Dance, Diversity and Difference: Performance and Identity Politics in Northern Europe and the Baltic

by Rosemary Martin

Overview

The countries surrounding the Baltic Sea - Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Sweden - have experienced immense social and political change, from the territorial maneuverings of Sweden, Russia, and Denmark, the reunification of Germany, to more recent moves towards independence of Eastern Bloc countries as the Soviet Union crumbled. Tensions surrounding the Baltic Sea have not dissipated but rather new challenges and contentions have emerged, resulting in a multicultural and multilingual region. Dance in the region has been tightly interwoven with political trends and events, yet the dance history of the region to date has focused almost entirely on state sponsored folk and classical dance. By contrast Dance, Diversity and Difference presents contemporary stories of dance, revealing the diverse voices of dance practitioners and demonstrating the ways in which dance has connections with families, societies, governments, the economy and can offer fresh insights into cultural and political change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784539795
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/30/2017
Series:	Talking Dance
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	7.06(w) x 9.75(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Rosemary Martin is Lecturer in Dance Studies, National Institute of Creative Arts, University of Auckland. A former soloist with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, her research interests include international education in dance, cross-cultural conceptualisations of the dancing body, dance and identity and dance in transnational contexts. She is the author of Women, Dance and Revolution (I.B.Tauris, 2015).

Eeva Anttila is Professor of Dance Pedagogy, Theatre Academy of University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland. Her research interests include dialogical and critical dance pedagogy, embodied learning, embodied knowledge and practice-based/artistic research methods. She served as the Chair of Dance and the Child International (2009-12), is co-editor of the International Jourbanal of Education in the Arts and the International Jourbanal of Education in the Arts and is member of the editorial board of the Nordic Jourbanal of Dance.

Table of Contents

Illustrations ix

Colour plates x

Acknowledgements xi

Series preface xiii

Introduction Rose Martin Eeva Anttila 1

1 Beginnings 19

2 Learning 40

3 Making 61

4 Performing 76

5 Teaching and teachers 101

6 Family, relationships and meetings 122

7 Heritage and history 137

8 Change and turning points 150

9 Travelling 162

10 Futures, challenges and questions 175

List of interviewees 185

List of references 188

Glossary 191

Notes 193

Index 194

Editorial Reviews

This book brings to light, through a prism of dance, a world that has undergone enormous political and cultural change … Perhaps of equal importance, the scholarship embedded within this book is a reminder that dance is at once personal and global, intimate and shared, a way of being in and knowing of a world that has no boundaries.” —Jourbanal of Dance Education

From the Publisher