, 147, 149; see also rural ethnicities and 122, 191
factors Faroe Islands and 218, 219
Faroe Islands (autonomous area) 52n11, 54, Finnish-speaking 214–5, 218, 224, 225,
148, 163, 214, 218–9, 222; see also 226, 227
Nordic region folk dance and 89–91, 92, 93, 94n34,
Fazer, Edvard 139, 152, 186 95, 143, 145, 147, 209, 210, 211,
Fears, Clifford 109–10, 117 224–5
folk dance organisations and 213
indigenous peoples 4
Kirkenes Declaration and 59 flexibility 49, 50

language and 4 Flow Productions (Finland) 64n52, 66f, 67
Luminous Modernism exhibition and flying dancers (Copenhagen) 36f
163 Flying Jitter 37
modern dance and 102n3, 110 Fokets Hus (Enghavevej) 29
music and 175, 176 Fokine, Michel 185n8
Nordic collaboration and 39 folk dance; see also rural dances; specific
Nordic Council and 52n10 countries
North American performances and 163 all-Nordic events 207–29, 216f, 228
North American press and 160, 161, audiences and 94
166–70, 172 balls 208
the north of 51 beginnings of 5
opera ballet and 196–7 class and 15, 131–4, 145–9, 152–4
organisations and venues and 142–3 competitions and 14, 79–96
pedagogical collaboration and 64 competitions compared 91–6
politics and 214n22 cooperation and 227–8
popular versus serious dance and dancing crowds versus 139
198n52 defined 80–1, 129–31
restaurants and 196–8, 202 Hälsingehambon 82–4
Rock Around the Clock and 22–3 instructions 219, 223, 224–5
rock’n’roll and 40n82 Karelian 69
Russia and 186 Konkurrencedag 88–9
Sweden and 214 Landskappleik 86–7
Swedish dances and 213 local factors 224
Swedish-speaking 142, 145, 215, national dances and 6, 207, 208–14,
218–9, 224, 226, 227 219, 222
Swiss ballet master and 6 national factors and 80, 91, 223, 224–5,
Swiss national dances and 6 228
television and 116 Nordic collaboration and 39, 41n87,
transnational mobility and 62, 63 218–27
venues and 144, 184n4, 196–8 organisations and venues 145–9, 215,
Finlands Svenska Folkdansring [Finnish 223–4
Swedish Folk dance Association] past and 79–80, 92, 95
147, 216 places and 91–2, 96
Finnish Ballet 152 Polsmärkesuppdansningen 84–5
Finnish Folklore Association [Suomalaisen as presentational 80–91
Kansantanssin Ystävät] 215 venues and 83–4, 87, 90f, 94–5, 191,
Finnish National Ballet 161, 175–9, 212
186n12 folk dance movement 16, 132, 145–6, 147,
Finnish Opera (Helsinki) 106, 139 148
Finnish Youth League [Suomen Nuorison Folk Dances of Scandinavia (Duggan,
Liitto] 143, 147, 213 Schlottmann and Rutledge) 225,
fishermen 134 226–7
fishing 68, 71–2 folk museums [hembygdsgårdar] 94
Fiskvik, Anne Margrete 15, 184 folk tales 6
Index 243
Folkeswing (Norwegian) 20, 38, 41, 43 Ge, George 186n12

Folkets huse [People’s Houses] 139–42n33, Gebran, Sara (Denmark) 55n24, 56
143, 144 Geidosis (Leinan-Hermo) (2007) 67
Föreningen Brage [Brage association] gender; see also female dancers; males
(Finland) 215 ballet and 169
föreningen Norden (Nordic associations) bodyscapes and 105
217, 217n32, 220 folk dance and 14, 85, 92–3
Foreningen til Folkedansens Fremme, FFF Konkurrencedag and 88–9
[Association for Promotion of Folk Landskappleik and 86–7
Dance] (Denmark) 148 Tanssimania and 91
församlingshusen [assembly houses] 15, transnational mobility and 56–7
139–42n33, 148, 150, 152 geographical imaginaries (imaginative
Foucault, Michel 183, 187–8, 193, 202 geographies) 72, 207, 208, 223, 224
France 55, 56, 152, 186, 214 Georges Mills moderne ballet skole 108
Franko, Mark 3, 185n8, 199 Germany 56, 106, 116, 215n22, 216; see
free church movement 144 also Nazi-occupied Europe
free dance forms 120, 121, 188 gestural language 167
freedom 8, 115, 122–3; see also Gilmore, James H. 159, 164, 165–6
transnational mobility Gilroy, aul 10
freelancers 201 Glassalen [Glass Hall] (Tivoli) 34, 35
freestyle dances 38, 41n90 Glassals-swing dance 34, 35
fridans 188 global flows 9, 10, 12
Friends of Finnish Folkdance 147 globalisation
friendship cities (twin cities) 63 Appadurai on 160–1
fritidsklubber [leisure clubs] 30; see also cultural specificities and 15
sports clubs culture and 161
Frønsdal, Randi 102n3, 112, 113f, 114, 116 ‘economy of experience’ and 159–60
Full Moon Festival (Finland) 67 global visions and 166–7
funding local factors and 179–80
African-American jazz dance and 108 local identities and 116–7
assembly houses and 140 media and 164–5, 172
Barents region and 64, 65n53, 66–7 national, the, and 180
Hälsingehambon competition and national factors and 54, 164
82n16 natural resources and 72
North American performances and 159 North American performances and
reciprocal partnerships and 57 163–80
Stellaris DanceTheatre and 65 swing dances and 38–42
Sweden and 64 transnational mobility and 8, 54
transnational mobility and 51–3, 54, Göteborg Operans Danskompani
58, 63, 72 [The Dance Company of the
Gothenburg Opera] (Sweden)
gammaldans 41 163n8
Garborg, Hulda 148, 224 Gothenburg (Sweden) 111, 113f3
gas and oil 51, 62, 68 green visions 173; see also environment;
‘gaze, the’ 196, 200 nature
Greenland (autonomous area) 52n11, 54, Duncan and 5

163, 219; see also Nordic region entertainment trends and 193
Gripenberg, Maggie 139, 152 folk dance and 215
Gronow, Pekka 22–3 folk dance clubs and 153
group dances 80, 88 jazz dance and 110
Grundtvigian Christianity clubs 141 opera wages and 193
Grundtvigian folk high schools 148 Rock Around the Clock and 22
Grut, Marina 138 rock’n’roll riots and 22f
Guggenheim Museum (New York) 175 work venues and 184
Guneriussen, Willy 61–2 Helsinki City Theatre 111
gymnastics 120, 121, 141, 143, 147, 148, Helsinki Dance Company 111
150, 195 hembygdsgårdar [folk museums] 94
Hembygdsrörelsen [homestead movement]
Hagberg, Willy 29, 30f 146, 153
Häggström, Patrik (Sweden) 66f Henrickson, John 65n55
Haley, Bill 20–1, 28 Henry Turner International Dance Center
Hall, Katrin (Iceland) 55n24 of Scandinavia ApS 109
halling 86, 191 HepTown.com 42, 43
Hälsingehambon 82–4, 85, 91–2, 93, 94, 95 Herräng Swing Dance Camp (Sweden) 42
hambo 82–4, 83f, 85, 86, 92 Hertel, Hans 25n22
Hammerfest (Norway) 67, 68, 71 Heynderickx, Bruno 170–1
Hammerfest Balletverksted 63n 46 hierarchical structures 15, 183, 188, 189,
Hammergren, Lena 9, 14, 136, 184, 184n5, 194–5, 197–202; see also power
185–6, 188 High North 51, 62, 71; see also Barents
Hammersborg Fritidsklubb 30 region
Handshake (2004) 66 High North Priority
Hansen, Bang 199–200 [Nordområdebevegelsen] (2011)
Hansen, Bent and Anita 29 70–1
Hansen, Odd Bang 187 hip-hop culture 121
Hærens Gymnastikskole [The Army’s history (the past)
Gymnastics School] (Denmark) African-American jazz dance and
136 102n7, 106
Harris, David 112 folk dance and 79–80, 92, 95
Harvest Dance [Skördedansen] 153f Jitterbug and 41n90
‘Hasse & Tage’ (Swedish comics) 117 rock’n’roll and 32
Haugen, Liv Hanne (Norway) 70–1 shared 8
health and fitness 28, 101, 117–8, 120, 122, space and 6–7
123, 195; see also gymnastics swing dancing and 43
Hedrejord, Halvdan 67 Holland (Netherlands) 6, 55
Hedtoft, Hans 52n10 Hollywood (United States) 28; see also films
Heiss, Alanna 173 homestead houses [hembygdsgårdar] 146
Helsingin Sanomat 22f homestead movement [Hembygdsrörelsen]
Helsinki (Finland) 146, 153
African-American jazz dance and 106 Hoppu, Petri 16
cross-genres and 118 Howelll, Herman 112
Index 245
Hübbe, Nikolaj 167, 170 Indians, portrayals of 191

Huitfeldt, Anniken 62 Indigenous People: National States and
Hungary 173 Borders (2005) 68
hydrocarbon resources 68 indigenous peoples, see ethnicities; Sámi
hysteria, arctic 172–4, 177, 179, 180 people and language
Information (Danish newspaper) 26
Ibsen, Lillebil (Norway) 189, 190f, 191, Ingold, Tim 55–6, 56n25
191n30, 209 innovation 50
Iceland 217n32, 218 intercultural practices 101
Iceland Dance Company 163n8, 214 international, the 4–5, 8
Iceland ; see also Nordic region International Contemporary Ensemble 176
dance practitioners and 56 Internet 9, 57
folk dance and 214, 218, 223 intraculturality 9–10, 122; see also culture
Kirkenes Declaration and 59 Inuit people 214; see also Faroe Islands;
Luminous Modernism exhibition and Iceland
163 Iron Curtain 60, 62–72
Nordic Association and 217n32 Iskelmäkaruselli pyörii [The Schlager
Nordic Council and 52n10 Carousel Spins] (Finnish film)
North America and 163 40n82
research on 12 Israeli influences 170
transnational mobility and 50n7
identities Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festivals 160, 166,
African-American jazz dance and 116 167, 171
American 42 Jacobsen, Niels W. 20n3, 31n49, 33, 34
Barents region and 62 Jämtland (Sweden) 84n18
branding and 178 jazz ballet; see also cross-genres
cultural 274 African-American jazz dance and 107
dance and 2–3 definition and origins 118, 120
local 116–7 Denmark and 103, 108
national (nationalities) 4, 56 Frønsdal and 114n54
other Nordic 54 Norway and 112
Scandinavian art exhibition (1912) and Sweden and 109–10, 112
162 television and 116, 117
ideoscapes 9 jazz dance; see also African-American jazz
IKRA Dance and Performance Art Festival dance; cross-genres; jazz ballet; jazz
(Sweden) 67 gymnastics
imaginaries 91, 172; see also geographical African-American jazz dance and 107
imaginaries (imaginative bodies and 123–4
geographies) branding and 104
immigrants 134, 209 cross-genres and 118–21
improvisation 88 Denmark and 103
inclusion 208, 214–8, 228 embodiment and 114
income (wages) of dancers 108, 135–6, 138, Finnish 110–1
188, 193, 198–9, 202 modern jazz 108, 112
Indian dances 104, 122 morality and 32
Norway and 111–4 Katherine Dunham School 110

swingpjat and 34 KB-Hallen 29, 32, 34n61
television and 116, 117 Kela, Reijo (Finland) 55n24, 159, 160, 161,
jazz gymnastics 114–5, 119, 120–1, 123 173–4
Jazz in Gold (1962) 110 Kennedy Center (Washington) 163
jazz music 34–5, 103 Killer Pig (Eyal) 171
Jazzbalett 63 118 King, Martin Luther 117
Jazz-Ballet ABC (1962) 116 King’s Volunteers on Amager (Livjægerne på
Jensen, Jens Skjold (Denmark) 221f Amager) (Bournonville) 6
Jensen, Kaj 32–42, 39, 43 Kirkenær, Jorunn and Even 112, 114n54
Jiganova, Irena 69f Kirkenes (Norway) 68, 72
Jitter Swing 34, 37 Kirkenes Conference 68
Jitterbug Kirkenes Declaration 59
American horrors 33 Kisbye, Børge and Kisbye Dance School
Denmark and 33, 35 31–2, 36f, 40, 43
Kisbye and 31 Kisbye, Mrs. Børge 37
morality and 19, 32, 33 Kisselgoff, Anna 169–70
Nordic collaboration and 39–40 Knudsen, Paul (Denmark) 209
past and 41n90 Kødbyen 36f
as rhythm dance 34 Kokkvoll, Arne 145
rock’n’roll and 37, 38n72 Kola drøm (1998) 66
swing dances and 37 Kola Island 66
Jive 34, 37, 38, 41–2 Konkurrencedag i Folkedans [Competition
Johannesén, Augusta 186n13 Day in Folk Dance] 88–9, 88n23,
Johannesen, Else Marie 29, 30f 92, 93, 94, 95
Johansen, Dagmar 199–200 Konserthuset (Stockholm) 39
Johnson, Ken 173 Kontraskjæret esplanade 29
joik singers 67 Korppi-Tommola, Riikka 102n3
Joint Working Group on Culture 59 Kristiania (Norway) 184, 187, 189, 191,
JoJo-Oulu Dance Centre (Finland) 64n52, 192f, 194, 196, 197f, 199–200
66, 67n57 Kristiania Chat Noir 200–1
Jordal Amfi competition (Oslo) 30, 40 Kristoffersen, Main 112–3, 114n54
Jørgensen, Øyvind (Norway) 55n24 Krogh, Per (Norway) 200–1
Jørn, “Gummi” 37n74 Kunttu, Mikki 166
jump kicks 38n72
Juslin, Inka 15 La Rocco, Claudia 166–7, 171
Jutland (Denmark) 31 La Scala 175
labour markets and employment 50, 52, 55,
Kaiser, Günther 21 118; see also hierarchical structures;
Kantele (2011) 69 income (wages) of dancers
kappleiks 86–7, 95; see also Landskappleik labour unions 141–5, 146, 153
Karelia (Russia) 69 Lakkonen, Johanna 184
Karholm, Göran 84n18 Lambeth walk 33
Karlsson, Gustav 146 landscapes 9, 61–2, 174, 179
Karpova, Anna 68, 69f Landskappleik 86–7, 92, 93, 94
Index 247
Landskrona (Sweden) 31 globalisation and 164, 179–80

language, Scandinavian 4 media and 165
languages, hierarchisations of 122 Munch and 162–3
Lapland, Finnish and Swedish 62, 63 New York and 179
Larsen, Holger 20n3, 24n16, 25 rock’n’roll and 29–37
Larsen, Jonas 57 -scapes and 105
Larsson, Johan 84n18 swing dances and 38–42
Latvia 216 transnational mobility and 12–3,
leading individuals 15 59–73
Lefebvre, Henri Løland, Lene 25–6, 33
arrival narratives and 105–6 London (England) 21, 26; see also England
class dimensions and 129, 149–51 Lorry 29
folk dance instructions and 223 Love (Eyal) 171
reciprocal partnerships and 57 Lucky Boy and his Crazy Rockets 31n47
representational spaces and 73, 202 Luleå (Sweden) 64
social production and 6–8, 183 Luminous Modernism: Scandinavian Art
transnational mobility and 49 Comes to America (2011-2012) 162,
Leinan-Hermo, Solveig (Norway) 63, 65, 163
66f, 67, 67n60, 68, 69f Lundström, Catarina 144n47
leisure 3, 139 Lutheran revival movements 67n58
leisure clubs [fritidsklubber] 30; see also
sports clubs Maa (Saariaho) (2010) 161, 175–9
Lestadianism 67n58 Macaulay, Alastair 168–9, 176–7
Lincoln Center (New York) 160, 168–70 magic 61
Lindberg, Nils 116 Makkonen, Anne 184, 186–7, 191n31
Lindblom, Gustaf ‘Topsy’ (Sweden) 29, 39 males 24–5, 86, 196, 200; see also gender
Lindy, Pia 69 Maltseva, Nadejda 69f
Lindy Hop 41, 42 Manning, Frankie 42
Lines: A Brief History (Ingold) 56n25 manuals, folk dance 85n21
‘liquid modernity’ 10, 49 Maré, Rolf de 136, 137–8, 152
liquidity 50, 72 Marini, Ernest 189, 190f, 191
Littow, Maria 64n52, 66f marketing and branding 62, 104, 160,
Living Movement (Denmark) 121 161–2, 173, 174, 178, 274
Livjægerne på Amager (The King’s Martin, Randy 2, 11
Volunteers on Amager) mass performances 208
(Bournonville) 6 Massey, Doreen 8–9, 61, 72
local identities 116–7 Massullo, Nuccio 57
locality and local factors; see also places Mattox, Matt 114
African-American jazz dance and 102 Mayo Theatre (Kristiania) 189
audiences 178 McCann, Eugene 149
Carte Blanche and 172 McCormick, Malcolm 195n48
clubs and 150 McKayle, Donald 104, 104n15
cross-genres and 118–9 media; see also Dagbladet and other
folk dance and 86, 208, 224, 226–7 newspapers; North America and
folklore influences and 6 North American Press; television
African-American jazz dance and morality 143; see also alcohol; sexuality
115–6 Moscow (Russia) 173
Bugg and 41 Mose, Jens Allan 20n3, 31n49, 33, 34
Corps de Walk and 171–2 motherhood 57
dance teachers’ ads and 193n37 Motion Picture Export Association
Duncan in Sweden and 185 (MPEA) 22n10
ethnicity and 122–3 Moum, Helle Levang 65n55
folk dance and 191n34, 210–1 movement and movement training 10–1,
Frønsdal and 112, 114n54 12, 119
globalisation and 164–6 Movements (1965) 118
hierarchical structures and 200 movementscapes 9, 13, 102–5
moral panic and 19, 25–8, 43 multicuturalism 123
passivity and 165 Munch, Edvard 162, 170, 178, 179
popular versus serious dance and Murmansk (Russia) 65n55
198n52 music
Rock Around the Clock and 20–4 ballets and 209
rock’n’roll and 13–4, 25–8, 29–37 Barents collaborations and 67
swing dances and 13–4 Borrowed Light and 166
mediascapes 9, 172, 178 competitions 40n82
Mediterranean world 10 cooperation and 227
Merrild, Karl 39 Copenhagen Jitterbug and 31
metaphor theory 26n25 Finnish 175
metaphorical transfers 26 Finnish classical 161
Middle East 58 folk dance and 14, 80n6, 85f, 92, 149
Miller Theatre (New York) 161, 175, 176 Hälsingehambon competition and 83–4
Mills, Georges 108, 118 jazz ballet and 116
minuets 90 jazz dance and 115, 121
Mjøen, Reidar 189n27 Landskappleik and 86
mobility, see transnational mobility polka 82
modern art 35, 162, 163 pols(ka) 5n10
modern dance 102n3, 109, 110, 112, 119, Polsmärkesuppdansningen and 84–5
188–94; see also cross-genres rock’n’roll and 20
modern jazz 108, 112 Sweden and 144
Da modernismen i dansen kom til Norge Tanssimania and 90–1
(Fiskvik) 184n5 touring 52
modesty 27, 28 music halls (Britain) 187
Mods 19
Moen, Vilfred (Forway) 212 Nalen (Arena) (National Scala)
Moiseyev, Igor 90n25 (Copenhagen) 27, 31, 34, 37n74
MoMA PS1 (New York) 160, 161, 172 Nalen (National Scala dance palace)
Mood of Expression (1962) 110 (Stockholm) 29, 39
moodiness, Nordic 159, 163, 170–2 Napoli (Bournonville) 6, 168–70
moral entrepreneurs 19–20, 29–37 narratives 61–2
moral panic 13, 25–8, 32, 35, 37, 43; see nation states and national factors; see also
also riots Finland and other nations
Index 249
African-American jazz dance and neo-swing 38, 41–2, 43; see also swing
101–2 dance
branding and 161–2 Nerikes Dance Institute (Sweden) 41
cross-cultural influence 6 Net [Netter] 116
cultural policies and 4 Netherlands (Holland) 6, 55
Estonia and 217–8 Netter [Net] 116
folk dance and 80, 91, 223, 224–5, 228 Nettles, Gene 111, 112
globalisation and 54, 164 “new mobility paradigm” 10
Munch and 170 New York City (United States) 55, 56, 110,
national dances and 6, 207, 208–14, 160, 161, 162, 175–9
219, 222 New York City Ballet 167, 168
Nordicness and 220 New York Times, The 159, 160, 165, 166–7,
NORDLEK and 222 168–70, 171, 172, 176–8, 179
North American performances and 180 Next Wave Festival (2007) 166
Norwegian youth clubs and 143 Nicks, Walter 106–7, 110, 111, 116, 117
Scandinavian Art Exhibition and 162 Nielson, Egon 20n3, 31n49, 33, 34
spaces and 153–4 Niemi, Einar 61
support and 15 Nikel (Russia) 69f
territorial nationalism 10 Nilsson, Mats 14, 81n13
transnational activities and 208–14 nomadism 56, 60–1, 72; see also
national associations and organisations 145, transnational activities
209–14 nomads 10
national ballets 193; see also national opera non-localised communities 14
ballets Nordanfors, Emma (Sweden) 55n24
National dances (Norway) 191 Nordek 220
National Days 81 Nordic, the (Nordism) 3, 4, 122, 161, 228;
National Opera (Finland) 111 see also collaborations, Nordic;
national opera ballets 186 cooperation, Nordic; Nordic region
National Scala (Nalen) (Arena) politics and 222
(Copenhagen) 27, 31, 34, 37n74 Nordic associations (föreningarna Norden)
National Scala dance palace (Nalen) 217
(Stockholm) 29, 39 Nordic Association (Föreningen Norden)
Nationaltheatret (Norway) 186, 188, 193 Sweden 217n32, 220
natural resources 9, 51, 59, 68, 71–2; see Nordic Cool Festival (Washington) (2013)
also fishing 163, 229
nature 61, 62, 173, 176–7; see also Nordic Council (1952) 4
environment; green visions Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) 4,
Nazi-occupied Europe 34–5, 43 51–2, 53–4, 59, 64, 219
NCM (Nordic Council of Ministers) 4, Nordic Countryside Youth Event [Nordisk
51–2, 53–4, 59, 64, 219 Bygdeungdomsstämma] 210
Negro dance 28n38, 103, 118–9; see also Nordic Cultural Commission (1947) 4, 220
African dance; African-American Nordic Cultural Foundation 52n11
dances; African-American jazz Nordic Cultural Model and Nordic Model
dance; black dance 4, 122
Negro Spirituals 110, 117 Nordic Folk Music Festival (Umefolk) 227
Nordic Journal of Criminology [Nordisk North Atlantic dimension 214; see also
Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab] Faroe Islands; Greenland; Iceland
19, 21n2, 23–4, 25 North Calotte [Nordkalotten] 51, 64
Nordic model and cultural model 4, 122 Northeast Passage 51n8
Nordic Passport Union 63 Northern Sea Route 51n8
Nordic region 2–6, 8, 14; see also Barents North-South binary 8, 51
region and other specific regions and Norway and Norwegians; see also
nation states cooperation, Nordic; Kristiania
Nordic Sámi Council 59 (Norway); Nordic region; Oslo;
Nordic Theatre Committee 227 Scandinavia
Nordic Theatre Laboratory/Odin Teatret African-American jazz dance and 106,
227 112–4, 116
Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab audiences and 188–9
[Nordic Journal of Criminology] ballet and 138, 152, 186, 189
19, 21n2, 23–4, 25 Barents region and 62, 65, 66–7, 70–1
Nordkalotten [North Calotte] 51, 64 bodies and 202
NORDLEK agreement 16, 208, 220–2, Bugg and 41
221f Carte Blanche and 172
Nordområdebevegelsen [High North class of dancers and 131–2, 133–4, 135,
Priority] (2011) 70–1 151
Nordvision TB broadcasting 116 collaborations and 39, 65n55, 170–1
Noregs Ungdomslag [Norwegian Youth competitions 39
Association] 143, 148, 149–50, 152 ethnicities and 122
Norges Danseforbund [Norwegian Dance fishing regulation and 68
Association] 41 folk dance and 41n87, 86–7, 92, 93,
Norges nasjonale kompani for samtidsdans 94–5, 143, 145, 152, 191, 209, 210,
[Carte Blanche] 160, 163n8, 170–2, 211, 212, 224
171, 179 hierarchical power and 15
Norges swing og rock’n’roll forbund [The indigenous peoples 4
Norwegian Swing and Rock ’n’ Roll jazz dance and 114n54
Association] 41 Kirkenes Declaration and 59
Norman, Ingvar 84n18 modern dance and 112
North America and North American moral panic and 25–6
press; see also New York Times, The; Nazi resistance and 34–5
United States Nordic Council and 52n10
arctic hysteria and 172–4 North America and 163, 170–1
ballet Maa and 175–9 North American press and 160, 162
cultural contacts and 4–5 northern 51
economy of experiences and 15, organisations and venues 143–5
159–63 pedagogical collaboration and 64
folk dance and 90n25, 225 popular versus serious venues and 189
globalised performances and 163–80 rock’n’roll and 31
perspective of 184 rock’n’roll riots and 26
transnational mobility and 58 Russia and 61, 68–9
Sweden and 186
Index 251
Swedish dances and 213 Ortiz, Favela Vera (Finland) 55n24

transnational mobility and 62, 63 Oslo (Norway)
work venues and 184n4 ballet and 186n13
Norwegian Ballet School 138 dance competitions and 29–30
Norwegian Carte Blanche 159 folk dance and 149, 153
Norwegian Dance Association [Norges jazz ballet and 112
Danseforbund] 41 modern dance and 112
Norwegian Swing and Rock ’n’ Roll Nordic collaboration and 39
Association [Norges swing og physical education and 119
rock’n’roll forbund] 41 Rock Around the Clock and 22
Norwegian Youth Association [Noregs rock’n’roll and 30, 43
Ungdomslag] 143, 148, 149–50, rock’n’roll riots and 23–4, 24–5, 26
152 work venues and 184
nuclear waste 66 Oslo Journalist Association [Oslo
Journalistlag] 29
Odin Teatret/Nordic Theatre Laboratory Othello (Shakespeare) 116
227 Other, the 65
off-stage dancing 94n34 Oulu Dance Centre 64
oil and gas 51, 62, 68 outdoor dance pavilions [dansbanor] 94
Oksdans 211
Olsen, Ole 201 pack ice, retreating 51n8
Olsen, Thora Hals (Norway) 201 Pahkinen, Virpi (Sweden) 55n24, 58
opera and opera companies 186, 197; see painting 115
also Royal Swedish Opera and other Panova, Elena 65n55
national and royal operas parenthood 57
opera ballets 186, 188, 196–8, 201; see Paris (France) 55, 152
also Royal Swedish Ballet (Royal participatory dances 13, 14, 79; see also folk
Swedish Opera Ballet) and other dance and other participatory dances
national and royal opera ballets party clubs 141, 150
operetta theatres 136 passivity 165–6
operettas 189, 193 Passport Union 52
Ørebladet (Norwegian newspaper) 189n24, past, the, see history
201 Päts, Konstantin 217
Öresund Region 42 Pedersen, Inge-Birthe 37n74
organisations and associations; see Pedersen, Simone Grøtte 71f, 72
also Danse-Ringen and other People from the Sea (Pomor) 61, 71
organisations People’s Houses [Folkets huse] 139–42n33,
folk dance and 16, 84, 145–9, 209–14, 143, 144
215, 219 People’s Parks (Sweden) 144
popular movements and 140 Permanent Body of Delegates
rock’n’roll and 41n90 [Representantskapets permanenta
Sweden and 144 organisation] 219
venues and 141–5 person-to-person relationships 14, 64, 66
Oriental dance 229 Petrozavodsk, Karelia (Russia) 63, 69
Orsa Hembygdsgård 85f Philadelphia Academy of Music 110
Philochoros (Sweden) 90n25, 145–6, 147, Polsmärkesuppdansningen 82–5, 89, 92, 93,
191, 209, 211, 214 94, 95
photography 165, 173 Pomor (People from the Sea) 61, 71
physical education 119–21, 122 Pomor Zone 68
Pine II , Joseph 159, 164, 165–6 popping finger dance 34
Piotrowska, Anna 72 popular dance; see also dancing crowds;
places; see also locality and local factors fad dances; swing dance and other
folk dance and 91–2 popular dances
interconnectedness of 10 American 13–4, 19–43
locality and 12 defined 2, 129–31
spaces and 8, 91n28, 93 labour movement and 144
plastik (plastique) 135, 188, 189nn24,27 serious versus 198n52
pleasure and enjoyment 101, 115, 131 traditional versus 131n2
Poland 5, 72 popular movements 149–54
Police Youth Clubs [Polititets popular venues 15
Ungdomsklubber/PUK] 35 Portes, Alejandro 208–9
politics; see also labour unions; Nordic postcolonial theory 8
Council of Ministers (NCM) and postnational deterritorialisation 10
other political bodies; power power 9–10, 105, 187–8, 202–3; see also
African-American jazz dance and 101, hierarchical structures; politics
104 presentational dancing 14, 79, 80–91, 82,
Åland Islands and 218 91, 96, 130–1; see also ballet and
artistic factors and 51 ballet dancers; theatrical dance;
Barents region and 51, 59, 68 variety shows
consumption 160 press, see media
cooperation and 220 Presto, Nils 220
dance consultants and 63n47 Pribitkob, Sergei 65n55
diversity and 122 Price, Valdemar 193n37
Estonia and 217 primitive versus civilized dances 26–7, 28,
festivals and 68 35, 110; see also cross-genres
Finland and 214n22 private homes 140
folk dance and 80 process geographies 9, 10, 102
mobilization and 2–3 Production of Space, The (Lefebvre) 6–7
organisations and 3 properties 90
Swedish television and 117 psychological aspects 115, 120, 122, 163,
transnational mobility and 14, 51–4, 72 171, 179; see also Arctic Hysteria:
Politiken (Danish newspaper) 27 New Art from Finland (2008);
moodiness, Nordic
Polititets Ungdomsklubber/PUK [Police Psychological Laboratory (University of
Youth Clubs] 35 Copenhagen) 23
polka 86, 90, 90f psychological tension 114
polka-mazurka 82 public spaces 21, 106
Pollock, Griselda 165
pols, polsk or polska 5, 81, 82–4, 85, 86, quadrilles 80, 90, 207
93n31
Index 253
race 28n39; see also blackness of American champions 37n74

culture; ethnicities competitions 39–41, 40
radioactive pollution 66 Jitterbug and 37, 38n72
Ramallah 56 media and 13–4, 25–8, 29–37
Randell, Ray 194 moral panic and 19–20
Rasmussen, Rudolf 189n29 Nordic collaboration and 40
Rasmussen, Tamara 110, 118 Nordic space and 20–5, 43
Raudkats, Anna 213, 226 organisational frameworks and 41n90
reality 188, 202 rollerskate dancing 33
reciprocal partnerships 57, 58, 61, 62, 64, Román, Gun 102n3
72; see also cross-border contacts Ronström, Owe 94n34
Regional Dance Centre of Northern rope dancing 196, 197f
Finland 67n57 round dances 144
Reindans – Boazodánza (2011) 71f, 72 Route B 3 67n59
reindeer husbandry 57, 60, 72 Rovaniemi, Lapland (Finland) 63
release 114–5, 121 Rovaniemi Ballet School [Rovaniemi
religion 141, 143, 144 Ballettiopisto] 63n48
Representantskapets permanenta royal ballets 5, 152; see also Royal Swedish
organisation [Permanent Body of Ballet and other royal ballets
Delegates] 219 Royal Danish Ballet and School
representational and representations of (Copenhagen) 108, 110, 151, 159,
space 7–8, 72, 106, 149, 150, 193, 160, 167–70, 179, 193
201, 202, 208, 223 Royal Danish Theatre 135–6
residency programmes 12–3, 58 royal opera ballets 186–7
respectability 200 Royal Swedish Ballet (Royal Swedish Opera
restaurants 196–8 Ballet) 5, 116, 136, 151, 194–5,
Resurrection Museum 71 198–9
Rethinking the Region (Allen, Massey and Royal Swedish Opera 106, 117, 193
Cochrane) 8 royalty 8, 146
retro culture 42 rules, unspoken 194–6, 197, 201, 202; see
Reynolds, Nancy 195n48 also hierarchical structures
rhythm 117, 122–3 rural dances 80, 86, 96, 134, 148; see also
rhythm, folk dance 88 folk dance
rhythm dance 33–4 rural factors 133, 143–4, 152, 174; see also
Richter’s Dance School 30–1 farmers
riots 19, 21–8, 31n49, 33, 34, 43 Russia; see also Soviet Union
‘rituals of truth’ 188 ballet and 184n5, 186
Robbins, Jerome 122 Barents region and 66, 69, 71
Rock Around the Clock (film) 13, 20–4, collaborations and 65n55
27–8 cross-border contacts and 68
rocker/biker movements 43 cultural contacts and 4–5
Rockers 19 dance school collaborations 63
rock’n’roll; see also popular dance Estonia and 215n22
agents and moral entrepeneurs and Finland and 139, 173, 186, 215n22
29–38, 43 fishing regulation and 68
Kirkenes Declaration and 59 sedentarist theories 10

Lapland and 62 Selection of Nordic Folk Dances [Valik
north-western 53 Põhjamaade rahvatantse] (Estonia)
Norway and 61, 68–9 212–3, 225
trade and 61 Selinder, Anders 6
transnational mobility and 62, 63 Semb, Klara 148
Russia (1991) 69f Septimus, Rikki 107–8, 108n30, 114, 118
Russian Arctic 51n8 serious dance 198n52
Rutledge, Abbie 226 serious venues 15
Rydén, Maria 63, 64, 65 serpentine dances 191
Rytmik ballad i vit natt (1966) 118 set dances (contradances) 80, 81, 88, 224
settlement movement 147
Saariaho, Kaija 159, 160, 161, 175–7 sexuality 28, 32, 195
Saarinen, Tero 166; see also Tero Saarinen Shakers 166, 180
Company (Finland) Shakespeare, William 116
Sagan, Gene Hill 118 Shaliova, Galina 65n55
Salonen, Esa-Pekka 175 Sheller, Mimi 10, 51, 72
salsa 41–2 Shields, Rob 8
Saltermark, Helle 65n55 shipping 51n8
Saltermark, Trine 65n55 Shorter, Ted 110, 111, 118
Samfundshuset (Oslo) 39 show cultures 121
Sámi people and language 4, 55–6, 59–61, show dances 104
62, 67, 72 Shtokman Oil Field 68
Samovar Theatre (Norway) 68, 71–2 Sibelius, Jean (Finland) 176, 177, 209
Sandell, Kåge 40 Silesian Dance Theatre (Poland) 72
Sappo (Finnish dance) 214 Silkeborg ( Jutland) 31
sauna 109 singers 34n61, 186
Sax Appeal (Nicks) 116 Sissons, Renée 39
Scacinsky, Ludwik 191 6-count steps 38n72
Scala, the (Copenhagen) 195, 199 Skansen folk dance congress 210–1
Scala Girls 199 Skårberg, Odd 20n3
Scandinavia House (New York) 162 skirt dances 191
Scandnavian Art Exhibition (1912-1913) slavery era (US) 103
(North America) 143, 162, 170 Sleipnir programme 53
-scapes 105 Smey, Melissa 176
Scaramouche (Walbom) 209 S.M.H. (pseudonym) 210–1, 212
Schetnev, Nikolay (Russia) 66f, 68, 71–2 social contexts; see also class; class, socio-
Schlager Carousel Spins, The economic; hierarchical structures;
[Iskelmäkaruselli pyörii ] (Finnish venues and work places
film) 40n82 African-American jazz dance and 105
scholarly approaches 12–6 ballroom dance and 131
Scholottmann, Jeannette 226 diversity and 122
Schottische in Figures [Swedish Schottis i jazz dances and 103–4
turer] 212f restaurant venues and 197, 198
Schubert, Lia 106–7, 116, 117, 120 rock’n’roll and 21
Index 255
space and 6–7, 11, 183–4 stage versus off-stage dancing 94n34, 95
social dances, see couple and social dances stages 196
social justice 122 status, see class, socio-economic; class,
social media 165 socio-economic (status);
social networking 57 hierarchical structures
social sciences 10 Stearns, Jean 102
Social-Demokraten (Danish newspaper) Stearns, Marshall 102
27, 32 Stellaris DanceTheatre (Norway) 63, 65,
socialising 109, 114 66f, 67, 69, 70f
solidarity 122–3 stereotypes 28, 173, 174, 178, 180, 199
solo dancers 5–6, 189, 191n34, 199–200 Stockholm (Sweden)
Sønderborg Doppeltkvadril (double quadrille African-American jazz dance and
from Sønderborg) 207 106–7, 108, 110
song dance 148, 224 ballet and 6 (see also Royal Swedish
South Africa 107 Ballet; Royal Swedish Opera)
South America 58 dance practitioners and 56
South East Asia 58 folk dance and 209–10, 212, 216, 217,
Soviet Union 61, 63, 218; see also Russia 217n30, 218, 219
spaces; see also Lefebvre, Henri Nordic collaboration and 39
cultural geography and 1 Rock Around the Clock and 22
folk dance and 91, 96, 223 rock’n’roll and 23, 24–5, 29, 43
Nordic 222–9 work venues and 184
places and 8, 91n28, 93 Stockholms folkdansföreningars
popular movements and 149–54 centralkommitté 209–10
power and 202–3 street dances 121
production of 193–4 streets 21
public 13 subjectivity 56
reciprocal partnerships and 57 Suhonen, Tiina 102n3, 104n15
of representation 72 Suomalainen, Kari 22f
representational and representations of Suomalaisen Kansantanssin Ystävät
7–8, 72, 106, 149, 150, 193, 201, [Finnish Folklore association] 215
202, 208, 223 Suomen Nuorison Liitto [Finnish Youth
social context and 6–7, 11, 183 League] 147, 213
transnational mobility and 7, 10, 12–3, surfaces, dancing 83–4
38–9, 49–51, 57 sustainable development 51
Spanish dancing 189, 190f, 191 Sva, Hjalmar 130n1
spatial practices 7, 149–50 Svae’s Dance School (Oslo) 130f
spiritual symbols 61 Svenska Danssportförbundet [The Swedish
spirituality 61, 62 Dance Sport Association] 41
Spolohi (Murmansk) 65n55 Svenska Folkdansringen [Swedish Folklore
sports clubs 3, 141, 148, 150 Association] 146
square, the 225 Svenska Ungdomsringen för Bygdekultur
stability 9, 10 (Swedish youth organisation in
stadiums 212 rural culture) 146n56, 220
stage dancing 108 SVT (Swedish broadcasting) 116
Sweden and Swedes; see also cooperation, northern 51

Nordic; Lapland, Finnish and Norway and 186
Swedish; Nordic region; Royal organisations and venues and 144
Swedish Ballet; Selinder, Anders popular venues and 185
and other Swedes; Stockholm rock’n’roll and 25, 27, 31, 40
African–American artists and 119 swing dance and 42
African-American jazz dance and television and 117
106–7, 108, 109–10, 115, 116 transnational mobility and 63
Åland Islands and 218–9 variety shows and 186
ballet and 186, 188, 193, 202 (see work venues and 184n4
also Royal Swedish Ballet (Royal Swedish Ballet, The [Les Ballets Suédois]
Swedish Opera Ballet); Royal 138
Swedish Opera) Swedish Barents Secretairat 65n55
Barents Dance Ensemble and 64 The Swedish Dance Sport Association
Barents region and 65n55, 67 [Svenska Danssportförbundet] 41
class of dancers and 131, 133–4, 135–6, Swedish Dance Teacher Association 108
151, 152–3, 198 Swedish Folklore Association [Svenska
cross-genres and 118–21 Folkdanssringen] 146
dance consultants 63n47 Swedish language in Finland 4
dance culture and 15 Swedish Schottis i turer [schottische in
dance practitioners 58 figures] 211, 212f
dance research and 185n7 Swedish youth organisation in rural culture
dance sport competitions and 29 (Svenska Ungdomsringen för
dance teachers 109–10, 115, 136 Bygdekultur) 220
English influences 41 swing dance
entertainment trends and 193 Danse-Ringen and 33, 35
Finnish folk dance and 214 England and US and 28
Finnish Swedish speakers 142, 145, ethnicity and 42
215, 218–9, 224, 226, 227 Jitterbug and 37
folk dance and 81, 82, 92, 93, 93n31, media and 13–4
94, 95, 145–6, 152–3, 191, moral panic and 19–20, 43
209–14, 215, 217, 218 Nazi resistance and 34–5
folk dance instructions and 219, 224, Nordic region and 38–42
225 race and 28n39
folk dance organisations and 220 as rhythm dance 34
funding and 64 Swing it Magistern [Swing it Professor]
indigenous peoples 4 (film) 34
jazz dance and 112, 118–20 swingpjat [swing-foolery] [swingpjatt]
Kirkenes Declaration and 59 culture 34–5, 42, 43
modern dance and 191 Sylfiden (Bournonville) 6
national dances 6 symphony orchestras 175
Nordic collaboration and 39–40
Nordic Council and 52n10 TalkTalk (Court and Lindy) (2011/2012)
North America and 163 69
North American press and 162 Tallinn 215, 218
Index 257
Tampere (Finland) 111 time 49, 57

tango 31, 32, 41–2, 201 Tivoli (Copenhagen) 34, 35, 140f, 191
Tanssimania [Dance Mania] 89–91, 92, Tivoli Girls 199
94, 95 Tivoli Hagen (Tivoli Garden, Kristiania)
tap dances 104 196, 197f
Tardini, Jeanette 193n37 Touching Point (Barents collaboration)
Taylor, June 112 (2008) 66f, 67
technoscapes 9 tourism 62, 82
Ted Shawn Theatre 171 tours, dance; see also transnational mobility;
teenage culture, see youth (teenage) culture West Side Story and other touring
Teenagelove (1962) 122 performances
television American artists and 104–5
African-American jazz dance and American Black Concert Dance and
116–8 103
art exhibitions and 173–4 Barents region and 63, 64, 67, 69, 70f
Hälsingehambon competition and 82 Duncan and 5
jazz education and 123 Finnish ballet and 193, 196–7
mediascapes and 9 folk dance and 209
rock’n’roll and 32–3 funding and 52–3
Royal Opera (Stockholm) and 117 Philochoros and 191n33, 209, 211
Tembert’s Dance School 29 Royal Danish Ballet and 160, 167, 179
temperance movement 144, 146 Royal Swedish Opera and 136, 138,
Tero Saarinen Company (Finland) 159, 193
160, 163n8, 166–7, 168f, 169, 170, Russian Ballet and 184n5
180 wayfinding and 58
Terpsichore (Denmark) 33–4, 35, 37 ‘Tracing Norwegian dance Fields’ (Fiskvik
theatre art dances 81–2, 134 and Bakka) 184n5
theatrical dance; see also African-American trade 9, 59–60, 61, 71
jazz dance traditional dancing 131, 131n2
African-American 103 Tranås folk dance event (Sweden) 215
African-American jazz dance and 102 translocal understandings 12
beginnings and 5 transnational activities; see also
class of dancers and 15, 132, 133–4, collaborations, Nordic; cross-
151–2 border contacts; globalisation;
collaborations and 52, 53 transnational mobility
defined 2, 129–31 dance practitioners and 62–72
Denmark and Sweden and 135–6 defined 12, 208–9
jazz and 104 folk dance and 16, 207, 226–7, 228
modern dance versus jazz dance and 121 globalisation and 161
Nordic collaboration and 39 nationalities and 208–14
Norway and 138 Nordic region and 14
social dances and 6 rock’n’roll competitions 40–1
Thorlin, Margaret 29 space and 57
Tidens Tegn (Norwegian newspaper) swing dance and 38, 42
186n13, 189n24, 191n30 transnational mobility; see also tours, dance
African-American jazz dance and Cold War diplomacy and 104

105–15, 124 dance festivals and 229
Barents region case study 59–73 entertainment culture and 195
cooperation and 228–9 as exotic 27
cultural political perspective and 2–3, film blockage and 22
51–5 jazz dances and 103
discrimination and 8 modern dance and 118
globalisation and 163 modern social dances and 37
jazz dance and 104 neo-swing and 42
local factors and 12–3, 59–73 rhythm dance and 33–4
locality and 12–3 University of Copenhagen 23
Norden and 43 urban environments 133, 134, 174
power and status and 15 urban spaces 21
practitioners’ perspective 55–9 Urry, John 10, 51, 57, 72
spaces and 7, 10, 12–3, 38–9, 49–51, useful 183
57 Usner, Eric 42
transportation 51n8
travel 9; see also transnational mobility vagrancy 9, 50, 56
Trekarlspolska 211 Vainio, Riitta 110–1, 118
Turku (Finland) 171–2 Valik Põhjamaade rahvatantse [Selection
Turner, Henry 108, 109, 114 of Nordic Folk Dances] (Estonia)
Turun Sanomat (Finnish newspaper) 171–2 212–3, 225
twin cities (friendship cities) 63 Vänd dem inte ryggen (film) [Blackboard
twist, the 38 Jungle] 21n6
Vänska, Osmo 175
Umefolk (Nordic Folk Music Festival) 227 variety shows 103, 136, 185–6, 187, 189,
Ungdommens Parkdans [Youth Park Dance] 199, 201
35 Värtsi, Heikki 111–2
ungdomshuse [Youth Houses] 139–42n33, vaudeville 103, 185, 189, 191, 193, 195,
143 199, 201
Ungdomskommisionen [Youth Commission] Vedel, Karen; see also Dance and the
35, 37 Formation of Norden: Emergences
United States; see also African-American and Struggles (Vedel, ed.)
dances; African-American on African-American jazz dance 102–3
jazz dance; American dance; on class of dancers 188
Hollywood; New York City on cooperation 209
(United States) on dance types 184n5, 188
African–American artists and 118–9 on Danish press 195
African-American jazz dance and 105, on jazz dance 122
110 on mobility 14
authenticity and 43 on nationalisation in folk dance 213
ballet and modern dance and 189 on primitivity 28n38
blackness of American culture 42, 43 on royal ballets 135–6
chorus girls and 199 on Royal Danish Ballet 193
civili rights movement and 117 on wages of dancers 138
Index 259
on work venues 184 welfare states 4, 115

Veggetti, Luca 161, 175–6, 177, 178 Wells, John 39
Vend dem ikke ryggen (film) [Blackboard West Bank 56
Jungle] 21n6 West Side Story 107–8, 110, 111, 116, 122
venues and work places whiteness 42
African-American jazz dance and 102 Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers 42
class and 188–94 work places, see venues and work places
class of dancers and 135–45 Working Group for Indigenous peoples in
culture and 15 the Barents Region 59–60
Denmark and 150 World Rock’n’Roll Confederation 38, 40–1
Finland and 142–3 Wulff, Helena 194–5
folk dance and 83–4, 87, 90f, 94–5,
145–9, 148 Yli-Maunula, Pirjo (Finland) 64–5, 66f
hierarchical structures and 198–202 Yoshida, Moe 176
Norway and 143–5 young artists 53, 88, 109
popular versus serious 15, 183, 185–8, youth clubs 141, 142–5, 147, 148, 153,
196, 201, 202 220; see also Norwegian Youth
social structures and 183–5 Association and other clubs
Sweden and 144 Youth Commission [Ungdomskommisionen]
theatre dance and 151–2 35, 37
working cultures and 194–8 youth (teenage) culture
Verdens Gang (Norwegian newspaper) 26, commercialisation and 34
31, 189n24 ethnicities and 122
versatility 193, 202–3 idols 34n61
Vertovec, Steven 12–3, 161, 209 jazz gymnastics and 119–20, 120f
videos 173 public spaces and 13
Viennese waltz 32 rock’n’roll and 21–7
Viking images 28 swing dance and 43
Virlander, Virpi 63n48 Youth Houses [ungdomshuse] 139–42n33,
visual, the 165–6, 169 143
Voss (Norway) 86 Youth Park Dance [Ungdommens Parkdans]
35
Walbom, Emilie (Denmark) 138n27, 209 Yugoslavia 214
waltz circles 80
waltzes 32, 81, 86 Ziegfeld Follies 185n8, 189
wayfinding 55–7, 58

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Nordic Dance Spaces

THE NORDIC EXPERIENCE

Series editor: Jonas Harvard, Programme Manager, Nordic Spaces, Centre

Titles in the series:

1. Performing Nordic Heritage: Everyday Practices and Institutional Culture

4. Nordic Dance Spaces: Practicing and Imagining a Region

5. Models of Democracy in Nordic and Baltic Europe: Political Institutions

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

ISBN 9781409470014 (hbk)

List of Figures  vii

2 Rock Around the North  19

3 Strategic Mobility and Wayfinding Artists:

4 Folk Dance Competitions in the Twenty-first Century  79

5 Dancing African–American Jazz in the Nordic Region  101

6 Class Dimensions of Dance Spaces: Situating Central Agents

7 Nordic Dance Performances in the

8 Working in Nordic Dance Venues  183

9 Together and Apart: All-Nordic Folk Dance Events

1.1 The triadic dimensions involved in the production of

2.1 Rock ’n’ roll riots in Helsinki portrayed by Kari Suomalainen 22

3.1 Map of Barents Region 60

4.1 Hambo dancers competing on grass, the first of four heats

5.1 Talley Beatty teaches jazz dance at the Ballet Academy,

7.1 Tero Saarinen Company in Saarinen’s Borrowed Light, 2007 168

8.1 Ballerina Lillebil Ibsen and Ernest Marini pose as Spanish

9.1 Folk dance congress at Skansen, 1920 210

Egil Bakka is a professor and Chair of the Programme of Dance Studies,

Inger Damsholt is an associate professor of Dance Studies at the Department

Anne Margrete Fiskvik works as an associate professor at the Programme of

Lena Hammergren is a professor of Theatre Studies at the Department for

Petri Hoppu is an adjunct professor in Dance Studies and a lecturer of Music

Inka Juslin is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Tampere, Department

Mats Nilsson is an assistant professor in Ethnology at the Department for Cultural

Karen Vedel is an assistant professor in Theatre and Performance Studies at the

Dance in the Larger Nordic Spaces Programme

In a similar fashion to dance as a societal practice, Martin suggests that politics

the concepts of mobilisation and movement, dance could act as an inspiration

Moving through the Nordic Region and beyond

Dance Discourses: Keywords in Dance Research (London, 2007), pp. 11–29.

Various forms of Nordism have been articulated in the period at hand. In

have been aware of it or not, their dancing activities perpetuate motions on

Dance Canons in Norden’, in Vedel (ed.), pp. 42 and 46.

experience.17 In Lefebvre’s thinking, the production of space is divided into

Figure 1.1 The triadic dimensions involved in the production of space

to create a socially produced space. These discourses of space, as Rob Shields

In reminding us that ‘space is the product of social interaction, uneven

Rustom Bharucha, The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in an

Age of Globalization (London, 2000), pp. 62–63.

as unilaterally individualised experience and ‘pure’ movement.31 There is no gap

The Scope of the Book

How? Disciplines and Scholarly Approaches

Integrating three complementary perspectives, the volume looks at the interplay

Steven Vertovec, ‘Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism’, Ethnic and Racial

Studies, 22/2 (1999), pp. 447–462.

The Progression of the Chapters

she argues that social and psychological communalities contributed to the

Based on a comprehensive study of the social backgrounds of ‘leading

List of Figures vii

2 Rock Around the North 19

4 Folk Dance Competitions in the Twenty-first Century 79

5 Dancing African–American Jazz in the Nordic Region 101

8 Working in Nordic Dance Venues 183

2.1 Rock ’n’ roll riots in Helsinki portrayed by Kari Suomalainen 22

3.1 Map of Barents Region 60

7.1 Tero Saarinen Company in Saarinen’s Borrowed Light, 2007 168

9.1 Folk dance congress at Skansen, 1920 210