Dance Arts – Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practices

The English translated version of the Theater Academy´s dance history web publication Näkökulmia tanssitaiteen historiaan ja nykypäivään (2022) has been published. The English version is also available online.

The original publication from 2022 was the first comprehensive presentation in Finnish of the historical trajectories and features of Western dance as a performing art. Like its Finnish original, Dance Arts – Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practices, is an approachable general textbook that describes, presents, and analyses its topic from the many perspectives relevant to dance art in the 2020s.

The translation emerged from the needs of the Uniarts Helsinki MA programmes where tuition is offered in English as well as the internationalisation of the field of dance and performance in general. The book is organised chronologically because, alongside the complexity of the world, we editors recognise the need to structure the history of dance in a manner that considers artists and creators in relation to the frameworks and phenomena of their own era. Despite the chronological structure, the volume is not intended to be read from beginning to end. Rather, the articles intersect through internal references and shared themes. The advantage of the electronic format is not only the flexibility of navigation, but also the ability to update the volume in the future, for example by adding articles on important phenomena currently underrepresented.

Dance Arts – Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practices
Publication series of the Theatre Academy 79. 2023.
Eds. Kirsi Monni, Riikka Laakso, Hanna Järvinen.

Read the web publication here